Saving Seafood

Trans-Ocean Inc. Awarded MSC US Ocean Champion Award

November 24, 2020 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) awarded Lou Shaheen and the entire team at Trans-Ocean Products Inc. the 2020 US MSC Ocean Champion Award for their continued dedication to seafood sustainability and for going above and beyond the MSC standard to make MSC certified products available to consumers. Trans-Ocean Products Inc. is the maker of Crab Classic imitation crab, or surimi seafood, featuring MSC certified wild Alaska pollock. Lou Shaheen, VP of Sales & Marketing accepted the award on behalf of the whole Trans-Ocean Products Inc. team.

“Trans-Ocean was an early believer in the benefits of MSC certification. We proudly feature the MSC blue fish label on our packaging and in our marketing because it gives our products added credibility as high quality, sustainably-sourced seafood,” Shaheen commented.

“It is with great pleasure that the MSC US recognizes Trans-Ocean Products Inc. with the MSC US Ocean Champion award. Their diligent and persistent support of the MSC mission and vision has been and continues to be inspiring,” said Eric Critchlow, MSC’s program director, USA. “MSC’s recent consumer insights survey shows that high quality product coupled with third-party sustainability certification resonates with consumers – Trans-Ocean’s success demonstrates that it meets consumers’ preferences as demonstrated by their wallets and forks.”

The MSC US Ocean Champion Award was established in 2017 to reward fisheries and companies engaged in the MSC program who demonstrated continued leadership on sustainability above and beyond the MSC standard requirements. Each awardee includes an internal champion (person or team) who has been an internal catalyst for change demonstrating leadership and the ability to spark positive change within the industry. The glass award featuring a wave with the awardee’s name and company inscribed is handmade in downtown Seattle, WA.

According to a 2020 global study commissioned by MSC 55% of U.S. seafood consumers believe that we must consume seafood only from sustainable sources to protect the ocean. Furthermore, 64% of Americans want retailers’ and brands’ claims about sustainability and the environment to be clearly labeled by an independent organization, such as the MSC. Trans-Ocean Inc. is leading on third party labels with the complete product line MSC certified and carrying the MSC blue fish label on package.

Trans-Ocean Products Inc. was among the first US seafood brands to gain MSC Chain of Custody (CoC) certification and include the MSC blue fish label on product. Trans-Ocean Products Inc. has been at the forefront of promoting MSC as a mark of environmental responsibility to the consumer market, and has featured MSC message in consumer advertising and other promotional activities helping to encourage Americans to buy seafood that’s good for them and good for the ocean.

Russian and American Scientists say warming water is pushing Bering Sea pollock into new territory

November 20, 2020 — In a new study, scientists have linked warming Arctic temperatures, changing wind patterns and shifting currents to movement of commercially valuable Alaska pollock in the Bering Sea.

The Bering Sea has seen the loss of a summer cold water barrier in recent years, which used to keep pollock from spreading out and moving north.

But while scientists are seeing drastic shifts in pollock movement patterns, further research needs to be conducted to know what the changes mean for communities like Unalaska and Dutch Harbor and the billion-dollar pollock industry.

“This research is really critical because pollock are a key ecological component of the Bering Sea shelf food web supporting the largest commercial fishery in the U.S. by biomass,” said Robert Foy, NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center director. “To get an accurate assessment of pollock abundance so that resource managers can set sustainable catch limits, we have to be able to understand pollock distribution, which certainly looks different under a warm water regime.”

Read the full story at KTOO

Russia Hopes to Compensate Unsuccessful Salmon Fishing Season by Increase of Pollock Catch This Year

October 27, 2020 — Russia hopes to compensate the unsuccessful salmon fishing season this year with the increase of production of ivasi sardine, mackerel and pollock, according to recent statements made by the head of the Russian Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo), Ilya Shestakov, during his recent meeting with the Russian President Vladimir Putin.  

During the meeting, which was dedicated to the situation in the domestic fishing sector, Shestakov said despite the pandemic, the current situation in the industry remains stable.  

