International & Trade

December 7, 2013 — Dwindling stocks, an exclusion zone and patrolling Israeli gunboats all make life difficult for the fishermen of Gaza.

Photographer Gianluca Panella goes aboard for a terrifying experience

Read more and see photos here 

December 9, 2013 — Marine Farms Belize has successfully transported close to 170,000 cobia juveniles by air to a farm in Panama. There were two shipments which were sent by a specially chartered Boeing 727-200 from Belize City. The first shipment consisted of 92,000 juveniles and was sent on 6 September, and the second of 95,000 juveniles went on 1 November.

"I believe it was the first time live marine fish have been shipped out of Belize in such commercial quantities," said Jorge Alarcon, CEO of Marine Farms Belize. "Also, I think this was the first time so many cobia had been packed and shipped in a single day by air (in both instances). Normally, cobia juvenile shipments by air consist of a maximum of 20 or 30 large boxes at a time. Ours were 43 and 48 boxes."

The fingerlings, weighing an average 1g each, were selected from two juvenile production runs at the hatchery directed by juvenile production manager Willy Meresse and totaled close to 250,000 fingerlings combined.

"We aimed to produce 100,000 juveniles each time," Alarcon said, "but in the second cycle we obtained higher survival than expected (about 20 percent from newly hatched larvae to 1g). We would normally produce in excess of what is ordered and take out the smallest individuals to ensure we ship the best performing fish to our clients.

Read the full story at Seafood Source 

 

December 9, 2013 — Data compiled by its member countries during the 21st annual meeting of the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission shows that Pacific salmon abundance in the North Pacific remains at near record high levels, the NOAFC said in late November.

The meeting took place Nov. 12-15 in an email format for the first time in the commission's history, with 71 participants from NPAFC member countries Canada, Japan, Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the United States.

The vast majority of North Pacific salmon originate from NPAFC member countries, the organization said in comments from Vancouver, British Columbia headquarters.

Initial North Pacific-wide 2013 commercial catch data indicate catches of 313,800 tons of pink salmon in Alaska, 241,292 tons in Russia and 13,171 tons in Canada, plus catches of 101,395 tons of chum salmon in Russia and 65,120 tons in Alaska. Catches of Chinook salmon remain at low levels, with reported landings of 1,640 tons in Alaska, 512 tons in Russia and 214 tons in Canada.

Read the full stoy at The Cordova Times 

 

December 5, 2013 — Major world events now tend to unfold on social media. The global shrimp shortage is no exception

“Why did you guys take SHRIMP off the line! My husband won’t let us come anymore,” writes Stacie Rutledge on the Facebook page for Genghis Grill, a Dallas-based fast-casual chain with 70 locations.

In October and early November Rutledge and other Genghis Grill customers took to Twitter and the franchise’s Facebook page after discovering they could no longer add their favorite protein to the chain’s signature “build your own stir fry” dish.

Read the full story from SeafoodSource

December 3, 2013 — China’s demand for fish to replace diminished local stocks of favorites like yellow croaker is proving a boon for Argentina, which is already enjoying record sales of red shrimp in China.

“We are looking to put a lot of containers into China,” said Stuart Anderson, head of export sales at the Santa Maria Group.

Chinese buyers are eager to get hold of Argentinean croakers as well as similar fish like weakfish and black drum, Anderson told SeafoodSource. Logistics helps: China is proving a more lucrative market than Santa Maria’s key West African markets like Nigeria and Cameroon for the firm’s low-end fish like croaker and weakfish — in part because of the more prevalent shipping services connecting China and Latin America. Thus ships delivering Chinese consumer goods to Argentina are going back full with food goods like fish and shrimp.

Demand for both hake and shrimp has been strong in China, according to supplier Sebastian Guridi, head of foreign trade at Moscuzza, a Mar Del Plata based firm which ships squid as well as shrimp and fish to China.

Read the full story from SeafoodSource

November 29, 2013 — The province’s largest fisheries union is asking the federal government to reject recommendations from the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) to list cod and other species of fish as endangered.

The Fish, Food and Allied Workers’ (FFAW) union has long held the position that aquatic species should be removed from COSEWIC scrutiny under the Species at Risk Act.

FFAW president Earle McCurdy said in a news release the recommendation to list various populations of cod, redfish and American plaice as threatened or endangered is “dated, unnecessary and poorly thought out.”

