Saving Seafood

Canadian authorities evaluate Cermaq’s planned salmon farms in Nova Scotia

February 3, 2020 — Nova Scotia’s fisheries and aquaculture ministry is taking people’s concerns about Cermaq Canada’s plan to establish operations in the province “very seriously”, CBC reported.

Cermaq Canada is looking at spending CAD 500 million ($378m) to create up to 20 open-pen salmon farms and land-based support facilities in Nova Scotia.

Some people who work and live in communities nestled along coastal areas Cermaq is eyeing for development have been speaking out and protesting against the plans.

However, open-pen fish farming is a huge economic driver for communities, bringing a tremendous amount of tax revenue for the province each year, according to Nova Scotia’s aquaculture minister, Keith Colwell.

“Open pen fish-farms already exist in the province, have for decades, and they will in the future,” Colwell told CBC.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

The small change that meant big losses for lobstermen

December 13, 2019 — A sixteenth of an inch doesn’t seem like much. But it added up to a whole lot for Nova Scotia lobstermen in December 1989.

A new law had been passed in the United States that increased the minimum allowable size of lobsters for import, by that seemingly insignificant margin.

The CBC camera showed a live lobster being measured using a specialized device.

But as Halifax reporter Paul Barr explained, the difference was anything but insignificant.

“That might not sound like much of a change to a non-fisherman,” he explained. “But in reality, it means as much as a quarter-pound increase in weight.”

That meant that fishermen were spending time catching lobsters they couldn’t export.

Read the full story at CBC News

Cooke opens new AC Covert seafood distribution centre and retail outlet in Nova Scotia

December 3, 2019 — The following was released by AC Covert:

AC Covert, one of Canada’s largest seafood suppliers, is hosting an open house for the local community on Dec. 4th from 2-6pm at it’s new distribution centre and retail outlet at 390 Higney Avenue, located in the Burnside Business Park, Dartmouth, NS.

Since 1938, AC Covert has been the fishmonger supplier of choice for the finest retailers and food service professionals in Atlantic Canada. AC Covert delivers the freshest responsibly sourced and prepared fish to fine dining restaurants, hotels, gastro pubs, professional caterers and retailers locally and across North America.

AC Covert distributors was purchased by the Cooke family in 2008 and now offers over 400 different fresh and frozen seafood products to customers including smoked salmon, lobster, halibut, scallops and much more. The open house on Dec. 4th will feature seafood product samples, special offers and prizes.

“AC Covert now employs 30 people and Cooke spent $5.2 million constructing this new two-story, 26,000 square foot distribution centre and retail outlet where 6 delivery trucks operate from six days a week,” said Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke Inc. “This expansion is an integral part of our growth plan and we are part way through investing $112 million in Nova Scotia.”

“Nova Scotia is Canada’s number one seafood supplier and we now export to 80 international markets,” said Keith Colwell, Nova Scotia’s Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. “We’re home to a diverse range of premium quality seafood and value-added products and it’s wonderful that AC Covert has expanded in our province to distribute products from over 30 Nova Scotia seafood companies.”

“Burnside is the largest industrial park north of Boston and east of Montreal, with almost 2,000 enterprises and approximately 30,000 employees,” said Mayor Mike Savage of Halifax Regional Municipality. “Cooke’s investment in AC Covert shows how our growing community is a beacon for attracting business investment creating local jobs.”

AC Covert is open Monday-Saturday from 8:00 am – 4:00 pm.

Unique challenges await Trudeau’s newly-appointed Canadian fisheries minister

November 21, 2019 — Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has chosen Nova Scotia’s Bernadette Jordan to head up the country’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and to oversee its Coast Guard.

This marks the second time that Jordan has held a cabinet seat in Canada – Trudeau initially brought her aboard in January 2019 as the minister of rural economic development. Jordan, who was first elected in 2015 to represent South Shore-St. Margarets, takes over the fisheries minister role from British Columbia’s Jonathan Wilkinson, who will serve as the minister of environment and climate change in Trudeau’s updated cabinet.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New tool enables Nova Scotia lobster fishery to address impacts of climate change

October 15, 2019 — U.S. and Canadian researchers have developed a tool that incorporates projected changes in ocean climate onto a geographic fishery management area. Now fishermen, resource managers, and policy-makers can use it to plan for the future sustainability of the lobster fishery in Nova Scotia and Canadian waters of the Gulf of Maine.

“Climate change has socio- on coastal communities and the seafood market, but integrating that information into planning and decision-making has been a challenge,” said Vincent Saba, a fishery biologist at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center and a co-author of the study. “Ocean warming is leading to an accelerated redistribution of marine species. Knowing how animals will shift distribution, and what to do about shifts across management borders both regional and international, will be critical to planning on how to adapt to those changes.”