Read the full story at Seafood News

GAPP’s “Wild Alaska Pollock” marketing campaign hitting huge ROI numbers

October 15, 2020 — In the past year, the Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) trade group has made a concerted push to expand the market reach of Alaska pollock both domestically in the United States and globally.

Since enlisting a new board of directors and expanding its annual budget to USD 4 million (EUR 3.4 million) in 2019, the organization has built awareness and demand for its marquee product through the use of the “wild Alaska pollock” tagline.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

What Happened to the Pollock Born in 2015?

October 9, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

n 2015, NOAA Fisheries scientists saw the lowest number of pollock larvae in the 30-year history of their Gulf of Alaska spring survey. They also observed the lowest number of juveniles in their late-summer survey, which has occurred since 2000. The low abundance in both surveys coincided with a marine heatwave of record ocean temperatures. Scientist Lauren Rogers and colleagues attribute the absence of larval and juvenile fish to environmental conditions that were not ideal for pollock growth and development during the heatwave.

“Marine ecosystems are complex with lots of connections,” said Rogers. “When you are trying to identify what might be behind a decline in abundance of fish at a particular age, it is often a series of factors that are at play.”

That is exactly what scientists found when looking at young pollock survival in 2015. Their survival was affected by:

  • Low-salinity conditions, which affected egg buoyancy and survival
  • Low abundance of prey for larval fish
  • Poor body condition of young-of-the-year (age-0) juveniles

Read the full release here

Fall fishing: Alaska’s commercial fleets load up on pollock, Dungeness, king crabs and more

October 9, 2020 — As always, there is a lot of fishing action going on after summer salmon.

At Southeast Alaska, beam trawlers are back on the water targeting 650,000 pounds of pink and sidestripe shrimp in a third opener.

Southeast’s Dungeness season reopened on Oct. 1, and a few million pounds are likely to come out of that fishery. There will again be no opener for red or blue king crab because of low abundances.

On Oct. 5, a hundred or more divers also could be heading down for more than 1.7 million pounds of red sea cucumbers. A catch of just under 3 million pounds of sea urchins also is up for grabs, but there may be a lack of buyers. Southeast divers also are targeting giant geoduck clams.

At Prince William Sound, a 15,000-pound test fishery just wrapped up for golden king crabs; likewise, a nearly 7 million pound golden king crab fishery is ongoing along the Aleutian Islands.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

ALASKA: Pollock: Season surges as fish sticks 
rule the covid marketplace

October 9, 2020 — Alaska pollock trawlers were well on track to catch their TAC for the year, and increased demand for seafood during the covid-19 pandemic threw some optimistic twists into market dynamics.

The TAC for the Bering Sea had been set at 1.425 million metric tons, with another 19,000 metric tons coming out of the Aleutian Islands harvest area. While the Aleutian Islands TAC has remained unchanged in recent years, those for the Bering Sea have been nudging upward from 1.345 million metric tons in 2018 and 1.397 million metric tons of last year.  

The TAC for the Gulf of Alaska, meanwhile, has also risen slightly from last year’s 112,000 metric tons with 115,930 metric tons for this year, and trawlers in August continued plugging away on their C-season allotments.

The A-season for pollock trawling in the Bering Sea began on Jan. 20 and ended on April 30, with nearly all four sectors (inshore, catcher-processor, mothership, and CDQ groups) catching their allotted percentages of the TAC.

As of August, the four trawl sectors were scattered about the Bering Sea and mopping up quotas for the B-season, which began on June 10 and ends on Oct. 31.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Alaska pollock, groundfish sector demands ‘non-negotiable’ military protection after run-ins with Russian warships

October 6, 2020 — The At-Sea Processors Association (APA) says US military protection of the Bering Sea groundfish fleets should be “non-negotiable” after a spate of incidents involving Russian military vessels in the US Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Bering Sea in August and September.

