Saving Seafood

Science Ignored in New Anti-Aquaculture Law

March 23, 2018 — OLYMPIA, Wash. — As the leading trade association representing Washington’s multi-million-dollar finfish aquaculture industry, WFGA is deeply disappointed by Governor Inslee’s failure to take science into consideration by signing into law HB 2957. Our organization holds the position—supported by leading fisheries scientists—that this law completely lacks any scientific basis.

We are additionally dismayed by the fact that in early March of this year, a group of concerned scientists reached out to the state legislature, refuting the basis of HB 2957 and outlining the best peer-reviewed science available to date. In an Open Letter to the State Legislature, nine leading fisheries scientists challenged the key assumptions in HB 2957 having to do with purported interbreeding between Atlantics and native species, colonization, disease transfer, and competition for food. In passing HB 2957 by a 31-16 vote, it was clear that the legislature chose to ignore the science in favor of other political considerations.

After the vote, we reached out to Governor Inslee, urging him to veto HB 2957.

At the same time, the signatories to the Open Letter to the legislature requested a meeting with the Governor. While the Governor was not available to meet, a small group of scientists met with the Governor’s staff to present the science and request that the Governor veto the most troublesome sections of HB 2957 or postpone implementation until the study in Section I was completed.

By the actions taken today by Governor Inslee, it is clear that science has taken a back seat to politics in our state’s natural resources policymaking.

Our association includes many Washington subsidiaries of international companies, representing all sectors of the seafood value chain, from egg producers to feed suppliers, equipment manufacturers, vaccine companies, technology companies, and producers of freshwater species such as trout and steelhead.

We are concerned that this ill-conceived and fundamentally flawed legislation may be sending the wrong message to companies seeking to do business in Washington.

Read the full statement by the Washington Fish Growers Association at Value Spectrum

 

Halibut Catch Limits for Alaska Made Official Today

March 21, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Alaska’s halibut fishermen can be forgiven if they’re confused about catch limits for the season starting this Saturday, March 24.

The final numbers are published today in the Federal Register and they are lower than last year, but — in Alaska — exactly at the levels recommended by the U.S. Commissioners of the International Pacific Halibut Commission last January.

The commercial catch limits, by regulatory area, are as follows.

Area 2C (Southeast Alaska) — the commercial IFQ is 3.57 million pounds, down 15.2% from last year’s commercial quota of 4.21 mlbs.  The charter sector received810,000 lbs. this year, down 12% from last year’s charter allocation of 920,000 in Area 2C.

Area 3A (Gulf of Alaska) — the commercial quota is 7.35 mlbs, down 5% from last year’s commercial quota of 7.74 mlbs. For the 3A charter sector, the quota dropped 5% to 1.79 mlbs. from last year’s 1.89 mlbs.

Area 3B (Kodiak, Western Gulf) — 2.62 mlbs. compared to 3.14 mlbs. last year. A drop of 16.6%.

Area 4A (Bering Sea) — 1.37 mlbs. compared to 1.39 mlbs last year. Down 1.4 %.

Area 4B (Aleutian Islands) — 1.05 mlbs. compared to 1.14 mlbs. last year, a 7.9% decline.

Area 4CDE (Bering Sea) — 1.58 mlbs. compared to 1.7 mbls. last year, a drop of 7.1%.

Total Alaskan commercial quota this year (not including sports charters) of 17,540 mlbs. is a 10% drop from last year’s 19.32 mbls.

The catch limits for Washington, Oregon, and California are not yet finalized. Washington State has asked for a readjustment of the .69 mlbs. recommended by the U.S. Commissioners in January to a higher number. The final catch limit is expected to be published on Monday March 26, but effective on the season opening date of March 24. Regulatory Area 2A, which encompasses waters off those three states, won’t open until later in the year.

The Alaska catch limits reflect the recommendations made by the U.S. Commissioners but those recommendations were not reflected in the initial NMFS Rule of March 9 or in the IPHC’s Rule Book that was mailed out to stakeholders last week.

