Saving Seafood

How a microscopic coastal creature may become deadlier in our changing climate

June 18, 2024 — Between 2014 and 2015, a “blob” of record-breaking warm water traversed the west coast of the U.S., gaining media attention as the warm temperatures wreaked havoc on the bottom of the food chain, causing fisheries like sockeye, pink, and coho salmon to collapse and thousands of sea lions and sea birds to starve.

However, amid this devastation, one microscopic creature thrived or “bloomed”—a neurotoxin-producing diatom called Pseudo-nitzschia—causing devastating multi-million dollar losses for many West Coast commercial and tribal crab and shellfish fisheries that had to shut down due to the risk of toxin-contaminated seafood.

The toxin produced by Pseudo-nitzschia, domoic acid, can cause amnesic shellfish poisoning in humans, with symptoms like vomiting, diarrhea, headache, loss of short-term memory, motor weakness, seizures, and irregular heart rhythms.

Beyond the clear ecological and economic devastation, this 2015 blob-associated harmful algal bloom also left the scientific community in shock. The prevailing understanding was that toxic Pseudo-nitzschia blooms were associated with nutrient-rich, cold-water pulses of water seasonally brought up or “upwelled” from the depths along the Pacific west coast.

With the massive hot blob of water hovering over the coastline in 2015, there was little to no upwelling. So how did a toxic bloom occur during this massive heat wave?

Read the full article at PHYS.org

High-value US West Coast stocks may migrate out of reach due to climate change

December 17, 2023 — Recent NOAA research forecasts that three high-value groundfish species will migrate toward deeper offshore waters along the United States West Coast due to climate change in the near future, which will likely require fishery managers to adapt their strategies in response.

NOAA’s study, “Species redistribution creates unequal outcomes for multispecies fisheries under projected climate change” was published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances in August 2023. It shows that sablefish, dover sole, and shortspine thornyhead are projected to migrate to deeper offshore waters, posing challenges for fishers that may need to travel longer distances and fish at greater depths or shift their operations completely to target more accessible species.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Longshoremen contract deal averts US West Coast supply chain crunch

June 21, 2023 — The Pacific Maritime Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union have arrived at a six-year contract agreement that will cover 22,000 union dock workers at all 29 major ports along the U.S. West Coast.

The ILWU and PMA, which began negotiating the deal 1 July, declined to elaborate on its details, but it apparently includes a sharing of the surge in pandemic-era cargo profits in the form of retroactive compensation for employees, Reuters reported. It remains subject to ratification by the union.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

West Coast fishermen, other stakeholders grapple with salmon season closure

April 11, 2023 — Salmon anglers and environmental conservationists alike are working to restore the west coast salmon population in light of salmon season being officially cancelled last week.

According to Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA) Executive Director Glen Spain, the consequences that led to salmon season being cancelled this year will likely affect the next few season as well.

This is because there is a three-year period of time between when a salmon is born and when it makes it out to the ocean; but over this past three-year period, multiple water policies led to even lower water levels in California rivers, which lower and warmer than usual due to the drought in the state.

This caused many salmon to die in the rivers before they could even begin their journeys to the ocean.

Read the full article at KRCR

Dungeness crab die-off underway along US West Coast

November 7, 2022 — An important species of crab found primarily along the West Coast is fighting off a combination of stressors that experts at the North Atlantic and Atmospheric Administration say has fishermen finding piles of dead shellfish, and the impacts are affecting the economy.

Dungeness crabs are typically found along water beds, and their harvest can be worth a quarter-billion dollars annually.

Read the full article at Fox 6

US West Coast seafood groups concerned about potential reintroduction of sea otters

June 17, 2022 — A plan by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to reintroduce sea otters to the West Coast of the U.S. is continuing to draw concern from fishing industry advocates.

The USFWS has had plans to reintroduce wild sea otters to habitats in the Northwest U.S. for years. A bill signed in 2020 by former U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a review of the potential impacts the reintroduction could have on the region – and in 2021, the industry requested a thorough review of how it might impact fisheries and coastal economies.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Five California offshore wind leases proposed

May 27, 2022 — Five areas totaling 373,268 acres off central and northern California are proposed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for the first West Coast offshore wind energy lease auction.

The proposed sale notice, to be published May 31 in the Federal Register, will kick off a 60-day public comment period. Three lease areas are proposed for the Morro Bay wind energy area off the central cost and two in the northern Humboldt area.

“Today’s action represents tangible progress towards achieving the Administration’s vision for a clean energy future offshore California, while creating a domestic supply chain and good-paying union jobs,” said BOEM Director Amanda Lefton in announcing the plan. “BOEM is committed to robust stakeholder engagement and ensuring any offshore wind leasing is done in a manner that avoids or minimizes potential impacts to the ocean and ocean users.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

US West Coast lawmakers want USDA to buy more seafood from their states

May 11, 2022 — A group of Democratic U.S. senators and representatives from West Coast states have written a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack calling on his agency to spend more on seafood purchases from producers in their states.

The letter notes that California, Oregon, and Washington state produce more than USD 500 million (EUR 473.6 million) worth of seafood annually, more than an eighth of total domestic production in the U.S., and 25 percent of the country’s processing and wholesale jobs are located in the three Pacific Coast states.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Officials: No Sardine Fishing Off California This Year Due to Steep Population Decline

April 17, 2019 — West coast regulators have voted unanimously to ban commercial sardine fishing for the fifth straight year after a recent evaluation of the northern Pacific stock revealed a steep decline.

The ban on commercial sardine catch spans the entire length of the U.S. West Coast. The 2019 season would have opened July 1.

A new assessment of northern Pacific sardine stocks by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates populations of the small silvery fish have declined more than 98 percent since 2006.

Not all fishermen agree with the decision to keep the sardine fishery shuttered.

Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, said NOAA’s sardine survey under-counts the fish, and that the fishermen she hears from are noticing a comeback.

“They are so frustrated because they drive by school after school after school and they can’t fish,” Pleschner-Steele said. “This is their livelihood and they have families and they are losing their jobs.

Read the full story at KQED

West Coast Fisheries Disaster Funding Included in Senate Appropriations Bill

February 8, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — As news of a Wednesday night Senate agreement on the federal budget bill that included millions for disaster aid filtered out, many fishermen and processors on the West Coast wondered whether fisheries aid was included.

The short answer: Yes, according to Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations Executive Director Noah Oppenheim.

“We called on Congress to step up and provide fishery disaster assistance, and today they delivered. West Coast fishermen express their heartfelt gratitude to key senators and members of congress who fought hard for their constituents,” Oppenheim said in a statement. “Fishery disasters don’t flood cities or burn down houses, but they do devastate coastal communities and threaten the fishing way of life. These fishery disaster appropriations will go a long way towards beginning the healing process for hundreds of working fishing families on the West Coast.”

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