Saving Seafood

Oregon State researchers create tool to help protect native fish from hybridizing with non-natives

March 8, 2022 — Oregon State University researchers have created a tool to assess the risk of hybridization among native and non-native fish, a development that could aid natural resource managers trying to protect threatened or endangered freshwater fish species.

The introduction of non-native species poses challenges to native species, including competition for resources and habitat, exposure to diseases carried by the introduced species and the risk of hybridization, which occurs naturally in wild populations as part of the evolutionary process.

The Oregon State research, just published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science, focused on two species: bull trout, a fish native to western North America that is protected under the Endangered Species Act; and brook trout, a native to eastern North America introduced in the West more than 100 years ago for recreational fishing purposes.

Bull trout were once abundant in Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada, Idaho and Montana but today are found in less than half of their historic range, and no longer exist in California. They are threatened by habitat degradation and fragmentation, blockage of migratory corridors, poor water quality, the effects of climate change and fisheries management practices, including the introduction of brook trout.

Read the full story from Oregon State University

Catching Crabs in a Suffocating Sea

March 7, 2022 — The crab pots are piled high at the fishing docks in Newport, Oregon. Stacks of tire-sized cages fill the parking lot, festooned with colorful buoys and grimy ropes. By this time in July, most commercial fishers have called it a year for Dungeness crab. But not Dave Bailey, the skipper of the 14-meter Morningstar II. The season won’t end for another month, and “demand for fresh, live crab never stops,” Bailey says with a squinting smile and fading Midwestern accent.

Most marine animals don’t breathe air, but they need oxygen to live, absorbing it from the water as they swim, burrow, or cling to the seafloor. But lately, bouts of dangerously low oxygen levels—or hypoxia—have afflicted parts of the North American west coast, affecting critters from halibut to sea stars. These “dead zones” cause ecological disruption and economic pain for fishers like Bailey, who can’t sell crabs that have suffocated in their traps.

The phenomenon offers a preview of what climate change holds for many other parts of Earth’s oceans, which are already stressed by human impacts. As seawater warms, it holds less oxygen. Warmer surface water also acts like a cap that prevents the gas from mixing from the atmosphere down into the deep. And rising air temperatures can shift weather patterns in ways that worsen the problem.

It’s a subtle but significant change. While well-oxygenated water contains about eight milligrams of oxygen per liter, hypoxic water holds less than two and can sometimes approach zero. Overall, the world’s oceans have lost up to two percent of their total oxygen content over the last 50 years, and scientists estimate that they could lose another two to four percent over the next century. By 2100, some amount of climate-related oxygen loss could affect more than three-quarters of the ocean’s area, inflicting widespread damage to marine ecosystems and the billions of people who depend on them.

Read the full story at Hakai Magazine

Cooke gets two wins, advancing Salish Fish steelhead project in Washington

March 1, 2022 — Cooke Aquaculture Pacific has won two victories allowing its plan to farm steelhead in the U.S. state of Washington to advance.

In a unanimous, 9-0 decision, the Washington Supreme Court upheld a decision by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) to allow Cook to convert its idle Atlantic salmon net-pen farms to raise steelhead. The move was precipitated by Washington’s ban on farming of non-native species in its waters.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

BOEM Identifies Three Potential Wind Lease Areas Off Oregon

February 28, 2022 — The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has selected three areas off the coast of southern Oregon for potential offshore wind development, and its picks have attracted immediate opposition from fishermens’ advocacy organizations.

According to BOEM, the planning for the three call areas has been under way since late 2019. The initial call for information is a request for comments from stakeholders and the general public, and it is a prelude to the designation of specific lease areas. BOEM’s objective is to identify enough space for three gigawatts of near-term offshore wind power capacity.

The northernmost call area is located just off Coos Bay, Oregon, one of the largest commercial fishing ports in the region. It is also the largest of the three areas – about 1,360 square miles – and the area with the greatest total potential for energy generation. The southernmost call area, near Brookings, has the highest average wind speeds and the lowest levelized cost of energy.

