Saving Seafood

First Bill to Help Save Orcas Passed in Washington State

April 12, 2019 — The first in a series of bills intended to help prevent the extinction of Southern Resident killer whales is headed to the desk of Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee. The measure, which Inslee requested, would protect habitat for the Chinook salmon the whales eat.

Southern Resident killer whales live in the inland coastal waters near Seattle. Suffering from a lack of their main source of food – threatened Chinook salmon – as well as toxic home waters and a cacophony of ship noise that dampens their ability to hunt and communicate, their population has reached a 30-year low of 74 whales.

Inslee convened a task force in March 2018 to guide state action to prevent the whales’ extinction. The task force issued its first-year recommendations this past November. The following month, Inslee proposed over $1 billion in state funding to implement the recommendations and asked the Legislature to introduce bills where necessary to accomplish task force recommendations.

House Bill 1579 is the first of a suite of such bills to pass the Legislature, clearing the state Senate on Wednesday night and now awaiting Inslee’s signature. The bill encourages the catch of non-native fish that eat young Chinook salmon as they swim toward the ocean and compete for habitat in Washington’s rivers and estuaries, and increases catch limits for bass, channel catfish and walleye. Fishermen will now be required to get a license to catch freshwater smelt, which Chinook eat.

Read the full story at the Courthouse News Service

Washington tribe’s plan to resume traditional whale hunting advanced by NOAA

April 8, 2019 — The Makah Tribe of Washington state took a step closer on Friday to resuming the hunting of gray whales with a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration proposal to allow the practice nearly two decades after a federal appeals court halted it.

The proposal by NOAA Fisheries would allow a waiver to the Marine Mammal Protection Act to let the tribe harvest 20 Eastern North Pacific gray whales over a 10-year period. The tribe had originally requested to harvest 20 whales every five years.

Read the full story at Reuters

Biologists: Killing hungry sea lions saving imperiled fish

April 5, 2019 — A plan to kill California sea lions to save an endangered run of fish on a river that cuts through Portland, Oregon, appears to be working just months after wildlife officials began euthanizing the giant marine mammals, biologists said Thursday.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife began killing the sea lions in January after getting permission from federal authorities late last year. They have killed 16 so far, including three on Wednesday, said department spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy.

In the same period, 2,400 steelhead fish have reached the upper Willamette River and its tributaries to spawn this spring — the most in three years and double last year’s tally, the agency said.

Less than 30 years ago, the number of steelhead making that journey was at least 15,000 a year but pollution and the construction of dams on key rivers reduced that number dramatically.

Sea lions have been eating an additional 25% of all returning steelhead at that spot in the Willamette River south of Portland, said Shaun Clements, ODFW’s senior policy analyst.

“We’ve definitely been able to reduce predation this year and provide some relief to the fish,” he said. “We’re saving considerable numbers of them.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Post

Groups sue to restrict salmon fishing, help Northwest orcas

April 4, 2019 — Federal officials say they may restrict salmon fishing off the West Coast to help the Pacific Northwest’s critically endangered killer whales, but two environmental groups are suing anyway to ensure it happens.

The Center for Biological Diversity, which filed a lawsuit nearly two decades ago to force the U.S. government to list the orcas as endangered, and the Wild Fish Conservancy asked the U.S. District Court in Seattle on Wednesday to order officials to reconsider a 2009 finding that commercial and recreational fisheries did not jeopardize the orcas’ survival.

The National Marine Fisheries Service issued a letter early last month indicating that it intends to do so. Julie Teel Simmonds, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the point of the lawsuit is to ensure they finish the job with urgency, given the plight of the whales, and to take short-term steps in the meantime to help provide more of the orcas’ favored prey, Chinook salmon.

“We have got to figure out how to get them more salmon,” she said. “Since 2009 it’s become much more crystallized just how critical prey availability is to their reproductive success and survival.”

The Endangered Species Act requires the government to certify that any actions it approves won’t jeopardize the survival of a listed species. In the 2009 review, experts found that it wasn’t clear how a lack of prey affected orcas, but that the fisheries were not likely to contribute to their extinction.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

NOAA Allocates $20 Million for West Coast, Georgia Fishery Failures

April 2, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — NMFS announced last week that $20 million of federal assistance will be provided to communities affected by fishery disasters in Washington, Oregon, California and Georgia between 2013 and 2017. Congress appropriated these funds through the 2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

Tribal and non-tribal salmon fisheries will receive the most funding after several fisheries declined due to adverse ocean conditions including “The Blob.” California sardines and Georgia white shrimp also are included on the list.

The email notice to congressional staff said NMFS will notify award recipients of their eligibility for funding and provide guidance on the development of award spending plans. The allocated funds can be used to help commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, charter businesses, shore-side infrastructure, and subsistence users, as well as improve the fishing ecosystem and environment.

The fisheries and their respective allocations are:

2013 Fraser River Sockeye tribal salmon (Washington) – Lummi, Nooksack, Tulalip, Suquamish, Makah, Lower Elwha, Jamestown S’Klallam, Port Gamble S’Klallam: $1,492,000

2013 Fraser River Sockeye non-tribal salmon (Washington): $440,000

2013 Georgia White Shrimp: $1,062,000

2015 Washington Coastal Coho and Pink Tribal Salmon (Washington) – Hoh, Quileute Tribe, Stillaguamish, Nooksack, Muckleshoot, Upper Skagit, Suquamish: $3,856,000

2015-2016 Pacific Sardines (California): $1,640,000

2016 Ocean Troll Tribal Coho and Chinook (Washington) – Makah: $1,654,000

2016 Coastal Tribal Coho Salmon (Washington) – Quileute: $970,000

2016 – 2017 Klamath River Fall Chinook Tribal (California) – Hoopa, Yurok: $1,694,000

2016 – 2017 Klamath River Fall Chinook Non-Tribal (California): $5,042,000

2016-2017 Klamath River Fall Chinook Non-Tribal (Oregon): $2,150,000

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown requested the Oregon Klamath River fall Chinook fishery disaster declaration in May 2017. NMFS made the fishery failure determinations last year but it wasn’t until recently that funding allocations were made. Oregon’s Democrat senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley were quick to applaud the announcement.

“Hard-working Oregon fishermen gearing up for their spring returns have now received a $2.1 million lifeline that will help them support their families and contribute to the economy in their coastal communities,” Wyden said in a press release. ”From commercial trollers to marinas, Oregon’s coastal fishing community fully deserves this good news.”

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

Could Prize-Based Competitions Help Pacific Northwest Shellfish Cope With Acidic Seawater?

April 1, 2019 — As human activities continue to add greenhouse gases to the planet’s atmosphere, the oceans absorb nearly one-third of all CO2 emissions. Through a series of chemical reactions, increasing CO2 levels in the ocean have caused seawater to become 30% more acidic over the past century. This process, termed “ocean acidification“,  can disrupt animals’ abilities to smell, regulate their metabolism, and build their shells.

The Pacific Northwest region of the United States, where many economically and culturally valuable fisheries and shellfish farms exist, is especially vulnerable to ocean acidification. The shoreline that stretches from northern California to Alaska is the final destination for globally circulating seawater that accumulates nearly 1,000 years worth of CO2 from the respiration and decomposition of flora and fauna. Seasonal “upwelling” of these millennium-aged deep sea waters and additional CO2 from human activities makes them particularly acidic. Thus, understanding how these acidic waters affect the $220 million Dungeness crab fishery and the $9.4 billion mussel, clam and oyster farming industries in Washington (among many other potentially susceptible operations) is becoming increasingly urgent.

Earlier this week, four United States Congressmembers from Washington, Oregon and Alaska reintroduced a bill called the “Ocean Acidification Innovation Act”. Just like its predecessor from 2017, this bill would allow federal agencies to run prize-based competitions that would increase capacity for studying ocean acidification and mitigating its impacts.

“Our coastal communities depend on a healthy shellfish and fishing industry,” says one of the bill’s co-sponsors Rep. Herrera Beutler (WA-3), while another co-sponsor, Rep. Derek Kilmer (WA-6) added, “There are generations of folks in our coastal communities who have worked in fishing and shellfish growing, but that’s endangered if we don’t maintain a healthy Pacific Ocean.”

Read the full story at Forbes

Seattle Shrimp & Seafood Company Joins GSSI

March 26, 2019 — The following was released by the Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative and Seattle Shrimp & Seafood:

The Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative is pleased to announce that Seattle Shrimp & Seafood Company has joined the GSSI Global Partnership as a Funding Partner.

Seattle Shrimp & Seafood Company is a global supplier of shrimp and shellfish. Seattle Shrimp & Seafood Company works with GSSI recognized schemes BAP and MSC.

“Seattle Shrimp & Seafood Company is proud to be partnering with the Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative and its supporters as an acting member and Funding Partner. We are extremely excited for the opportunity to collaborate with organizations from industry and NGO sectors that are committed to the long-term preservation, sustainability and growth of global fisheries,” said Atsushige Amano, President of Seattle Shrimp & Seafood.

Fisheries Managers Face Mixed Forecast For Northwest Salmon, Concerns Over Endangered Orca

March 12, 2019 — About this time every year, the Pacific Northwest gets a report card from the natural world. It comes in the form of salmon run forecasts and gives us an indication of how healthy the Pacific Ocean and our rivers and streams are.

The grades are in, and here’s what you need to know about our scores.

How’d we do this year?

It’s definitely looking like we’re in for a “there’s room for improvement” kind of year.

Every spring, a group called the Pacific Fishery Management Council gets together and look at the salmon forecasts from the Puget Sound all the way down to the Sacramento River in California. They use this data to decide at a week-long meeting in April what overall catch limits will be. This catch allowance is then split between commercial, recreational and tribal fishermen in the Pacific Northwest. The goal is to make sure we don’t catch more salmon than the numbers can actually support.

Read the full story at KLCC

Feds inch closer to approving Alaska mining project seen as a threat to Pacific Northwest

March 11, 2019 — Over the past several decades, fishermen, business owners, Alaska Native organizations and environmental groups have protested a proposed open-pit copper and gold mine at the headwaters of Bristol Bay — a pristine salmon habitat.

Now the federal government is inching toward approving the mining project.

Nestled in southwest Alaska, Bristol Bay is home to the world’s largest wild salmon run. The watershed supports a teeming ecosystem of eagles, grizzlies and beluga whales.

It’s also an economic engine for the Pacific Northwest. Each year, the fishery contributes thousands of seasonal fishing and processing jobs and millions of dollars in economic activity to Washington, Oregon, and California, according to the University of Alaska Institute of Social and Economic Research.

Bristol Bay is where the Pebble Limited Partnership, the company developing the mine, plans to build a 10.7-square-mile open-pit mine to dig up copper, gold, molybdenum, and other minerals. The mine would require new infrastructure, including roads, a port and a 188-mile-long natural gas pipeline.

Read the full story at McClatchy DC

Scientists see improved ocean conditions for young salmon

March 11, 2019 — Ocean conditions are improving for salmon entering the ocean this year, several years after The Blob, an unusually warm water event that began forming in 2014, scientists announced Friday.

Research surveys in 2018 confirmed tiny animals that stoke the food chain were nice and fatty. Anchovies, an important forage fish, were increasing in number. Sea lion pups were numerous and growing well, and fish-eating sea birds going strong.

However, subsurface sea temperatures were still warmer than average in some areas. Pyrosomes, a warm-water animal that is not supposed to be in Northwest waters, were still numerous.

Forecasts for chinook salmon in 2019 also were for below-average salmon returns to the Columbia River. Extensive ocean acidification and poorly oxygenated waters off both Washington and Oregon also were predicted for this year.

Read the full story from The Seattle Times at The Spokesman-Review