Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Task force releases report on strengthening shellfish industry

May 6, 2021 — A task force released a series of recommendations this week on how to balance the growing and competing demands for shellfish resources and to strengthen an industry that supports thousands of year-round commercial fishing jobs.

The Massachusetts Shellfish Initiative, led by a 21-member task force, has created a plan that works to maximize the economic, environmental and social benefits of shellfish resources across the state.

“Shellfish play a vital role in our coastal waters,” said Steve Kirk, a task force member and coastal program manager at the Nature Conservancy. “They help improve water quality and provide habitat for other species.”

But climate change is rapidly changing the ocean’s chemistry, Kirk said. When there is more carbon dioxide, the ocean becomes more acidic, which makes it harder for the animals to form their shells, he said.

Read the full story at the Boston Herald

Ray Hilborn on the role of industry funding

April 12, 2021 — It is true that my research program receives funding from the fishing industry. Industry funding makes up about 22% of my total funding, while I receive similar amounts from environmental foundations, Universities, and private individuals unassociated with the fishing industry. In addition, I receive funding from environmental NGOs, including over the years the National Resources Defense Council, The Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Pew Institute for Ocean Science.

Here is my response to those who say this means you should not believe what I say about fisheries:

Science is collaborative, not individual

When I say that all fish will not be gone by 2048 or that fish stocks are increasing in abundance in much of the world, these are not personal opinions, but results of scientific papers authored by a large group of people, each of whom stands by the results of the paper.

When the claim that “all fish would be gone by 2048” came out, the lead author on that paper, Boris Worm, and I agreed to meet together to understand why we had different perspectives. We organized a group of about 20 scientists and looked at trends in fish stock abundance where it was measured and found no sign that these stocks were generally declining. In 2009, we published a paper in Science Magazine showing this, and the lead author was Boris Worm. It is absurd to say that because I, one of 21 authors, had received funding from the fishing industry this work was biased.

I was the first author on the 2020 follow-up paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Effective fisheries management instrumental in improving fish stock status, that showed that fish stocks were actually increasing in much of the world, but this paper had 23 authors, including professors from several different universities, an employee of The Nature Conservancy, a member of the Board of Directors of The Nature Conservancy, a member of the Board of Directors of Environmental Defense, and an employee of the Wildlife Conservation Society all of whom stand by our conclusions. It is not my work, but group work, and where I get some of my funding is largely irrelevant.

Almost every paper with my name on it in fisheries has a range of authors and many of them have at least one author representing conservation organizations.

Look at the data and what was actually done

My research is not cloaked in secrecy. In every research paper I have been a part of, we tell the reader what data we used and how we used it to get the results we did. This is the methodology section. We describe our data and methods so you, or anyone else, can redo and/or verify the analysis.

This is an important part of science. I have criticized the methodology section of others before, and others have criticized mine—this is what makes information evolve closer to truth. Unfortunately, that part of science gets lost in press releases and hyperbolic headlines, which was a large reason I started this website—to explain the methodology sections of important fisheries papers to give the public (and journalists) proper context. For example, we have been highly critical of Oceana’s seafood fraud methodology on this website, but we appreciate the work they do and gave them a platform to respond to our criticism.

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

Once destined for raw bars, 5 million oysters are being rerouted to coastal restoration efforts

February 24, 2021 — On a recent cold, clear January afternoon, only the occasional customer shuffled in to buy bags of mollusks from Parson’s Seafood, along New Jersey’s southern coast. The place belongs to  fifth-generation shop owner Dale Parsons, one of 15 or so dedicated commercial shellfish farmers in the region. Most of them are “hurting bad,” he said, since the pandemic shuttered the buck-a-shuck eateries and raw bars that purchase the bulk of their lumpy, thick-shelled product.

Outside and down the pier, Parsons loaded 10,000 or so muddy oysters in plastic bushel baskets into his skiff, and another 10,000-plus in a second boat helmed by his employees. Under waxy blue skies, they nosed out into Tuckerton Creek, motoring around a raft of mallards diving in marsh grass, past tight clusters of shuttered summer homes built on stilts, and out into the dazzling sun reflecting off lower Barnegat Bay. The plan was to dump both loads overboard.

The dumping, though, would serve a purpose. Parsons’ oysters had been purchased by the Supporting Oyster Aquaculture and Restoration initiative (SOAR), a seven-state program co-coordinated by the Pew Charitable Trusts and The Nature Conservancy, in partnership with various state agencies, NGOs, and universities.

At the end of its first phase, begun last October and slated to wrap up later this year, SOAR will have spent $2 million on 5 million oysters from 100 oyster farms in New Jersey, Maryland, New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Washington state. The purpose, from SOAR’s perspective, is to bulk up 20 reef restoration projects and hopefully push some of them into “exponential growth phase,” where they rapidly create habitat for more oysters and other marine species, clean the water, and mitigate coastal flooding.

Read the full story at The Counter

Offshore wind stagnated under Trump, Biden policies could create a boom for offshore energy

January 19, 2021 — President-elect Joe Biden’s climate plan proposes building thousands of offshore wind turbines as a key contributor to the goal of a carbon-free U.S. energy sector by 2035. 