American  is Canada’s most valuable fishery, contributing 44 percent of the total commercial value of all fisheries in Atlantic Canada in 2016. Lobster landings have been trending upward in recent decades, and many small rural communities in Atlantic Canada rely heavily on lobster for their economic well-being. Changing climate could have a significant impact on the fishery and on those communities.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Inside the secret, million-dollar world of baby eel trafficking

June 26, 2019 — In the parking lot of an Irving gas station in Aulac, N.B., not far from the Nova Scotia border, Curtis Kiley popped the trunk of a Toyota Corolla.

Inside was a white bucket containing what looked like a giant hairball, the type that might be pulled from a bathtub drain.

Except it was alive — a wriggling, slithering mess.

This was just an initial sample Kiley had brought to show a prospective black-market buyer, a woman he knew only through text message as “Danielle.”

He was ultimately hoping to unload up to 300 kilograms of the tiny creatures, a huge haul worth $1.3 million on the open market, but one he was offering at a steep discount.

Moments later, Kiley’s world turned from dollar signs to handcuffs. He’d been nabbed in a federal fisheries sting, one targeting poaching in a little-known but enormously lucrative industry that plays out each spring in Nova Scotia’s rivers and brooks.

At the centre of the undercover operation by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in May 2018 was the most unlikely of creatures — baby eels.

Read the full story at CBC News

How ocean mapping changed the way a seafood giant fishes

June 5, 2019 — North America’s largest shellfish company showcased some of its advanced ocean-mapping technology Tuesday at an Oceans Week conference in Dartmouth, N.S., illustrating how it is making the industry more efficient and sustainable.

Geographic information systems, or GIS, has transformed the way Clearwater Seafoods fishes, said Jim Mosher, the company’s director of harvest science.

Ocean mapping reduced the fuel bill in its offshore lobster fishery by shaving nearly 10,000 kilometres a year in vessel transiting, or movement in the fishing ground, he said.

In the scallop fishery, this technology reveals areas that should be closed because scallops are too young to harvest.

Read the full story at CBC

McDonald’s rolls out Canada-wide product featuring MSC-certified haddock

May 14, 2019 — After a successful pilot in Atlantic Canada last summer, McDonald’s Canada is rolling out a new Fish & Chips meal at its restaurants throughout the country.

The fish used in the meals is Marine Stewardship Council-certified haddock, supplied by High Liner Foods in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada. McDonald’s restaurants expect to use around 260,000 pounds of Atlantic haddock for the Fish & Chips during the limited-time offer, McDonald’s Canada said in a press release.

The haddock is caught off of Nova Scotia and packed in Atlantic Canada.

The new limited-time meal includes two pieces of fish coated with a crunchy batter and served with French fries and tartar dipping sauce.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Clearwater changes lobster fishing practices, asks for early MSC audit

February 25, 2019 –Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada-based Clearwater Seafoods has changed its controversial lobster fishing practices, which resulted in a fine from the Canadian government and a downgrade in the Ocean Wise recommendation for its lobster fishery.

Clearwater, via CS ManPar, was convicted of repeatedly storing 3,800 lobster traps on the ocean floor more than the limit of 72 hours. The offenses took place in Lobster Fishing Area 41, which is a unique territory exclusively licensed to Clearwater. Area 41 runs 80 kilometers from the shore out to the 200-mile limit from Georges Bank to the Laurentian Channel.  Clearwater paid a CAD 30,000 (USD 22,770, EUR 20,075) fine in relation to its guilty plea.

On 15 February, the CBC reported the fishery was downgraded in the recommendations made by Ocean Wise for sustainable fisheries.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

A deadly year in Canadian commercial fisheries

November 6, 2018 — The deadliest year in over a decade for commercial fishermen has the Transportation Safety Board of Canada sounding the alarm over what it calls the industry’s “disturbing safety record.”

So far in 2018, 17 people have died aboard fishing vessels, the most since 2004.

Those deaths were largely the result of crew members not wearing personal flotation devices or deploying safety signals, the board said Monday as it released its annual Watchlist.

“The industry’s safety culture still has a long way to go before its members stop accepting more risk than is necessary,” the board’s chair, Kathy Fox, told a news conference in Gatineau, Quebec.

In addition to fishing safety, the independent agency’s yearly report also calls attention to railway sign safety and runway safety at Canadian airports.

While safety measures have been recommended and implemented over the years in commercial fisheries, the board said it’s disappointed with the lack of results.

The number of fishing vessel deaths continues to fluctuate year to year. For example, there were 17 deaths in 2004, eight in 2016, three in 2017 and 17 again so far this year.

Read the full story at CBC News