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About 400 Escaped Salmon From Cooke Aquaculture Recaptured in Hermitage Bay

August 20, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Of the 2,000 to 3,000 salmon that escaped from a farm in Newfoundland’s Hermitage Bay, around 400 have been recaptured — a pretty good number, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Some time between July 27 and 30, the salmon escaped from the Olive Cove farm operated by Cooke Aquaculture, after net extensions were sewn onto a pen at the site.

Chris Hendry, regional aquaculture coordinator with DFO, says the rate of recapture to date is actually pretty good.

“Our reports so far suggest that about 400 salmon have been recaptured, so for a two- to three-thousand escape, that’s about a 15-20 per cent recapture rate,” he told CBC’s The Broadcast.

“When we had the last large escape incident back in 2013 and there were capture methods deployed, about 10 per cent of those fish were recaptured. So this seems to be a better percentage of success.”

Investigation to Come

Hendry said the licence to use gillnets for recapturing is set to expire on Friday, but there will be a meeting with DFO, provincial fishery officials and Cooke Aquaculture to assess the recapture process so far and determine if that should be extended.

This week, a humpback whale got snared in those gillnets, and a rescue operation was launched to free the whale, so the use of gillnets was temporarily suspended to ensure no other whale entanglements happened.

Hendry said there will be an investigation into what happened at the Hermitage Bay site, and further discussions once the capture of salmon is completed.

“One of the questions is, in a case of a release of salmon, is there any type of repercussions, and that’s something we would discuss with the province as we both co-deliver the code of containment,” he said.

“It also requires us to do an analysis of any type escape incident and recommendations on improvements or identifying any deficiencies.”

The captured salmon, meanwhile, will need to be destroyed by the company, Hendry said.

“As a condition of the licence, they’re required to dispose of them … but we are requiring them to take samples so we can build on an existing database of genetic and scale samples for identification of farm salmon.”

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

Gloucester fishing documentary wins film prize; Screenings planned along Mass., NH seacoasts

August 6, 2018 –Filmmaker David Wittkower knew he had to do something or his commercial fishing documentary “Dead in the Water” might indeed be dead in the water.

Following eight months of showings throughout Massachusetts and other parts of coastal New England, Wittkower’s film, which traces the erosion of the once-proud Gloucester groundfish fleet, was largely rejected by most of the film festivals the director tried to enter.

The over-arching criticism was that the film lacked balance, failing to properly include the perspective of federal fishing regulators — most specifically the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries — and environmentalists as the counterpoint to the already powerful message of an industry in trouble.

Wittkower, who produced the film with former Gloucester Mayor John Bell and Angela Sanfilippo of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association, also received feedback that the film — at 80 minutes — was just too long to be easily included in the lineups of films assembled by the various festivals.

So Wittkower, originally from Rockport, went to work. He shortened the film from 80 minutes to one hour and added additional perspective from the regulatory and environmental camps.

Read the full story at The Eagle-Tribune

Women in the seafood work place report discrimination

August 6, 2018 –Alaska appears to be an exception in terms of gender parity at all levels of its seafood industry.

Women comprise roughly half of the world’s seafood industry workforce, yet a report released last week revealed that 61 percent of women around the globe feel they face unfair gender biases from slime lines to businesses to company boardrooms. The women’s overall responses cited biases in recruitment and hiring, in working conditions and inflexible scheduling.

The findings were based on 700 responses gathered in an online survey from September through December of last year. Thirty percent of the respondents were men; 27 percent of the total responses came from North America.

In my view, Alaska doesn’t fit the picture.

Based on “empirical evidence” spanning 30 years as a fisheries writer, I always have encountered women at all levels of seafood harvesting and processing, business, management, education and research, as agency heads and commissioners and in top directorships in industry trade groups and organizations.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

With fewer types of fish to catch, Maine fishermen may be losing their knowledge of the sea

August 3, 2018 –Maine fishermen have a long history of being involved in fisheries management. Communication between harvesters and policymakers has been instrumental in the development of rules and regulations that have helped to sustain the region’s coastal fisheries—from clams to alewives to lobsters.

In part, this success results from the deep understanding of the natural environment held by fishermen. “Local ecological knowledge” is a term used to describe the collective perceptions held by a particular group about their environment, resulting from the transmission of cultural knowledge from one generation to the next, combined with regular and persistent interactions between people and the environment.

Fishermen’s experience-derived “local ecological knowledge” can be equally valuable as data gained through modern scientific methods for informing resource management and building community resilience. Yet the very experience that forms the basis for fishermen’s knowledge is being eroded by increasing specialization in Maine’s fisheries, with more harvesters focusing on one or two target species. As fishermen focus on fewer types of fish, they have less access to the environment. Does this mean they are losing environmental knowledge, too?