With the states largely carrying the ball as the Trump administration stepped back from climate change and clean energy, the pressure is on for the new administration to come through on its promise. 

“The actions by the states across the country have been really important and kept the U.S. moving forward in spite of a lack of leadership in Washington,” Josh Albritton, director of climate change and energy at the Nature Conservancy, said. “That change is happening … but to get to 2050 (net-zero carbon emissions nationally) we need the federal government.”

While onshore wind power is projected to see greater growth nationally over the next 30 years, offshore wind power is far more important in the populous Northeast where topography and population density mean more permitting conflicts and fewer of the large tracts needed for utility-scale wind farms.

Read the full story at The Cape Cod Times

Aid for Growers With Oysters Too Big for the Half-Shell

December 14, 2020 — The pandemic has seriously impacted many who fish or work on the water for a living. With restaurants and the food service industry taking a big hit, the demand for various seafood products, including oysters, has been severely curtailed. As a result, many of the oysters raised by oyster farmers have grown to a size that is considered too large for sale and general consumption.

The good news is that a lot of those oysters, which can live well over 10 years, will find a new home, back in the water and not served on a restaurant plate, thanks to a partnership between the Nature Conservancy and the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Last month, the organizations combined forces to launch the Supporting Oyster Aquaculture and Restoration program, which will extend $2 million in payments to oyster farmers to support more than 100 shellfish companies and help preserve over 200 jobs in New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and Washington State. Simultaneously, over five million of the older oysters will be deployed to rebuild 27 acres of imperiled native shellfish reefs across 20 restoration sites.

On Long Island, the program will begin to buy oysters from local farmers to use in nearby oyster reef restoration sites, including ones in Shinnecock and Moriches Bays. Over the next few weeks, several Long Island oyster growers will deliver 350,000 oysters so that they can be counted, cleaned, recorded, and, most importantly, replanted for restoration.

Read the full story at the East Hampton Star

Japanese legislature passes law to ban import of IUU seafood

December 9, 2020 — Japan’s Diet, its national legislature, passed a law on 4 December to ban the importation of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) seafood.

The new law will require records on catches and transfers to be gathered and submitted to the government in order to establish traceability. For imports, a “certificate of legal catch” from a foreign government will be required.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New Jersey growers deliver 240,000 oysters for reef restoration

December 4, 2020 — In a year of brutal downturns in demand, struggling oyster growers have one faint bright spot: A $2 million national initiative to buy 5 million surplus oysters for use in habitat restoration projects.

On Thursday 240,000 of those shellfish were barged to a reef in Little Egg Harbor for planting on the Tuckerton Reef site. Growers converged the day before at the Parsons Mariculture dock in Tuckerton, N.J., meeting with owner Dale Parsons and Bill Shadel, coastal project manager for The Nature Conservancy.

In October the group announced it was starting the Supporting Oyster Aquaculture and Restoration (SOAR) initiative, a two-year program to extend $2 million in payments to oyster farmers, support more than 100 shellfish companies and preserve over 200 industry jobs in northern New England, the Mid-Atlantic and Washington state.

Oysters purchased in partnership with The Pew Charitable Trusts will be replanted to rebuild 27 acres of native shellfish reefs on 20 restoration sites around the coasts.

The program is “benefitting the ecosystem and giving us a boost,” said Tommy Burke, who operates his Sloop Point Oyster Farms in upper Barnegat Bay.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

How Fish-Recognition Tech Is Assisting Demand for Canned Tuna

October 28, 2020 — The pandemic is forcing marine protection observers to adopt technology that monitors fishing boats remotely instead of getting on the vessels and risking infection.

Commercial fishing fleets are facing a jump in demand for canned tuna, but the coronavirus outbreak has prevented industry watchdogs and environmental groups from sending people onto boats to monitor whether the catches are sustainable. Traditionally, those observers spend months on vessels collecting data and watching for illegal activity.

Instead, some vessels are installing video cameras, sensors and systems that use algorithms to detect different types of fish and marine life, similar to the way Facebook Inc identifies people tagged in photos, said Mark Zimring, large scale fisheries program director at The Nature Conservancy, a U.S.-based environmental nonprofit organization.

The goal is to make sure boats don’t misreport the contents and volumes of their catches and ensure at-risk species like turtles and sharks are safely released when they’re caught by accident. Satellite imagery, machine-learning tools and artificial intelligence are also used to detect practices such as illegal shark-finning and labor abuses.

Read the full story at Bloomberg

Nature Conservancy purchasing millions of surplus oysters to offset COVID-19 losses

October 21, 2020 — The Nature Conservancy announced 21 October it plans to help struggling oyster farmers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic by purchasing five million surplus oysters.

The oysters, according to a release from The Nature Conservancy, will be used in nearby oyster restoration projects in order to rebuild 27 acres of “imperiled native shellfish reefs.” Partnering on the initiative are The Pew Charitable Trusts, and the action is being coordinated with efforts taken by NOAA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Read the full story at Seafood Source