Read the full story at the Maritime Executive

Seafood industry reacts to BOEM offshore call areas in Oregon

February 28, 2022 — The following was released by the West Coast Seafood Processors Association:

Offshore wind energy is coming to Oregon, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, but the seafood industry says it’s an oncoming windstorm.

BOEM plans to announce Friday, Feb. 25, 2022, three proposed “call areas” off Oregon. BOEM identifies these ocean areas with high wind potential as places companies might want to develop to harness the energy of offshore wind. These massive areas, covering 2,181 square miles, already are utilized by the fishermen to harvest nutritious, sustainable seafood proteins.

As part of its process, BOEM will solicit interest from wind energy developers before doing a basic environmental assessment of the areas. Comprehensive environmental studies will be completed later, after leases are already issued and enormous investments are already made.

“The effect of offshore wind development on fisheries, the habitat and the California Current is unknown. Placing giant turbines and anchors in a current system that is largely free-flowing and structure-free could cause irreparable harm to seabirds, marine mammals, fisheries management regimes and more,” Southern Oregon Ocean Resource Coalition (SOORC) Chair Susan Chambers said. “Robust environmental analyses need to be completed before areas are identified and leased, not after. Our productive California Current must be protected.

One area, known to commercial fishermen as “the mud hole” is known to be a highly productive shrimp bed, as well as a key area for sole harvested by groundfish fishermen. It is also recognized as an important feeding area for seabirds.

Fishermen already are questioning the value of placing turbines in areas off Morro Bay and Humboldt Bay, Calif. The early environmental analyses and area identification memos of those areas included very little socio-economic data regarding the potential effects on the seafood industry and no consideration of the cumulative impacts of potential additional wind farms off the U.S. West Coast.

“These turbines are going to blow me off the water,” Fishermen’s Marketing Association President Travis Hunter said. Hunter and his family have fished for years off southern Oregon and northern California and in the Humboldt Wind Energy Area. “These areas will displace hard-working fishermen.”

The seafood industry recognizes the value in renewable energy, but at what cost? Fishermen and processors have their roots in coastal communities. Displacing them in favor of large out-of-town – and frequently out-of-country – companies is a net loss.

“Developers are largely funded by foreign companies. Most of the profits, at Oregon taxpayers’ expense, will be funneled overseas. This is not ‘the Oregon way,’” Shrimp Producers Marketing Cooperative Secretary Nick Edwards said.

The future of several Oregon commercial fisheries, processors, fishery-related businesses, and the economic development coastal communities derive from those industries, hang in the balance.

“This is what results from government agency lip service versus authentic engagement,” said Heather Mann, Director of the Midwater Trawlers Cooperative. She was speaking in response to last night’s revelation that the Bureau of Energy and Management’s Oregon (BOEM) call areas for offshore wind energy development cover more than 2,000 square miles of productive fishing grounds in Southern Oregon. “BOEM has essentially chosen prime fishing areas for turbines threatening not just Oregon harvesting and processing jobs, but food security as well.”

Fishing groups all along the West Coast have been pleading with BOEM to have a seat at the table, not be a mime in the check-the-box outreach that often happens with government agencies.

“The importance of where these gigantic, floating wind farms are placed cannot be under-emphasized. If we do not get this decision absolutely correct, the fallout could have a dire domino economic effect on all Oregon commercial fisheries, including the vitally important Oregon Dungeness crab fishery,” Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission Executive Director Hugh Link said.

Read the release here

US resumes bilateral mollusk trade with EU after 10-year ban

February 4, 2022 — The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced on 4 February that the U.S. and European Union will resume bilateral trade of live, raw, and processed bivalve molluscan shellfish.

