Saving Seafood

How the Swinomish Are Reviving a Native Oyster and Protecting Eelgrass in Puget Sound

January 4, 2021 — The light of the October full moon bounced across the surface of Washington’s Similk Bay. Stuart Thomas stood ankle-deep in the ebbing tide, flipping black mesh bags filled with oysters.

He opened a bag and pulled out a handful of small ones, barely an inch across, shucking them quickly in the light of his headlamp. “These are Olympia oysters,” said Thomas, cheerful despite the midnight hour. The only oysters native to the state, they’re finally making a comeback after being driven nearly to extinction more than a century ago by overharvesting, habitat destruction and a commercial preference for introduced species, such as the Pacific oyster.

The flesh inside the Olympia’s shell is only the size of a quarter. It tastes sharp, briny and faintly of stone, more ancient, somehow, than the sweet and creamy Pacific oysters that are the mainstay of Washington’s farmed shellfish industry.

A self-proclaimed genetics nerd, Thomas is charged with reviving the Olympia oyster for the Swinomish Shellfish Company. The Englishman had spent years working in Washington’s commercial shellfish industry before joining the company, which is owned by the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community. Now he operates under a different set of rules, with a unique prime directive: Do not mess with the eelgrass beds.

“It was made clear to me early on that everything we were to do would have to be in line with protecting the environment,” said Thomas.

Less than 40 feet away from him, the eelgrass lay flat and unmoving at the water’s surface. Its stillness belied the importance it holds for the marine ecosystem in this part of the world. The grasses serve as a nursery, feeding ground and resting spot for a dizzying number of species up and down the food chain, from orcas to zooplankton, including virtually all the marine foods that Indigenous communities use.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

Washington shellfish aquaculture permitting challenged again

December 22, 2021 — For the second time in four years, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) has taken the federal government to court to keep the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from approving projects in Washington state that expand shellfish aquaculture without considering their environmental impact.

The lawsuit, filed Monday, 19 December in U.S. District Court in Seattle, Washington, by CFS claims the Corps’ policies violate the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and other federal laws. It comes after the Corps finalized a new permit in January 2021, during the final days of the Trump administration.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

WA: Governor Inslee announces sweeping salmon strategy

December 15, 2021 — Gov. Jay Inslee announced a new strategy regarding salmon Tuesday afternoon on tribal land above the Swinomish Channel.

“On behalf of our tribal communities, we will act,” Inslee said. “On behalf of our recreational fishers, we will act. On behalf of our commercial fisheries, we will act. And on behalf of our grandchildren, we will act this session of the Legislature.”

The governor was joined by dignitaries, tribal members from the Swinomish, Tulalip and Nisqually communities, legislators and representatives from state agencies that work on salmon, water and habitat issues.

Read the full story at the Skagit Valley Herald

 

WASHINGTON: Puget Sound tribe uses aquaculture to counter salmon shortages

October 18, 2021 — A new video from the Washington Policy Center (WPC) highlights the efforts of the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe in the Puget Sound area to develop an aquaculture program to provide economic opportunity and a food source for its community.

“As we work to restore the salmon population in Puget Sound, tribes are finding creative ways to feed their members and become more self-sufficient,” said Todd Myers, environmental director at the WPC. “Tribes have the local control and flexibility that allows them to follow good science to manage aquaculture that is sustainable and provides good food.”

The late Kurt Grinnell, who was a tribal council member and general manager of the aquaculture program, explains in the video that just a few generations ago the local rivers and tributaries were filled with an unending supply of salmon. It got to the point though, that he shut down his fishing business because he was catching so few fish that selling them did not bring in enough money to even pay for the gas for his boat.

Read the full story at The Center Square

 

Navy steams ahead with sonar testing despite state opposition, orca impacts

October 4, 2021 — Over the objections of Washington state officials and orca advocates, the U.S. Navy is steaming ahead with a plan for seven more years of testing sonar and explosives in waters off the Northwest coast.

