Saving Seafood

MAINE: Maine fishermen caught more fish in 2023, thanks to a hunger relief program and COVID funds

March 25, 2024 — Maine fishermen bucked yearslong, industrywide trends last year and caught more fish, a development regulators and industry members said shows the impact of COVID-19 relief funds.

Maine has long been a leader in catching groundfish, which are bottom-dwelling species of fish such as cod and flounder that are often used in seafood staples such as fish and chips. The New England groundfishing industry has been in decline for decades due in part to past overfishing of key species and difficulty rebuilding those stocks.

But Maine’s groundfishermen had a stronger year than most in 2023, according to state data released earlier this month. The catch of haddock more than doubled to more than 500,000 pounds (226,796 kilograms), and the catches of Atlantic cod, witch flounder and Atlantic halibut were all up significantly.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Canned seafood moves beyond tuna sandwiches in a pandemic trend that stuck

November 20, 2023 — The country’s canned seafood industry is moving well beyond tuna sandwiches, a pandemic-era trend that began with Americans in lockdown demanding more of their cupboard staples.

Since then, the U.S. market has only expanded, fueled by social media influencers touting the benefits of the high-powered protein food in brightly colored metal containers. On the TikTok channel Tinned — Fishionado, Kris Wilson posts recipes for quick meals, including one mixing leftover rice, soy sauce, avocado and a runny egg with a tin of smoked mussels from the Danish company Fangst.

Tinned fish, as it’s called in Europe, is now a regular offering on menus at wine bars from San Francisco to Houston to New York, where patrons scoop the contents straight out of the can. There are even tinned fish clubs that mimic wine clubs by sending members monthly shipments of various seafood packed in various combinations of spices, oils and sauces. Videos on tinned fish, from tastings to how-to tips on cleaning the fishy smell from cans, have generated more than 30 million views on TikTok.

U.S. canned seafood industry sales have grown from $2.3 billion in 2018 to more than $2.7 billion so far this year, according to market research firm Circana.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Capacity constraints, not volume increases, may be to blame for rising shipping rates

September 21, 2023 — An expected rebound in global shipping traffic has stalled, with manufacturers and distributors still struggling to reduce inventories stockpiled during the peak of consumer demand for goods during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Global freight flows have not significantly recovered from the significant freight downturn that began in the middle of 2022, and the nine largest ports in the U.S. each recorded their lowest summer traffic since 2017, according to Reuters.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NEW JERSEY: New Jersey may revoke half of Covid-19 relief funds distributed to commercial fishermen

July 23, 2023 — The U.S. state of New Jersey is considering taking back millions of dollars in Covid-19 relief from commercial fishermen after an audit found multiple issues.

In May 2020, the federal government announced USD 300 million (EUR 270 million) in fisheries assistance funding as part of the CARES Act. New Jersey was awarded USD 11.2 million (EUR 10 million) of that funding and established the Marine Fisheries Assistance Grant Program to distribute the money to fisheries-related businesses that had suffered at least a 35 percent loss in revenue from Covid-19.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

NEW JERSEY: New Jersey fishermen on hook for $7 million in pandemic relief

July 10, 2023 — New Jersey fishermen could be on the hook for $7 million in COVID-19 funds that may have been improperly distributed, according to a report.

An audit conducted by Acting State Comptroller Kevin Walsh’s office found that more than half of the $14.4 million New Jersey distributed in federal funds to commercial fishermen through the pandemic-related program may need to be returned because the recipients might not have been eligible to receive the money.

The comptroller’s office determined that about 41% of the payments, or $5.9 million, are subject to possible recoupment because the applicants were made “more than whole” by the money or were ineligible for relief payments under the program guidelines.

Read the full article at The Center Square

NEW JERSEY: N.J. fisheries reeled in $7M in COVID money that may need to be paid back, watchdog says

June 20, 2023 — In the rush to get COVID aid out as fast as possible, about half of the money paid to New Jersey fisheries from CARES Act funding may have been improper and should be recovered, a state watchdog group said Tuesday.

The funds, about $7 million, may have been wrongly paid out by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which administered the program, according to the Office of the State Comptroller (OSC).

The agency said its reviews, and the reviews of an independent integrity monitor, found payments to 37 marine fisheries did not appear to meet program guidelines, OSC in a letter to DEP.

Read the full article at NJ.com

US marine economy bounced back from Covid-19 pandemic in 2021

June 13, 2023 — The U.S. marine economy had an economic impact of USD 432 billion (EUR 402 billion) in 2021, making up nearly two percent of the country’s gross domestic product.

The annual Marine Economy Satellite Account, a joint publication of NOAA and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, shows the marine economy bouncing back strongly from the Covid-19 pandemic, outpacing overall U.S. economic growth with 7.4 percent growth in GDP and 10.5 percent growth in sales. The marine economy had dipped six percent in 2020 as the pandemic took a toll.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Will a Supreme Court decision in fisheries case tie the hands of all government regulators?

May 23, 2023 — Fishing for Atlantic herring may seem worlds away from restrictions on power plant emissions or responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. But a case before the U.S. Supreme Court could affect all those activities and more by altering how federal agencies apply scientific expertise in carrying out their regulatory duties.

On 1 May the high court agreed to hear a case brought by four family-owned herring businesses. They argue that the National Marine Fisheries Service has no authority to require them to pay for onboard observers who would monitor their catch to help the agency protect declining fish stocks.

But legal scholars and environmentalists say much more than fishing is at stake in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. When the high court rules, most likely in the spring of 2024, it may also take a step back from a long-standing legal doctrine, called the Chevron deference, used to determine whether government agencies have exceeded their authority. The doctrine has been applied for nearly 40 years to everything the government does, including regulations affecting businesses, schools, and the general population.

Read the full article at Science.org