Read the full story from The Telegram

November 29, 2013 — A skilled fishing master who plundered the halibut and sablefish grounds off the west coast of Vancouver Island has been jailed and effectively banned from the waterfront for 10 years by the Provincial Court of B.C.

In a decision handed down this week, Justice Ted Gouge convicted Scott Steer on eight counts for illegally turning off a camera system aboard the Pacific Titan (standard equipment on commercial boats to monitor catches) and for repeatedly landing and selling “thousands of pounds” of fish without recording or reporting it.

Court heard that Mr. Steer had good catches in the six months he ran the Pacific Titan, one day taking so many halibut his decks were awash with fish and his crew worked the longest days of their lives.

But he landed much of his catch at night, off-loading it when his crew wasn’t present and telling the vessel owners the catch was so small it didn’t cover the cost of fuel. By slipping fish ashore, he also evaded a monitoring system by which fisheries managers keep track of the fleet’s overall catch, so that conservation targets can be met.

Read the full story at The Globe and Mail 

 

 

December 1, 2013 — The future of the world’s largest tuna fishery will be decided at a meeting in Australia this week, with Pacific island nations demanding tighter controls on a catch now worth US$7.0 billion a year.

A record 2.65 million tonnes of tuna was hauled from the Pacific last year, accounting for 60 percent of the global catch, with most of the fishing conducted by so-called “distant water” fleets from as far afield as Europe, the United States, China, Korea and Taiwan.

Island nations, many of which rely on tuna for a significant portion of their income, fear stocks are becoming unsustainable and want action at the December 2-6 meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) in Cairns.

“If distant water nations support sustainability of the resource, then they need to commit to a 30 percent reduction in catches,” Marshall Islands fisheries director Glen Joseph said.

“It’s not a question of should they do it or not — they have to do it or face the consequences.”

Read the full story at The Raw Story 

 

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [Seafoodnews.com] — December 2, 2013 — ISSF (International Tuna Sustainability Foundation) representatives in Cape Town were pleased at the outcome of the IATTC meetings on Atlantic tunas last week.

Three major initiatives were adopted that were highly sought by ISSF.

First, ICCAT joined the IOTC and IATTC in adopting mandatory requirements for the collection and reporting of specific FAD data by vessel operators.  The collection of these data is critically important for adequately monitoring FADs and developing FAD management options.  The ISSF will be asking the WCPFC (Western and Central Pacific) group to adopt a similar rule this month.

Second, ICCAT agreed to require vessels on the ICCAT authorized record of vessels 20 meters or greater to have a unique vessel identifier (UVI), such as an IMO number.   This outcome will go a long way towards strengthening efforts to combat IUU fishing and controlling fishing capacity.  This has already been done in the Indian ocean, and again ISSF hopes with Western and Central Pacific body will follow suit.

Third ICCAT, along with the other tropical tuna RFMOs, is continuing to move forward on the development of harvest control rules and biological reference points, which are vital to effective and science-based fisheries management.  Making this commitment is a huge win for ICCAT and the tuna fisheries of the Atlantic.   ICCAT adopted new quotas for northern and southern albacore stocks that are squarely within the scientific advice and which will allow these important stocks to rebuild further.

These three steps – while not making headlines like shark fin bans – taken together represent solid progress on bringing tuna management under the internationally recognized system of harvest controls, that has proven effective at preventing and ending overfishing where it has been applied.

Right from the beginning, ISSF reocgnized that in order for the global tuna fisheries to be sustainable, they had to come under the same type of scientific management regimes used in countries with successful track records of preserving and rebuilding stocks.  The elements of this are scientific understanding of stocks, a management regime in place responsive to science, and enforcement mechanisms.  ICCAT made progress on all of these fronts this week.

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

 

November 29, 2013 — Exports of aquaculture products (paiche, scallops, trout, shrimp, and tilapia) from Peru are expected to reach $250 million this year, a record growth of between 21 and 23 per cent over last year, said the Exporters Association (Adex).

Adex President Eduardo Routledge, said the aquaculture sector has growth potential because the export of this sector increased by 13 per cent annually between 2008 and 2012.

From January to September this year, Peru shipped to international markets more than 20,000 tonnes of aquaculture products valued at $196 million, according to the Business Intelligence System Adex Data Trade.

Read the full story at The Fish Site