December 26, 2023 — The Menhaden Fisheries Coalition addresses five inaccurate and misleading statements made in a recent press release by the Chesapeake Legal Alliance and the Southern Maryland Recreational Fishing Organization regarding their petition for rulemaking to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission (VMRC). A brief overview of inaccuracies, expert statements, and scientific findings is listed below, followed by a more detailed discussion of each false claim.
New England council makes groundfish quota recommendations for 2024, with deep cuts to haddock
December 26, 2023 — The New England Fishery Management Council has approved groundfish catch limits for the 2024 fishing year in the Northeast U.S., with deep cuts made to multiple species and few increases.
The sub-annual catch limits (sub-ACLs) for multiple species of groundfish were decided through Framework Adjustment 66 to the Northeast Multispecies (Groundfish) Fishery Management Plan (NEFMC), which was implemented nearly forty years ago to reduce mortality of heavily fished groundfish stocks and promote rebuilding to sustainable biomass levels, and will still require approval from NOAA. In addition to setting quotas for multiple species in 2024, the new framework adjustment also includes provisions that will affect 2025 and 2026.
ALASKA: Fishermen and community leaders react to Trident announcement to sell a third of its Alaska plants
December 24, 2023 — Gerry Cobban Knagin is a commercial fisherman. She and her family have fished around Kodiak and sold their harvest to Trident Seafoods, one of the largest seafood processors in the country, on and off for decades.
But on Dec. 12, the company announced it’s selling off about a third of its Alaska processing plants, including their year-round facility in Kodiak. She said the announcement was a huge shock for almost everyone on the island.
“Speaking with [Trident] management, there wasn’t any heads up for anyone,” Knagin said. “And they decided, according to management, that they wanted full transparency so that the fleet would know.”
Trident Seafoods has a huge footprint in Kodiak – the processing plant is one of the biggest buildings in the city’s downtown and can process more than a million pounds of pollock a day.
The company has been a part of the community for half a century and employs between 100 and 300 people, depending on what fishery they’re processing. That doesn’t even include all of the fishermen who run independent businesses that sell fish to them, like Knagin.
But now, all of those people are left questioning their job security.
The archipelago’s Tanner crab season starts next month but Knagin said she’s dismayed that there seems to be little commitment from the company for upcoming fishing seasons.
“They [Trident] will be buying Tanners, and they will be buying for the A season of Pollock – they cannot expand on anything else past that,” she said. “So, we are salmon fishermen, and they cannot guarantee that they will be available for us to buy our salmon.”
Alexis Telfer, with Trident’s corporate communications, declined to verify if they will be buying Tanner crabs or salmon next summer, and refused to comment further. She said they’re focused on supporting their employees, fishermen, and partners at this time.
Glauconite forcing changes to wind farms off East Coast
December 24, 2023 — Glauconite, a tricky green mineral, has complicated another offshore wind project along the East Coast. Its presence will likely force wind developer Ørsted to build fewer turbines in its Sunrise Wind project south of Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
Sunrise Wind may be capped at 80 to 87 turbines, instead of as many as 94, according to the project’s final environmental impact report, released last week. Ørsted cites “glauconite feasibility issues” with installing turbine foundations, according to the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s report.
The Sunrise Wind project, about 40 miles south of New Bedford, will connect to the New York power grid. It’s the second confirmed offshore wind project along the East Coast that has rejected proposed turbine layouts due to the presence of glauconite. Empire Wind, off Long Island, has also had to do so, The Light reported in October.
BOEM, the U.S. ocean energy bureau, appears to be taking steps to address glauconite’s challenge to offshore wind development, its report last week signals.
“BOEM is developing further guidelines for developers to avoid these issues in the future,” read an agency response to a comment on the Sunrise Wind project. The comment was critical of the later timing of geological surveys, which can identify whether glauconite is present and might create an issue with certain turbine layouts.
BOEM did not provide a response to emailed questions on the agency’s comment about developing guidelines to avoid further issues.
The NOAA Fisheries Atlantic office, which cooperates with BOEM in reviewing projects, has also expressed concern with geological surveys occurring “late in the process.” In the case of Sunrise Wind, the fisheries agency said the timing reduced the government’s options for avoiding or minimizing impacts on marine resources.
Glauconite’s presence caused BOEM to reject a proposed wind turbine layout, preferred by NOAA Fisheries, that would have excluded Sunrise Wind’s turbines from a key area of Atlantic cod spawning habitat.
In response to a request for comment, a Sunrise Wind spokesperson said by email, “Impacts due to glauconite are not expected to affect this project.”
VIRGINIA: As other wind projects stall, Virginia’s approach keeps Dominion’s on track
December 24, 2023 — Back in 2011, Dominion Energy sent Diane Leopold, then a senior vice president for generation, to Greater Gabbard wind farm, 14 miles off the English coast in the North Sea, to look at a new-to-the-U.S. way of making electricity: offshore wind farms.
She came back with news that they could work in Virginia — wind conditions were similar, turbines could be anchored in deep and choppy seas and, key for this engineering graduate of England’s Sussex University, there was a clear path from the 3-megwatt turbines she saw to the larger ones that would make wind an affordable way to generate electricity.
“The biggest issue at the time was what’s the cost going to be for the customers,” said Leopold, who is now Dominion’s chief operating officer. “The technology fully proved out … but the ability to go from 3-megawatt turbines to 6-megawatt turbines to 11 to now almost 15 helps the economies of scale really get that cost down for the customers,” she said as she recalled Dominion’s first steps toward what became a $9.8 billion plan for an offshore wind farm capable of powering up to 660,000 homes.
ALASKA: Southeast chinook stocks expected to be low again in ’24
December 24, 2023 — It’s likely to be another weak year for king salmon returns to the major river systems of Southeast Alaska in 2024.
The Alaska Department of Fish & Game issued its 2024 Southeast Alaska Chinook Salmon forecasts on Monday (12-18-23).
Of the 11 chinook stocks in the region, only the Chilkat River is expected to have an adequate number of chinook returning to spawn. Nevertheless, this number – known as escapement – is still in the middle of the range, and could be lower depending on how many fish are harvested before they get to the river.
The Alaska Department of Fish & Game has adopted action plans to try and limit the catch of king salmon bound for Southeast Rivers, but some are always intercepted.
However, ADF&G assessment biologist Philip Richards says overharvest is probably not the problem.
As salmon disappear, a battle over Alaska Native fishing rights heats up
December 24, 2o23 — When salmon all but vanished from western Alaska in 2021, thousands of people in the region faced disaster. Rural families lost a critical food source. Commercial fisherfolk found themselves without a major stream of income. And Alaska Native children stopped learning how to catch, cut, dry, and smoke fish — a tradition passed down since the time of their ancestors.
Behind the scenes, the salmon shortage has also inflamed a long-simmering legal fight among Native stakeholders, the Biden administration, and the state over who gets to fish on Alaska’s vast federal lands.
At the heart of the dispute is a provision in a 1980 federal law called the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which gives rural Alaskans priority over urban residents to fish and hunt on federal lands. Most rural families are Indigenous, so the law is considered by some lawyers and advocates as key to protecting the rights of Alaska Natives. State officials, however, believe the law has been misconstrued to infringe on the state’s rights by giving federal regulators authority over fisheries that belong to Alaskans.
Now, a lawsuit alleges the state has overstepped its reach. Federal officials argue that state regulators tried to usurp control of fishing along the Kuskokwim River in western Alaska, where salmon make up about half of all food produced in the region. The suit, originally filed in 2022 by the Biden administration against the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, escalated this fall when the state’s lawyers effectively called for the end of federal oversight of fishing across much of Alaska. Indigenous leaders say the state’s actions threaten Alaska Native people statewide.
Squid games on the high seas as U.S. Coast Guard monitors Chinese fishing vessels
December 24, 2023 — Squid, which can weigh over a 100 pounds and are a vital source of food and jobs, are pursued by fishermen up and down the South American coast as they migrate each year. And wherever they go, China’s “squid jiggers” can be found.
Fishing is a multibillion-dollar industry, and China’s fleets dominate the Pacific Ocean. Operating thousands of miles from home, they have helped make the country one of biggest exporters of seafood in the world, as well as the worst-scoring nation when it comes to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
Since late last year however, Chinese vessels have been subject to inspections from the U.S. Coast Guard, which has been empowered by measures introduced by the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO), a 14-member, intergovernmental body that aims to ensure sustainable fishing in the South Pacific Ocean.
Merry seafood outlook expected for US retailers this holiday season
December 21, 2023 — Consultants and grocers are anticipating higher sales of seafood in U.S. retail stores over the holidays, as research points to many Americans wanting to cook at home more during the year-end break.
“We expect seafood sales to continue their positive trends throughout November and December,” Fresh Thyme Meat and Seafood Sales, Merchandising, Marketing, and Procurement Lead Jason Resner told SeafoodSource. “It might not be [the increase] of 35 percent or more we saw last year, but we still expect double-digit sales comps in fresh seafood such as salmon, as well as crab and shrimp.”
CALIFORNIA: Northern California Dungeness opener set for Jan. 5
December 22, 2023 — California will open its northernmost fishing zones for Dungeness crabbers Jan. 5, with closures continuing off the central and southern coasts to avoid humpback whale entanglements, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife said Wednesday.
Zones 1 and 2 from the Sonoma/Mendocino county line to the Oregon border can start fishing in early January, with a reassessment expected Jan. 11 on whether zones 3 to 6 to the south can be opened.
Under the state’s Risk Assessment and Mitigation Program criteria, the 2023-24 Dungeness season opening has been delayed due to whale sightings and entanglements, including one humpback reported entangled in crab gear Nov. 11 in Monterey Bay.
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