Saving Seafood

MARTY SCANLON: Observer waiver expires, increasing risk to longline fleet

May 6, 2020 โ€” The following is a letter to Randy Blankenship, NOAAโ€™s Southeast Branch chief of the Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Management Division.

I certainly hope all is well. I would think that our federal government is still operating under the Social Distancing Guidelines that our country is under till May 15. With this being said, I am extremely disappointed to be taking calls from my membership that our pelagic longline industryโ€™s observer waiver has not been extended.

Aside from the inherent danger of traveling from all over the country, the inability to practice social distancing within the confines of our small pelagic longline vessels puts both our crews and observers at increased risk.

We have an observer program that operates at a high standard of safety and at-sea risk criteria. I would think the danger of covid-19 to any observer through improper social distancing is far greater than if a vesselโ€™s flares were to expire in the middle of the trip.

NMFS not extending the observer waiver to our pelagic longline industry is a blatant disregard for the wellbeing of our individual captains, their crews, our observers, as well as the families they would be returning to. The Blue Water Fishermenโ€™s Association and its membership will be holding the agency as well as observer program responsible for any negative results of this blatant disregard of the presidentโ€™s social distancing guidelines.

Read the full opinion piece at National Fisherman

A Quarantine Surprise: Americans Are Cooking More Seafood

May 5, 2020 โ€” In 1963, on their way home from the hospital after he was born, Louis Rozzoโ€™s parents stopped by a building on Ninth Avenue in Chelsea, where the family ran a wholesale seafood business, to weigh him in a scallop scale. This March, when virtually every restaurant, club and hotel that bought seafood from him closed and his firmโ€™s income dried up in a matter of days, Mr. Rozzo went back to where it all began.

The F. Rozzo & Sons building was still in the family. Mr. Rozzo converted the ground floor into a makeshift store where he sells clams, scallops, sea bass and American red snapper to people who are suddenly cooking at home a lot more than they used to.

โ€œIโ€™m seeing people taking home fish, then coming in the next day and showing me pictures of how they prepared it,โ€ he said. Some of them undertake recipes that require the better part of a day. Mr. Rozzo enjoys their enthusiastic feedback, although he also suggested that some of the energy New Yorkers are devoting to their kitchen projects is, like his overnight fish store itself, born of desperation.

โ€œThereโ€™s not much else to do,โ€ he said. โ€œItโ€™s either that or go home and drink all day.โ€

Read the full story at The New York Times

Fishermen, seafood businesses call for $1.5 billion federal covid-19 aid

May 5, 2020 โ€” Independent fishermen and small- to medium-sized seafood business are calling on the Trump administration and Congress to come up with an additional $1.5 billion in covid-19 emergency funding, and new investment to build community-based supply chains to feed Americans.

The $300 million allocated for the industry by the CARES Act will help, but โ€œit will not adequately mitigate the unprecedented losses that have been suffered nor the impacts that we anticipate over the coming months,โ€ according to the letter, co-signed by a coalition of 238 including commercial fishing trade associations, seafood businesses, food and agriculture groups, and environmental and social justice advocates.

Much more is needed in โ€œadditional support from the federal government to maintain our livelihoods and supply essential food from the ocean to the American public,โ€ the coalition warned in the letter โ€“ and with a video released on YouTube.

The letter makes detailed recommendations in five areas, including emergency aid; payroll protection and debt forgiveness for fishing businesses; resources to build up local supply chains; medical care and protective measures for fishermen and seafood workers; and getting more seafood supplied into the Department of Agricultureโ€™s $19 billion Coronavirus Food Assistance Program.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

MASSACHUSETTS: Local lobstermen face an uncertain season

May 5, 2020 โ€” As Dave Cataldo Sr. loaded lobster traps into his boat with his son Monday at the Marshfield Town Pier, there was one person missing from the dock who in past years always made sure to stop by and say hello at the beginning of the season.

โ€œThis is the first year our dealer has not come down,โ€ Cataldo said.

The wholesale lobster buyer normally comes down to the docks around the opening of the season to shake hands with him and his son, Dave Cataldo Jr., to check in and to ask how their winters were. The Cataldosโ€™ buyer isnโ€™t the only one missing.

โ€œThereโ€™s nobody down here,โ€ the senior Cataldo said.

Lobsters are normally a sought-after commodity and in past years, wholesalers have swamped the harbor with refrigerated trucks, ready and offering to buy the catch being unloaded at the harbor, he said.

With the economy on pause because of the coronavirus crisis, the future of lobstering, the demand and more importantly, the price per pound, is an unknown.

The younger Cataldo said restaurants, one of the biggest purchasers of lobsters, are mostly shut down and even when they are allowed to reopen, it will be with fewer customers spaced further apart.

Read the full story at The Patriot Ledger

MAINE: Lobstermen help schools amidst pandemic crisis

May 5, 2020 โ€” When the coronavirus closed Maine schools, thousands of students who already qualified for free and reduced cost in-school meals faced the risk of hunger. With many parents suddenly out of work, many more students faced serious food insecurity.

At the same time, most Maine lobstermen found that there was no market for their catch. At one point, late in March and early in April, dealers were telling the lobstermen not to fish. In some places, the boat price for lobsters dropped as low as $1 per pound and many lobstermen began peddling their landings from the back of pickup trucks parked along the side of the road or in empty parking lots.

On Deer Isle, those unhappy circumstances sparked a move to turn lemons into lemonade or, more exactly, to turn unsaleable lobsters into lobster rolls for distribution to students from School Union 76, which includes Deer Isle/Stonington, Brooklin and Sedgwick.

According to Carla Guenther, senior scientist at the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, the idea originated with Deer Isle lobsterman Brent Oliver and his wife, Sue, while they, Guenther and her husband, lobsterman Dominic Zanke, were off island for a vacation at the beginning of March.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Fishermen, small seafood businesses seek more federal COVID-19 relief

May 5, 2020 โ€” More than 200 independent fishermen, seafood businesses, and their advocates sent a letter on 4 May to members of the Trump administration and key congressional leaders urging them to help the struggling industry, and make them aware of the plight smaller ventures face due to the COVID-19 crisis.

The letter thanks the officials for their efforts so far, including the USD 300 million (EUR 276.8 million) in disaster relief assistance provided in the CARES Act. However, they added that more is needed to offset โ€œthe unprecedented lossesโ€ suffered recently, and what they expect will happen in the coming months.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

USDA to spend USD 70 million in COVID-19 relief funds on domestic seafood

May 5, 2020 โ€” The U.S Department of Agriculture announced on Monday, 4 May, it had purchased USD 470 million (EUR 433.4 million) worth of agricultural products as part of its COVID-19 response, with nearly 15 percent of that spent on seafood products.

According to a USDA release, the USD 70 million (EUR 64.6 million) in seafood, along with the remaining agricultural goods, will go to the departmentโ€™s Section 32 program, which purchases surpluses and directs their use in childrenโ€™s nutrition and disaster relief programs.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

US sees e-commerce, retail seafood sales spike in April

May 5, 2020 โ€” Sales of seafood in supermarkets, through e-commerce grocery outlets, and via meal kits continued their strong growth in the United States in April.

Online grocery sales surged 37 percent from March to April 2020 to reach USD 5.3 billion (EUR 4.9 billion), a recent Brick Meets Click/Symphony RetailAI Online Grocery Shopping Survey found. There were also record grocery e-commerce sales of USD 4 billion (EUR 3.7 billion) in March, the research firms revealed.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NOAA again extends waiver to allow fishing without monitors

May 5, 2020 โ€” The federal government is extending its suspension of the requirement for at-sea monitors in some East Coast fisheries until at least the middle of the month.

Some fishing boats are required to carry workers on board who collect data about commercial fishing. They are called observers or at-sea monitors, and the data they gather helps inform federal management of fisheries.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said its waiving the requirement in some Northeast fisheries until May 16. The agency waived the requirement to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bangor Daily News