The Navy says the piercing noise from its tests and training activities could harm eight species of whales listed under the Endangered Species Act.

But Navy officials, backed up by the National Marine Fisheries Service, say the occasional, temporary disturbances won’t threaten the orcas’ or any other species’ survival.

“At this time the Navy intends to proceed over the objection of the State of Washington,” the Navy’s Record of Decision document, published Friday, states.

Read the full story at KUOW

 

Low oxygen levels along Pacific Northwest coast a ‘silent’ climate change crisis

September 29, 2021 — Nearly two decades ago, fishers discovered an odd occurrence off the coast of Oregon. They were pulling up pots of dead or lethargic crabs.

At first they suspected a chemical spill or a red tide. But instead, they learned, dangerously low levels of dissolved oxygen in the ocean water were to blame.

The crabs had suffocated.

These swaths of hypoxic areas have surfaced every summer on Pacific Northwest shores since it was first recorded in 2002. They are spurred by naturally occurring coastal upwellings and algae blooms, exacerbated by climate change, said Francis Chan, director of the Cooperative Institute for Marine Resources Studies at Oregon State University.

Akin to fire season, hypoxia season arrived earlier this year – the earliest start in 20 years, according to Chan. But unlike wildfire, or other visible climate emergencies, it’s gone largely unrecognized.

“It’s kind of a silent problem happening out there,” said Chan. “This year, I can look out and see trees with one side burnt because of the heat wave. As I’m driving on McKenzie highway, I can see Mount Jefferson has no snow on it. But when you drive out to the ocean, it looks exactly the same as last summer.”

Read the full story at the Spokesman-Review

 

NMFS approves plan to restrict salmon fishing, protect orcas

September 17, 2021 — King salmon fishing could be cut back from Puget Sound to Monterey Bay if king salmon numbers fall too low to feed the 75 endangered Southern Resident orcas, under a plan approved Sept. 14 by NMFS.

Non-tribal fishing would be restricted when king salmon numbers appear heading toward that threshold — a key recommendation from a working group convened by the Pacific Fishery Management Council, including representatives from West Coast states, tribes, and NMFS.

In late 2020 the council adopted the work group’s suggestions, including limiting commercial and recreational fishing in certain places off California, Oregon, and Washington when estimated king salmon numbers north of Cape Falcon, Oregon, fall below a certain level of abundance.

That level would be set as the average of the seven lowest years of forecast king salmon abundance off the northern Oregon and Washington coasts, currently estimated at 966,000. In recent years salmon numbers held above that level, and 2007 was the last year when forecasts would have fallen below the threshold.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Peter Pan Seafood will require COVID vaccine for employees

September 2, 2021 — Peter Pan Seafood announced Wednesday, 1 September, it will require all shoreside employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as case numbers are on the rise in the U.S. states of Alaska and Washington.

The company’s new policy will go into effect by tiers. The first tier will pick up the remaining 5 percent of unvaccinated workers at processing plants and support facilities around Bristol Bay, Alaska, and at its Valdez processing plant, as well as at warehouses in Washington. All employees in tier one must be fully vaccinated by 1 October. Employees at the Peter Pan facility in King Cove, Alaska, face mandatory vaccination under Peter Pan’s tier two timeline. The vaccine policy does not extend to the fleet, but Peter Pan said it encourages its fishermen to get the vaccine and it said it will help them get vaccine appointments in Seattle or Alaska.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Loki Fish recalls salmon lox over listeria concerns

August 25, 2021 — Loki Fish Company is recalling four-ounce packages of its Keta Salmon Lox due to the potential it is contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes.

The Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.-based supplier is recalling the lox after the possibility of contamination was discovered during a U.S Food and Drug Administration inspection at its co-packer, Felix Custom Smoking in Monroe, Washington, Loki said in a press release.

Read the full story at Seafood Source