Earlier versions of the catch limits also referred to catch share plan totals, which included sport catch, and some version reported Total Constant Exploitation Yield, which included wastage, bycatch, and subsistence removals.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

Pacific Fishery Management Council Chooses Options 2018 Salmon Season

March 19, 2018 — The following was released by the Pacific Fishery Management Council:

ROHNERT PARK, Calif. – The Pacific Fishery Management Council has adopted for public review three alternatives for the 2018 salmon seasons off the West Coast of the United States. The Council will select a final alternative at their next meeting in Portland, Oregon April 6-11. Detailed information about season starting dates, areas open, and catch limits for all three alternatives are available on the Council’s website at www.pcouncil.org.

Fisheries north of Cape Falcon (in northern Oregon) are limited by the need to reduce catch of lower Columbia natural tule Chinook and coho stocks of concern. Additionally, three stocks of coho (Queets River, Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Snohomish) currently meet the criteria for overfished status, which is also a concern when structuring 2018 fisheries. The Council also provided guidance to structure ocean fisheries so that the ocean escapement of Columbia River upriver bright fall Chinook is at least 200,000 fish, which will allow more access to that healthy stock in Columbia River treaty Indian and non-Indian fisheries.

Fisheries south of Cape Falcon are limited by the need to reduce catch of Oregon Coast natural coho, Klamath River fall Chinook, Sacramento River fall Chinook, and Rouge/Klamath coho.  Klamath River fall Chinook and Sacramento River fall Chinook contribute significantly to ocean harvest, but both met the criteria for overfished status as a result of poor returns over the past three years.  However, the forecast for Klamath River fall Chinook is substantially improved over last year, and both stocks are projected to meet their spawning escapement objectives under this year’s management alternatives.

“Although some abundance forecasts are improved over last year, the 2018 salmon runs still present a challenge for ocean fishermen and managers throughout the west coast,” said Executive Director Chuck Tracy. “In the north, low returns of some Puget Sound and Washington coastal coho runs and lower Columbia River natural tule fall Chinook will constrain fisheries. In the south, the conservation needs of Sacramento River fall Chinook and Rogue/Klamath coho will constrain fisheries.”

“Once again, the Council adopted a range of management alternatives for public review designed to conserve and rebuild a broad range of Chinook and coho stocks of concern. Commercial and recreational fisheries will face restrictions in areas along the entire west coast in response to the Council’s conservation efforts” said Council Chair Phil Anderson.

Northern Oregon and Washington (north of Cape Falcon)

Sport season alternatives

Ocean sport fishery alternatives north of Cape Falcon in Oregon and off the Washington coast include Chinook recreational quotas ranging from 22,500 to 32,500, a decrease from 2017. For coho, recreational quotas range from 16,800 to 42,000 hatchery coho, compared to 42,000 in 2017.  Starting dates range from June 23 to July 1, and in all alternatives, recreational fisheries are scheduled to run through early September. Both coho and Chinook retention are allowed in all alternatives.

Commercial season alternatives

Non-Indian ocean commercial fishery alternatives north of Cape Falcon include traditional Chinook seasons between May and September. Chinook quotas for all areas and times range from 22,500 to 32,500, compared to 45,000 in 2017. Coho quotas in the commercial fishery alternatives range from 3,200 to 5,600 marked coho, similar to 2017.

Read the release in its entirety here.

 

This Is Why You Don’t See People-Size Salmon Anymore

March 13, 2018 — While the orcas of Puget Sound are sliding toward extinction, orcas farther north have been expanding their numbers. Their burgeoning hunger for big fish may be causing the killer whales’ main prey, Chinook salmon, to shrink up and down the West Coast.

Chinook salmon are also known as kings: the biggest of all salmon. They used to grow so enormous that it’s hard to believe the old photos now. Fishermen stand next to Chinooks almost as tall as they are, sometimes weighing 100 pounds or more.

“This has been a season of unusually large fish, and many weighing from 60 to 70 pounds have been taken,” The Oregonian reported in 1895.

Now, more than a century later, “it’s not impossible that we see individuals of that size today, but it’s much, much rarer,” University of Washington research scientist Jan Ohlberger says.

Ohlberger has been tracking the downsizing of salmon in recent decades, but salmon have been shrinking in numbers and in size for a long time. A century’s worth of dam-building, overfishing, habitat loss and replacement by hatchery fish cut the size of the average Chinook in half, studies in the 1980s and 1990s found.

Dam-building and fishing have tailed off, but Chinooks have been shrinking even faster in the past 15 years, according to a new paper by Ohlberger and colleagues in the journal Fish and Fisheries. Older and bigger fish are mostly gone.