Joshua Stoll, University of Maine assistant research professor of marine policy and cooperating scientist at the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, worked with Emily Farr, a recent graduate of Yale University, and assistant professor Christine Beitl of the Department of Anthropology to study how fishermen’s changing access to fish species over time (which Stoll documented in earlier research) has affected their knowledge of the marine environment. Marina Cucuzza, a student in the UMaine marine science and marine policy dual degree graduate program, assisted with some of the interviews.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

CFRF Lobster & Jonah Crab Research Session 8/30/18

August 2, 2018 — The following was released by the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation:

Please join the CFRF and its collaborators for a Lobster and Jonah Crab Research Session on Thursday, August 30, 2018 from 4-6 PM at the Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island. The Research Session will include:

Discussion of the Lobster and Jonah Crab Research Fleet, including reflections from participant fishermen, data summaries, plans for the future, and viewing of the project documentary video.
Presentations from collaborators at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries on Jonah crab size at sexual maturity and the sustainability of the Jonah crab fishery.
Presentations from lobster and Jonah crab stock assessment scientists at the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center focusing on the use of the Research Fleet’s data in the lobster stock assessment and Jonah crab management plan.

To read more about the project and for project updates visit the project web page here.

RSVP to Aubrey at (401) 515-4892 or aellertson@cfrfoundation.org .

The research session is being held at the Commercial Fisheries Center of RI, Building 61B, URI East Farm Campus, Kingston, RI (click here for directions).

Vegan activists protest North Carolina fishing tournament

July 30, 2018 — On Saturday, several vegan activists gathered at a popular fishing tournament to protest eating meat.

The Wilmington Fish Save and North Carolina Farmed Animal Save organized the protest, called Vigil for Fish, to raise awareness about animal rights during the annual Wrightsville Beach Inshore Challenge, which pays out over $15,000 in cash and prizes to fishermen.

“We’re vegan activists, and we want to bring awareness to what fish go through,” said protester Daniel Veber to WCET. “Look at it from this fish’s point of view. If you were in your home, you would not want a hook to be hooked in the mouth, you would not want to be pulled up, you wouldn’t have to fight hours for your life to be pulled up. It’s scary.”

The ten protesters carried signs reading “Sea life not seafood,” “fish feel pain,” and “fish want to live.”

“We want to come out for the fish,” said Veber to WCET. “A lot of times, they look so different from us that you don’t really put them into a position where you give them individual status, where they are actually individuals that want to live. They don’t want to pulled out of the water, fish have families, fish want to live.”

Guy Hurley, an organizer of the fishing tournament, told WCET he respects the protestors and is “glad we live in a place where you can protest,” but claims the tournament is not unethical.

Read the full story at Fox News

Dead & Company Raise More Than $1 Million at Backyard Benefit For Oceana

July 10, 2018 — The following is excerpted from a story originally published in Billboard, covering a charity concert hosted by Dead & Company, a collaborative effort between remaining Grateful Dead members and John Mayer.

On Saturday night (July 7), Dead & Company played to 30,000 fans at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium. Less than 24 hours later, they played to 200 equally passionate fans at a backyard benefit Sunday night (July 8) high in the Hollywood Hills for Oceana, an environmental organization dedicated to preserving the world’s oceans.

“Going from a stadium to a house party is a very interesting dynamic, but the point is a musician is privileged to be a musician and musicians should give back that privilege,” said drummer Mickey Hart immediately after Dead & Co.’s 65-minute show. “In general, you gotta defend the treasures. One of them is the oceans and you have to defend it however you can. You have to fight the evil that’s in the White House now with everything you have. So any night I can raise a million dollars is a good night.”

To be more precise, the evening, dubbed “Rock Under the Stars,” raised more than $1.1 million and drew more than 120 Deadheads from all over the world, who paid $5,000 each to see the former members of the Grateful Dead play their smallest gig in decades, as well as actors Jeff Goldblum, Ed Begley Jr. and Dean Norris, actress Kelly Lynch, Academy Award-nominated composer Thomas Newman, film producer Roger Birnbaum, producer/screenwriter Mitch Glazer, and the band’s attorney Eric Greenspan, who promoted a Grateful Dead show when he was in college in the ‘70s.

“We get asked to do a million of these things,” Cahill said, adding that “Rock Under the Stars” was Dead & Co.’s first private charity event since forming in 2015. In addition to the Grateful Dead’s Hart, guitarist Bob Weir and drummer Bill Kreutzmann, Dead & Company includes guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti. “They’ve very focused on the health of our oceans,” Cahill continued. “Bill lives in Hawaii, Bob lives on the water. Oceana really resonated with them.”