Recent confrontations initiated by Russian warships and warplanes against US-flagged fishing vessels operating lawfully within the US EEZ have caused fishing boat captains and their crews to fear for their safety, disrupting the business operations of fishing companies at a critical point in a very important fishing season, Stephanie Madsen, executive director of the At-sea Processors Association wrote in a prepared statement for a US Senate hearing, which was postponed at the last minute.

Read the full story at IntraFish

Predator-prey interaction study reveals more food does not always mean more consumption

September 30, 2020 — Scientists at the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center have developed an unusually rich picture of who is eating whom off the Northeastern United States. The findings, published recently in Fish and Fisheries, provide a close look at fish feeding habits for 17 fish species, predators, and their prey.

The predators are divided into 48 predator-size categories, and 14  species. Fish predators included Atlantic cod, Atlantic herring, haddock, goosefish, pollock, spiny dogfish, winter flounder, and yellowtail founder among others. Prey species included forage fish, squid, zooplankton, shrimp-like crustaceans, shellfish, brittle stars, sand dollars, and sea urchins.

“We have the largest, continuous dataset of fish feeding habits in the world at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, and that enabled us to do a study of this scale and scope,” said Brian Smith, a food habits researcher at the center and lead author of the study. “We focused on common and important prey for the many predatory fishes of interest, and hopefully filled in some gaps in information relating prey availability to predation.”

Feeding patterns within and among different groups of fishes vary by the size of the fish, the abundance or density of the prey, and other factors. Researchers who study  need to account for this predation in their models. Few studies, however, have looked simultaneously at the feeding patterns among different groups of predatory fish—fish feeders, plankton feeders, and benthic or bottom feeders. The study also looked at how those groups interact with their prey throughout the water column.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Russian pollock fishery enters MSC assessment

September 30, 2020 — The following was released by the Marine Stewardship Council:

The Western Bering Sea Pollock fishery in the Pollock Catchers Association (PCA) in the Navarinsky area of the Bering Sea is being assessed to the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) Fisheries Standard by Lloyd’s Register.

The independent assessor will assess stocks of pollock in the West Bering Sea, the environmental impact of mid-water trawling, and the effectiveness of the fishery’s management system. The assessment is expected to conclude in June 2021.

The PCA’s mid-water trawl pollock fishery in the Sea of Okhotsk is already certified to the MSC Standard. It achieved this in September 2013 and was successfully re-certificated in 2018, demonstrating its commitment to sustainability and well-managed fishing operations. The certified fishery represents 43% of all Russian Pollock catch, leaving 57% of Russian catch not MSC certified.

MSC’s Program Development Director, Camiel Derichs said: “I’m delighted that the Pollock Catchers Association’s West Bering sea pollock fishery has now entered MSC assessment, driving the proportion of Russian pollock fisheries engaged in the MSC program to new highs. The improvements the PCA has worked on with other stakeholders in Russia over several years now gives the fishery confidence to be publicly assessed against the MSC standards by an accredited third partly team of experts. We wish PCA all the best during the independent assessment process.”

About The Pollock Catchers Association 

The Pollock Catchers Association (PCA) was established in 2006 and is one of the largest associations in the Russian fishing industry. It includes 26 companies employing more than 12,000 people and has 90 fishing and processing vessels. It catches roughly 1.6 million tonnes of fish and seafood per year.

PCA members primarily fish for pollock (Theragra chalcogramma / Gadus chalcogrammus) in the Far Eastern seas. PCA enterprises reports it has 63% of the pollock catch (about 1.1 million tonnes in 2019) in Russia, which is about 32% of the catch around the world.

The Bering Sea is the second most significant fishing area for pollock in Russia, after the Sea of Okhotsk. Pollock harvesting is allowed year-round in the Bering Sea, except during the spring spawning period when fisheries are closed. The total allowable catch (TAC) of pollock in the West Bering Sea has been set at roughly 390,000 tonnes for 2020.

The fishery has carried out research on the impacts of marine mammals, and this year will include research on the impact on birds. The PCA fishery has also invested in a project to modernise fishing gears and if successful, fisheries may be able to become even more selective and avoid unwanted catch from the target stocks.