Read the full story at KUOW

 

NOAA is pro-aquaculture, but won’t weigh in on salmon farm ban

March 13, 2018 — BOSTON — Don’t look for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to challenge the recent decision by Washington state to end salmon farming off its coast. The federal government’s hands are tied, said a senior NOAA official at the Seafood Expo North America, in Boston, Massachusetts, on Sunday afternoon.

“We do have separation of powers in the United States between the federal government and the state government,” said Michael Rubino, NOAA’s director of aquaculture, when asked. “And this was largely a state government matter.”

Washington state governor Jay Inslee is expected to soon sign House Bill 2957, a bill passed by the state’s Senate, 31-16, on March 2 that would allow the leases for offshore aquaculture facilities there to expire by 2025. The state’s House voted roughly two weeks earlier to support the bill.

Washington state’s dramatic action followed the much-publicized escape, in August, of more than 250,000 Atlantic salmon from a Cooke Aquaculture facility near Cypress Island.

When asked if NOAA might weigh in, Rubino simply responded that NOAA doesn’t have a say in the matter.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Cooke Aquaculture continuing to fight Washington ban even as it ponders next steps

March 9, 2018 — In an interview with SeafoodSource, Cooke Vice President of Communications Joel Richardson discussed his company’s efforts to convince Washington Governor Jay Inslee of the merits of the industry as the governor considers signing a bill that would phase out non-native finfish aquaculture in his state. Richardson also discussed the formulation of his company’s back-up plan in case it was unsuccessful in convincing the governor to veto the bill.

SeafoodSource: Is Cooke making any efforts to reach out to Gov. Inslee as he considers signing the bill?

Richardson: Yes, we will continue to reach out to Gov. Inslee over the coming days to urge him to veto HB 2957. Over the last few months we have provided Gov. Inslee and all legislators in Washington with evidence-based science from well-respected, credible fishery scientists to inform and educate on sea farming practices.  We are also aware that the Washington Fish Growers Association is now urging Governor Jay Inslee to veto the bill this week calling on a ban on Atlantic salmon aquaculture in state waters “Ill-conceived and politically motivated rather than based on the best available science.”

SeafoodSource: In what ways was science not taken into proper account by legislators as they considered the bill?

Richardson: You will have to ask the governor and legislators to answer that question.  However, in the aquaculture industry’s view, it’s appalling that that lawmakers have ignored calls to drop the ban from some of the world’s top aquaculture and fisheries scientists, including from the state Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, who refuted false and misleading claims made by anti-sea farming groups, tribes, and politicians that Atlantic salmon, when and if they escape, could interbreed with Pacific stocks or colonize rivers. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that the science from decades of peer-reviewed research does not support the conspiracy theory that Atlantic salmon that escape from net pens will colonize our rivers and/or interbreed with native stocks.

Read the full interview at Seafood Source

 

West Coast sardine fishing closed for 4th year; ‘alarming’ 97% population decline

March 8, 2018 — Sardine fishing nets will remain empty for a fourth straight year along the West Coast, where biologists are comparing the dramatic decline of the schooling fish to the infamous collapse that led to the downfall of Monterey’s once-thriving Cannery Row.

The northern Pacific sardine population, stretching from Mexico to British Columbia, has plummeted 97 percent since 2006, according to an assessment released this week by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Pacific Fishery Management Council.

The perilously low numbers give regulators no choice but to close fishing, which had been scheduled to start July 1, from Mexico to the Canadian border.

The 14 voting members of the fishery council, which makes policy along the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington, will meet April 8 in Portland, Ore., to discuss the results, but everyone agrees a fishing ban is inevitable. The council is required by federal law to close ocean fishing when the numbers fall this far below conservation objectives.

Read the full story at the San Francisco Chronicle

 

Trident settles with EPA on Clean Water Act violations

March 7, 2018 — Two federal agencies have reached a settlement with Trident Seafoods over Clean Water Act violations at Sand Point and Wrangell involving discharges of fish waste.

The agreement, announced on March 2, calls for Trident to remove nearly three and a half acres of waste from the seafloor near its Sand Point plant and limits on how much seafood waste is discharged from its Wrangell plant.

Trident also will pay a $297,000 civil penalty and do a comprehensive audit of the company’s system for monitoring environmental compliance, under the agreement reached with the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Justice.

The Seattle-based processor has operated a fish meal plant at Sand Point since 1996 to help limit how much fish waste is discharged into marine waters.

Yet after decades of processing, the historic waste pile exceeds the one-acre limit, and continues to impair the health of the seafloor, EPA officials said. Unauthorized discharges of seafood processing waste lead to large seafood waste piles that contain bones, shells and other organic materials that accumulate on the seafloor. Those waste piles create anoxic, or oxygen-depleted conditions that result in unsuitable habitat for fish and other living organisms.

Read the full story at the Cordova Times

 

Washington bans salmon farms

March 6, 2018 — A year ago, Cooke Aquaculture was a mainstay business in Washington state waters. The company had made a significant investment in nine local salmon farming sites when it purchased Icicle Seafood’s assets in 2016. As of Friday, March 2, the company’s open-ocean Atlantic salmon net pens are banned in state waters, to be phased out by 2025.

The impetus for the ban is the catastrophic failure of a pen near Cypress Island, Wash., on Sunday, Aug. 20. The pen contained 305,000 Atlantic salmon that were just about ready for market at 10 pounds each, making for more than 3 million pounds of invasive fish teeming at the edges of wild salmon territory.

In February, both houses of the state Legislature passed bills banning the practice of salmon pen farming, and Gov. Jay Inslee openly supported the legislation. On Friday, the Washington house and senate negotiated the discrepancies in those bills to finalize a ban they could pass to the governor’s desk. The bipartisan Senate vote was 31-16.

Before the final votes, Cooke Aquaculture CEO and Founder Glen Cooke made last-minute appeals to state lawmakers in person.  Last Wednesday, a collective of leading marine scientists penned an open letter to the Legislature in defense of the salmon farming industry.

Indeed, many stakeholders see the ban as a punitive response to a company that appeared to shirk its own responsibility in the immediate aftermath of the spill. However, the result is that it closes the opportunity entirely — not just to Cooke Aquaculture.

Though the response to ban an entire industry may seem extreme, the perfect storm of events leading up to the ban created extraordinary circumstances. Local response to the spill was considerably more swift and strong than the eclipse high tides on which the company first blamed the collapse.

Read the full story at the National Fisherman

 

Scientists Send Letter to Washington Legislature Urging Delay on Legislation to Ban Net Pens

March 1, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Four prominent scientists have sent a letter to the Washington State Legislature urging them to stop House Bill 2957, which “would essentially halt Atlantic salmon aquaculture in this state forever.”

The scientists include the former 40-year director of the Manchester, Washington, laboratory; two former directors of the national aquaculture program run by NOAA; a former Director of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center; and the former president of Stolt Sea Farms Washington, Inc.

“We call on our esteemed elected representatives to delay any decisions regarding the future of salmon farming in Washington until the scientific community, represented in this state by some of the world’s leading aquaculture and fisheries scientists and researchers in the fields of fish culture, genetics, nutrition, and fish behavior, has had an opportunity to present science in a clear and objective light—rather than in a climate fueled by fear and propaganda,” the letter states.

The authors offer to present research that responds to the legislature’s fears on four areas of concern for Atlantic salmon farms in the event of a pen failure or escape.

Interbreeding — the authors point out that interbreeding has been encouraged in a scientific setting, and all attempts for the past f40 years have been unsuccessful.

Competition for food — Peer-reviewed studies have shown convincingly that “captive” or pen-reared salmon have not learned how to “hunt” for food, simply because they are used to being fed on a regular timetable.

Competition for habitat —  Scientists to date have found no evidence of Atlantic salmon spawning on the West Coast of North America.

Disease transmission — the authors say “No example of disease transfer from farmed salmon to wild fish has ever been documented by any regulatory agency in the state of Washington.”

Finally, they strongly urge legislators to not “throw out the baby with the bathwater”—salmon farming—that is now producing millions of metric tons of nutritious salmon, worth billions of dollars, around the world.

The letter is signed by Linda Chaves, former Senior Advisory on Seafood and Industry Issues; Dr. John Forster, former president of Stolt Sea Farm; Dr. Robert Iwamoto, director of the office, management, and information at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA; and Dr. Conrad Mahnken, former NOAA National Aquaculture Coordinator, director of the NOAA Manchester Laboratory, and Washington Fish and Wildlife Commissioner.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.