Saving Seafood

American Samoa’s governor warns tuna fishery closure holds ‘severely negative impacts’

October 10, 2019 — The US National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has announced the tuna purse seine fishery in the “Effort Limit Area for Purse Seine” (ELAPS) will close as of Oct. 9.

The rule was passed on Oct. 1, as a result of vessels reaching the 2019 limit on purse seine fishing effort in the ELAPS. “This action is necessary for the United States to implement provisions of a conservation and management measure adopted by the Commission for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean,” it said.

However, American Samoa’s governor, Lolo Moliga, has written to Michael Tosatto — regional administrator for the NMFS in the Pacific Islands — asking for the rule to be “corrected”.

The cessation of fishing in the ELAPS until the turn of the year will have a negative impact on the tuna-dependent economy of his nation, wrote Loliga.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

PNA data offers a better understanding of drifting FADs

October 10, 2019 — In recent years, concern has been growing about bycatch of juvenile bigeye tuna by purse-seiners setting nets on drifting fish aggregation devices (dFADs). The main target of the purse-seiners is the more plentiful skipjack tuna, but as bigeye inhabit the same tropical seas, they are often taken as well.

The devices typically consist of a raft or buoy trailing a length of disused netting tied into the shape of a string of sausages, used to attract tuna – which like to gather under floating objects. Modern dFADs are equipped with a solar-powered GPS device and a fish finder to report their location and the amount of fish gathered under them. Support vessels manage the deployment and retrieval of the dFADs, so that fishing vessels can concentrate on fishing.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Second bigeye and yellowfin tuna fishery achieves MSC certification

October 10, 2019 — The Marine Stewardship Council has announced that longline fishing vessels under the management of the Marshall Islands Fishing Venture that target bigeye and yellowfin tuna have achieved certification to the MSC standards.

Based in the Republic of the Marshall islands in the Southwest Pacific,  the fishery is now the second bigeye tuna fishery in the world to meet the requirements of MSC certification, after a yellowfin and bigeye tuna fishery in the Federated States of Micronesia achieved certification in March. Both fisheries are operated by Liancheng Overseas Fishery (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Sharks and tuna will be the focus of UMaine research grant

October 8, 2019 — Commercially valuable tuna, swordfish, sharks and other “highly migratory species” will be the focus of research to be conducted by a consortium that includes the University of Maine.

The consortium was awarded $1.6 million by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to a news release.

The funds came through NOAA’s 2019 Sea Grant Highly Migratory Species Research Initiative.

The study will focus on the life histories of highly migratory species in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. It’s expected the research will help contribute to better management of the species.

The new research consortium, called the Pelagic Ecosystem Research Consortium or PERC, is led by Walt Golet at the University of Maine.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Global Tuna Alliance formed to advance sustainability goals and push RFMOs to reform

October 8, 2019 — A group of companies representing multiple levels of the tuna supply chain have joined together to launch a new alliance that will seek to improve tuna sustainability, raise respect for the human rights of fishermen and prevent illegally caught tuna from reaching the market.

The Global Tuna Alliance, which was announced 2 October, is open to retailers, food service companies, suppliers, and brands. It will leverage the power of the supply chain to compel change in fisheries, including pushing for reforms at Regional Fishery Management Organizations (RFMOs).

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NPR Report: Some scientists say tuna is being taken from the seas at unsustainable rates

October 7, 2019 — Editor’s note: On Twitter, University of Washington fisheries scientist Trevor Branch responded to this study, writing, “Most tuna fisheries are sustainable, and all have millions of individuals. None are in any danger of extinction (indeed no marine fish has ever been fished to extinction).” He also wrote, “Given that tuna fishing only took off in the 1950s and 1960s (when they started fishing them in the open ocean, where nearly all of them they live), is it really newsworthy that catches increased 1000% since then?”

If you’re in the mood for a tuna poke bowl or an old-school tuna niçoise salad, here’s a tip: Don’t hit up the Greenhouse Tavern in Cleveland. It has been nearly six years since chef Jonathon Sawyer became a “tuna evangelist” after attending a meeting of like-minded chefs at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It was there that he made the decision to forgo tuna — both in his personal life and on the menus at all four of his restaurants.