“We don’t do that many [benefits],” especially house parties. It seemed like the right thing to do at the right time. The oceans are really in need,” Hart said, adding that Dead & Co. have voter registration booths at every show and through that effort, the notoriously philanthropic band hopes to register thousands of people for the 2018 mid-term elections and beyond. “We’ve been registering people at every show for years,” he said. “The kids, everybody, just have to realize how important it is. You’ve got to get up off your asses and pull that lever.”

Read the full story at Billboard

Bob Jones to retire from Southeastern Fisheries Association after five decades

June 28, 2018 — Bob Jones, the longtime executive director of the Southeastern Fisheries Association (SFA), will retire at the end of 2018, the Gulf Seafood Foundation announced.

Jones’ career serving Gulf of Mexico fisheries in the United States has spanned five decades, beginning when he was a boy growing up in Florida gillnetting for shrimp. As a teenager, Jones worked in St. Augustine on a shrimp boat and as a live bait fisherman – stations that would eventually inspire him to hone his fishing industry chops by traveling across the southeast region of the United States to meet with fishermen and wholesalers.

Jones reportedly “knew it all” back in 1964, when he was first hired by the Southeastern Fisheries Association. His story changed drastically, however, as he spent more time with the organization, he said, getting to know the harvesters, packers, processors, distributors, and restaurants committed to preserving the fisheries resources around the Gulf and beyond.

During Jones’ storied tenure leading the Southeastern Fisheries Association – a non-profit fisheries trade association focused on defending, protecting, and enhancing the commercial fishing industry in the southeastern United States – he spearheaded an influential red snapper tagging program in the South Atlantic and lead the Florida Seafood Marketing program (funded through a self-imposed fee on wholesale seafood dealers and fishermen) to success, keeping king and Spanish mackerel available to the market and establishing the Tortugas shrimp nursery off of Key West.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

2018 Seafood Expo Global broke attendance and exhibitor records

June 15, 2018 — Diversified Communications, the producer of Seafood Expo Global and Seafood Processing Global, announced on Thursday, 14 June that its 2018 edition of the event set attendance and exhibitor records.

SEG/SPG took place 24 to 26 April, 2018, in Brussels, Belgium, and the largest ever in the event’s 26-year history, Diversified reported. A total of 29,130 buyers and sellers were in attendance from 152 countries, while 1,946 exhibiting companies from 78 countries showcased their seafood products, equipment, and services at the expo. The total exhibitor space occupied in the Brussels Expo exhibit space was 39,322 net square meters, including 72 national and regional pavilions.

“It is incredible to see this event growing year over year,” Diversified Communications Group Vice President Liz Plizga said. “Not only have we expanded the event in terms of exhibit space, but we again reached a record high in the number of visitors who came to the event. This shows the ongoing importance of the business value that both buyers and suppliers in the global seafood industry find in this event.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

There’s Something Fishy About U.S.-Canada Trade Wars

June 15, 2018 — If U.S. politicians’ love affair with tariffs seems novel, it’s really the latest installment in an on-again, off-again romance. And it’s one that has been much more passionate in the past. In the decades after the Civil War, the “tariff question” was the biggest issue in American elections. On everything from wool to sugar, the U.S. government slapped steep fees on goods passing through its borders. These tariffs protected domestic industry and paid the government’s bills.

But sometimes tariffs also led to trade wars with America’s neighbor to the north. Today, America and Canada fight over dairy and aluminum. In the late 19th century, they fought over frozen herring—and these trade wars meant real violence. When T. Aubrey Byrne alighted from his train in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on the last day of 1894, he stepped into the middle of one such war.

Depending on who you asked, Byrne was either the Treasury’s best special agent, a man who had saved the government fortunes by uncovering massive smuggling rings—or he was a failed ranch hand and ex-newspaperman, a paranoiac who saw fraud in others’ honest toil. But his superiors at Treasury approved of the job he’d done breaking up operations to illicitly import sugar and Chinese laborers. Now Byrne sniffed another conspiracy: a plot by merchants and captains in Gloucester, the capital of New England fishing, to avoid taxes on fish from Newfoundland.

Every winter, a fleet from Gloucester sailed to the island—still a British colony—to fill their holds with frozen herring. At less than a cent apiece, herring would be eaten by humans or used as bait for the more lucrative cod and halibut fisheries. Starting with one entrepreneurial vessel in 1855, by the 1890s almost 100 ships each year went to Newfoundland from Gloucester. And each year tens of millions of spawning herring swam into the bay only to sail out of it.

Read the full story at The Atlantic