The negotiated agreement marks the first time bilateral trade of mollusks between the E.U. and U.S. will be allowed since 2011. The new agreement will allow producers in the U.S. states of Massachusetts and Washington to send mollusks to the E.U., and will allow producers in Spain and the Netherlands to send products to the U.S.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

Cool Ocean Waters, Abundant Nutrients Provide Rosy Outlook for Washington Salmon

February 1, 2022 — Scientific markers used to predict the health and productivity of marine species such as juvenile salmon were positive in 2021, the second most favorable since 1998, according to analysis from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Fisheries biologists are cautiously optimistic that those conditions will persist into the near future, supporting the health of juvenile, ocean-run salmon off the coasts of Washington and Oregon.

The report looked at a number of oceanic health markers: atmospheric conditions, water temperature, salinity, oxygen levels, current movement, and biomass of Chinook and Coho salmon, along with food sources such as plankton and small crustaceans. Many of those indicators were more favorable than every year in the last 24, outside of 2008.

“Every once in a while, things are in alignment. … In 2021, everything from water temperatures to phytoplankton, zooplankton, and larval fishes were pointing in the same direction,” Brian Burke, a fishery biologist with NOAA, told MyNorthwest.

Burke attributes those conditions to a strong upwelling in the Pacific along the 45-degree parallel north, a term which refers to atmospheric and ocean conditions that bring cold, nutrient rich water from the deep ocean toward the surface.

Read the full story at Seafood News

New study zeros in on market squid increase off Oregon

January 31, 2022 — New research has found market squid populations increased fivefold off the Oregon and Washington state coasts in recent years, a population boom and an expansion north tied to several years of extremely warm ocean temperatures.

It is a glimpse of the possible future.

Mary Hunsicker, the co-author of the study and a research ecologist with NOAA Fisheries, said it is “what we might expect to see in Oregon waters with continued, long-term warming of ocean temperatures and more extreme warming events due to climate change.”

Hunsicker and her fellow researchers used survey data that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration collects every year from designated spots off the West Coast. The surveys are independent from fisheries and do not target squid, but squid kept showing up.

While researchers saw major increases in the squid population in the north, they did not see the same level of increase in California, the squid’s more traditional home. Market squid is a cornerstone of California’s commercial fishing industry, both in value and in pounds landed.

Read the full story at The Daily Astorian

Alaska legislators discuss bycatch concerns ahead of critical regional halibut meeting

November 26, 2021 — An Alaska legislative committee heard from state and federal fisheries officials earlier in the month prior to a critical regional meeting on halibut bycatch.

The three-hour meeting centered on bycatch concerns with chinook and chum salmon, crab and halibut. Commissioner Douglas Vincent-Lang of the Department and Fish and Game spoke first about catastrophic chum salmon returns in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. Bycatch is the unintentional harvest of non-target species while commercial fishing.

According to state data, the Yukon alone was down this year by roughly 1.5-2 million chum salmon from pre-season projections. Chum salmon bycatch by trawlers, which has been rising in recent years, cannot alone explain those reduced numbers, Vincent-Lang said, and the state will now try to determine what caused the historic Western Alaska salmon failures.

But, it was halibut bycatch limits for trawlers that target pollock and cod in the Bering Sea that proved more controversial.

Read the full story at Alaska’s News Source

 

OREGON: West Coast Salmon Trollers Get Federal Support for Disaster Request

November 2, 2021 — Oregon’s coastal delegation is going to bat for the state’s salmon fishermen.

Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, with Reps. Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader and Suzanne Bonamici, all democrats, are urging the U.S. Department of Commerce to grant a catastrophic regional fishery disaster declaration for Oregon, the lawmakers said in a press release. Three consecutive years of challenging weather and conditions have hit salmon populations particularly hard, they said.

“The value of salmon to Oregon cannot be overstated. In addition to the economic activity generated by this industry, salmon are an important part of the cultural heritage of Pacific Northwest tribes, generate recreational activity, and are a treasured natural resource across the state,” they wrote in a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo last week. “However, the challenging impacts of climate change, increased drought, and changing ocean conditions complicate the recovery of salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest.”

Read the full story at Seafood News