It wasn’t always easy. Turning down the chance to eat famed chef Eric Ripert’s mouthwatering thin-sliced tuna over a foie gras torchon took some Superman-like strength, but for Sawyer, the mission is an important one. He’s not trying to get people to give up tuna altogether. Rather, he’s trying to raise awareness of the sheer quantities that are coming across our collective plates and serve as a gentle warning that all that fish is coming from a limited resource.

It turns out that his effort is hitting a seafood sustainability bull’s-eye.

A new study, published in Fisheries Research, reveals that the sheer amount of tuna being taken from our seas, including some species considered “vulnerable,” has increased by an astonishing 1,000% in the last 60 years — a rate that some scientists are saying is unsustainable.

Read the full story at NPR

California’s Seafood Imports commits to IPNLF and responsible tuna sourcing

September 30, 2019 — San Diego, California, U.S.A.-based importer and distributor Seafood Imports has been inducted into the International Pole and Line Foundation (IPNLF) as its latest member, the non-profit association announced on 30 September.

Seafood Imports, which was founded in 1997, is a provider of specialty seafood products to the international foodservice industry, with direct sourcing from South Africa and Asia. Among the company’s offerings are private label sashimi-grade JAVA and JAVA Kosher tuna products, which contain wild, one-by-one caught tuna sourced from the Indian Ocean courtesy of Indonesia. Exclusively packaged for Seafood Imports, the JAVA and JAVA Kosher tuna products are sold to U.S. customers.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

As bluefin recover, a new fight about how to fish for them

September 30, 2019 — A federal plan that could loosen the rules about fishing for one of the most debated species in the ocean has attracted the attention of fishermen and environmentalists, some of whom fear years of conservation work could be undone.

Preservation of the Atlantic bluefin tuna has long been a subject of international debate, and sometimes discord. The giant sushi fish, which occasionally sell for more than $1 million and often weigh several hundred pounds, are at a fraction of historical population levels but have shown positive signs in recent years.

The federal government is considering some changes to the way the fish are managed. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said some of the changes would give fishermen who use longlines, a method of fishing used to catch large fish, more flexibility by increasing their amount of open fishing area, including in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Gulf of Mexico is a critical spawning area for bluefin, and parts of it are closed down to longliners in the spring to protect the fish. Reopening it to fishing could jeopardize the bluefin stock in U.S. waters and beyond, said Shana Miller, senior officer for international fisheries conservation with the Ocean Foundation.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times

StarKist class-action suit payout less than expected

September 27, 2019 — Consumers who are part of a class-action lawsuit that Starkist agreed to settle in 2015 will get less than the tuna supplier originally agreed to pay.

The lawsuit, which claimed that StarKist was underfilling its five-ounce cans by a few tenths of an ounce, was settled out of court, with Starkist admitting no fault. As a result of the suit, residents of the United States who bought certain tuna products could obtain either USD 25.00 (EUR 22.84) in cash or USD 50.00 (EUR 45.68) worth of coupons for Starkist tuna.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

In her garage lab, a scientist looks for answers about skinny tuna

September 27, 2019 — Molly Lutcavage is standing on the State Fish Pier in Gloucester, watching a crane hoist a giant bluefin tuna off the back of a fishing boat.

“Look at how skinny she is,” the fisherman, Corky Decker, yells up to her. “That’s how they’ve all been — long, ugly things like you’d catch in June.”

Lutcavage nods at the fish, which is 74 inches long but weighs just 174 pounds — very skinny indeed for a tuna — then looks down at the plastic bag in her hands, which is what she’s come for. It contains the tuna’s ovaries, and Lutcavage, director of the Large Pelagics Research Center, hopes it can support a theory she first proposed two decades ago — one that would be good news for the health of the tuna population as a whole, and help explain the bad news that has plagued commercial tuna fishing this season, with poor-quality meat fetching record low prices.

Lutcavage believes that younger tuna have been spawning off the coast of New England, an idea that runs counter to the accepted belief that tuna in this part of the world spawn only in the Gulf of Mexico, and only when mature.

If Lutcavage is right, it would mean there are more tuna contributing to the population, and thus the population is larger and healthier than fishery managers and conservation advocates believe.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe