Saving Seafood

Canada, U.S. fail to reach agreement on quota for shared haddock stock in 2023

January 6, 2023 — Canada and the United States have, for the first time, failed to agree on a shared quota for the transboundary haddock stock on the Georges Bank fishing grounds off southern Nova Scotia.

The two countries have jointly managed the haddock fishery — and two other straddling stocks — since 2000, but were unable to reach a consensus for the 2023 haddock quota.

“While Canada and the U.S. tried to negotiate a shared haddock total allowable catch … our countries will be setting our own total allowable catch independently of the other,” wrote Kathy Cooper-MacDonald, senior advisor, Fisheries Management in Maritimes Region on Dec. 28.

The disagreement centred on the size of the quota cut.

“Everybody agreed that a large reduction was required, but the size of large is not defined,” said Alain d’Entremont, president of Scotia Harvest, operator of a groundfish fleet and processing plant in southwestern Nova Scotia.

He is a Canadian industry representative and co-chair of the Transboundary Management Guidance Committee, which helps negotiate quotas.

“I don’t think we’ve caused irreparable damage to the agreement.”

Read the full article at CBC News

Fisheries minister angling for joint Canada-U.S. management of depleted Atlantic mackerel stock

December 8, 2022 — Canada is lobbying the United States to add Atlantic mackerel to transboundary fish stocks jointly managed by the two countries on the East Coast — but so far has not landed an agreement.

The appeal comes after Canada imposed a total moratorium on all commercial mackerel fishing in 2022  to rebuild the depleted shared stock. The Americans kept fishing, albeit with a reduced quota.

Minister raised concern with U.S. counterpart

“We don’t support the fact that we had closures because the stock was in critical condition and the United States were fishing essentially that same stock,” Canada’s Fisheries and Oceans Minister Joyce Murray told a parliamentary committee Friday.

Murray’s remarks are a more public stance on what has been a quiet effort by Canada to persuade the United States to jointly manage a species both countries say is in trouble.

Murray said she expressed her concerns in a virtual meeting earlier on Dec. 2 with her U.S. counterpart, Richard Spinrad, who leads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA.

Murray said Spinrad was sympathetic.

“He wants to invoke the precautionary principle, which in my view, wasn’t happening adequately. We agreed that we share our approach to this and in two months there will be meetings between NOAA and DFO to discuss our assessments and build a better approach to rebuilding mackerel.”

Read the full article at CBC

Wind turbines will affect base of ocean food chain, study predicts

December 7, 2022 — Atmospheric wakes trailing behind offshore wind turbines will change oceanographic and marine ecosystem conditions in the North Sea as more and larger turbines are built there to meet Europe’s energy needs, according to a recent study published in the journal Nature.

The paper by researchers Ute Daewel, Naveed Akhtar, Nils Christiansen and Corinna Schrum of the Institute for Coastal Systems in Germany used numerical modeling to show how wind wakes may change local conditions.

Those systems could be moved by plus or minus 10 percent, not just within turbine arrays but over a wider region, the team wrote. That includes “primary production:” the generation of nutrients at the base of the marine food chain.

The Nov. 24 publication of their paper, “Offshore wind farms are projected to impact primary production and bottom water deoxygenation in the North Sea,” is the latest from scientists investigating how larger-scale offshore wind projects may alter ocean conditions and ecosystems.

As in Europe, U.S. researchers too are looking at how wind wake and ocean currents flowing for miles behind turbines will change the seasonal stratification of cooler water close to the bottom, peaking in summer and turning over in fall and spring.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

China fishing fleet defied U.S. in standoff on the high seas

November 1, 2022 — This summer, as China fired missiles into the sea off Taiwan to protest House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island, a much different kind of geopolitical standoff was taking shape in another corner of the Pacific Ocean.

Thousands of miles away, a heavily-armed U.S. Coast Guard cutter sailed up to a fleet of a few hundred Chinese squid-fishing boats not far from Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands. Its mission: inspect the vessels for any signs of illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing.

Boarding ships on the high seas is a perfectly legal if little-used tool available to any sea power as part of the collective effort to protect the oceans’ threatened fish stocks.

But in this case, the Chinese captains of several fishing boats did something unexpected. Three vessels sped away, one turning aggressively 90 degrees toward the Coast Guard cutter James, forcing the American vessel to take evasive action to avoid being rammed.

“For the most part they wanted to avoid us,” said Coast Guard Lt. Hunter Stowes, the highest-ranking law enforcement officer on the James. “But we were able to maneuver effectively so that we were safe the entire time.”

Still, the high-seas confrontation represented a potentially dangerous breach of international maritime protocol, one the U.S. sees as a troubling precedent since it happened on the Coast Guard’s first-ever mission to counter illegal fishing in the eastern Pacific.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

North American grocery chains lower prices to beat inflation

October 19, 2022 — As consumers become increasingly concerned about grocery inflation, select Canadian and United States grocery chains are lowering prices on hundreds of products.

In the most notable example, Brampton, Ontario, Canada-based Loblaw Companies announced a price freeze on more than 1,500 No Name brand items “in an effort provide grocery-bill predictability to Canadians facing the highest food inflation in decades,” the retailer said in a press release. The price freeze will last until the end of January 2023.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

10 nations to jointly study marine resources of the Arctic

June 19, 2019 — A two-day conference of scientific experts from Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark, Norway, South Korea, China, Sweden, Japan, and the European Union in the Russian city of Arkhangelsk resulted in an agreement to conduct more research on Arctic fisheries.

The April meeting was the first after an agreement between the 10 countries was signed in October of last year. The legally binding accord prohibits all commercial fishing in the Central Arctic until the nations additional surveys of stocks, their sizes, and how the region’s ecosystems operate. The agreement also included a draft of a joint research plan, with details to be discussed later this year and with implemented stalled until all the participating states ratify the agreement.

There is almost no data on high Arctic stocks, as nearly all the Arctic countries have only surveyed their own 200-mile exclusive economic zones. The only known study of the high seas was conducted by scientists from the Stockholm University. Its results presented at the conference brought some surprise and made it clear that more extensive research is needed, according to Vasily Sokolov, deputy head of the Russia’s Federal Agency for Fisheries.

“The Arctic Ocean was supposed to contain no great marine biological resources to be of interest for commercial fisheries. But it turned out that stocks of Arctic cod seem to be there, which means that fishing there may be commercially attractive,” Sokolov said. “The density of stocks increases toward the polar cap.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US Fishermen Lose Quota in New Fishing Pact With Canada

October 4, 2018 — American fishermen are losing thousands of pounds of valuable fishing quota under a new catch share agreement with Canada.

Fishermen from the U.S. and Canada seek haddock, cod and flounder on Georges Bank, which is a critical fishing ground east of New England, The two countries craft a catch share agreement every year. Under the latest agreement, the U.S.’s eastern Georges Bank cod quota is falling by more than 25 percent to about 415,000 pounds and the eastern Georges Bank haddock quota is falling by about 4 percent to about 33 million pounds.

Yellowtail flounder on Georges Bank is also falling by about half, to about 230,000 pounds. The U.S. gets 76 percent of the flounder quota while Canada gets 71 percent of the cod quota and the haddock is divided evenly.

The loss in quota will present a hardship for New England fishermen, who are already coping with low cod quotas and the collapse of the cod stock, said Terry Alexander, a longtime Maine fisherman and member of the regulatory New England Fishery Management Council that approved the catch share agreement last week.

“It’s going to be tough to get by with for sure,” Alexander said. “Cod seems to be in the cellar and yellowtail is even deeper in the cellar.”

The proposed quotas are based on historical catches and trawl surveys. Canada’s quotas are also proposed to decline. The quotas were recommended by U.S./Canada Transboundary Management Guidance Committee, which is a panel made up of government and industry members that includes representatives from both countries.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The New York Times

Seafood industry leaders reviewing new USMCA trade pact

October 2, 2018 — The day after U.S. and Canadian government officials announced a deal on a new trade agreement, seafood industry leaders from the neighboring countries expressed optimism about the accord, albeit with some uncertainty as they still pore over the details.

Canada’s participation, which was confirmed late in the evening of 30 September, means a new deal will replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, the accord governing trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico for the past two decades. In late August, Mexican and American officials had reached a tentative agreement on a new deal.

“Today, Canada and the United States reached an agreement, alongside Mexico, on a new, modernized trade agreement for the 21st Century: the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA),” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a joint statement with Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. “USMCA will give our workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses a high-standard trade agreement that will result in freer markets, fairer trade, and robust economic growth in our region.  It will strengthen the middle class, and create good, well-paying jobs, and new opportunities for the nearly half billion people who call North America home.”

Officials from the Fisheries Council of Canada received a high-level briefing on the USMCA on 1 October.

“We look forward to this apparent deal to help heal our trading relationship with the US and lead to more trading opportunities in the future,” said Paul Lansbergen, council president, in an email to SeafoodSource.

The desire to revamp NAFTA has been one leg of a global trade strategy by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. That strategy has also included numerous proposals to raise tariffs on Chinese imports, including numerous seafood products, as the president seeks to reduce the trade deficit.

The National Fisheries Institute has lobbied heavily in recent months that tariffs on seafood products hurt U.S. jobs as the country imports more than 90 percent of the seafood Americans consume.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New U.S. and Canadian IPHC Commissioners Named During Sensitive Negotiations

September 6, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Both the U.S. and Canada have changed their delegation to the International Pacific Halibut Commission, naming relative newcomers to each country’s team during extremely sensitive negotiations on policy issues. For the first time, a member of the recreational sector has been appointed to the U.S. delegation.

The changes to the panel, made up of three Canadians and three U.S. residents, comes after a rare impasse in determining catch limits for the 2018 season at the IPHC’s January meeting. In the end, all six commissioners agreed to lower limits below last year’s levels, but not as a commission. It was the second time in the IPHC’s 94-year history that an impasse could not be overcome.

The commissioners also agreed to negotiate a resolution to their disagreements, which center on distribution of halibut and bycatch accountability, before the next annual meeting. They have met twice so far and will meet again in mid-September.

Six weeks ago the Canadian government “temporarily” replaced commissioners Jake Vanderheide and Ted Assu, both halibut fishermen. Robert Day and Neil Davis of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans were picked as replacements until later in the year, when both are expected to step down for permanent commissioners. Day is director of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ International Fisheries Management Headquarters in Ottawa. Davis is a resource management director for the DFO based in Vancouver.

Yesterday NOAA Fisheries announced the reappointment of Bob Alverson, director of the Fishing Vessel Owners Association and the first-time appointment of Richard Yamada, the president of the Alaska Charter Association. Yamada replaced Linda Behnken, director of Sitka-based Alaska Longline Fisherman’s Association and a commissioner for two years. Both men were appointed for five months, from September 1 to January 31, 2019.

The two men were told their terms as Alternate Commissioners ended January 31 or “whenever another Alternate or Presidentially-appointed Commissioner is appointed to fulfill the relevant duties, whichever comes first,” according to the letter each received from the State Department.

It’s unusual for appointments to be for less than 18 months — terms are for two years — but in this case, it could be that the President’s final action will define a longer term. The current timing for termination is problematic, though, as the next annual meeting of the IPHC is January 27-February 1, 2019.

A January 31 termination date cuts the five days meeting short by its last, important day. That’s when the week’s industry discussion and recommendations, scientific reporting, and U.S./Canada negotiations culminate in final catch limits and changes to Pacific halibut regulations.

Yesterday’s announcement preceded the President’s appointment, “To ensure the United States has representation on the IPHC at all times, the Northern Pacific Halibut Act of 1982 provides for the Secretary of State to make alternate appointments,” the announcement read.

Dr. Jim Balsiger, the NOAA Fisheries Regional Administrator who has represented the government for nearly two decades, was reappointed through September, but may be replaced after that, according to several people familiar with the process. Both Chris Oliver, current head of NOAA Fisheries, and Doug Mecum, deputy regional administrator at NMFS’s Juneau office, have been mentioned as possible replacements.

Neither, however, are members of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, a requirement for Commissioner according to the Halibut Act.

The process, starting from the nominations from last year and months-long vetting to a last minute back and forth that has included questioning nominees on social media use and campaign finance contributions, has been fraught with delays and unexpected outcomes (few expected Dr. Balsiger to be replaced). Behnken and Alverson were appointed only months before the last nomination-and-vetting cycle began. Their terms were extended last spring to August 31, 2018.

This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.