shrimp Archives - Page 37 of 43

ASMFC to Review Gulf of Maine Shrimp Stock Survey, Determine 2017 Season Status in November Meeting

October 20, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission will decide in November whether the Gulf of Maine shrimp fishery, which has been closed for the previous three seasons, will remain closed for the 2017 season.

The commission is scheduled to meet Nov. 10 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, first to review the most recent stock status report for northern shrimp and technical recommendations from the shrimp advisory panel. It will then set the specifications for the upcoming season.

Tina Berger, ASMFC spokeswoman, said the 2016 status report has not been finalized, but said she would be surprised if the stock status report revealed anything resembling an extraordinary comeback for the species.

“I haven’t seen the report, but I would be surprised if there was a season,” Berger said. “If there is one, it would probably be a very small one. But again, I haven’t seen the report.”

The stock status reports dating back to 2012 reveal a species in free fall, with record low levels of abundance and biomass and poor recruitment since 2012. Those assessments showed problems with overfishing, warming water temperatures and a dwindling number of spawning females.

The dire state of the fishery and the resulting closures also have given rise to a discussion among New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts about future fishery management options for the beleaguered fishery — including limiting access to what historically has been an open fishery.

Those discussions bogged down last year, and the ASMFC halted further development of the draft amendment addressing access to the collapsed fishery.

Berger said the states met again this summer to try to iron out differences, but came no closer to finding the common ground necessary to draft a workable amendment with limited entry at its core.

“It’s still in the development stages,” Berger said. “They figured that, given the state of the stock, there really was no reason to rush it at this point given the status of the stock.”

Maine harvesters dominated the fishery the last time it was open in 2013. Of the 207 vessels permitted to shrimp in the Gulf of Maine, 180 had hailing ports in Maine, while Massachusetts and New Hampshire each had 13. One vessel landed its shrimp in both Maine and New Hampshire.

Maine shrimpers in 2013 accounted for 83 percent, or 255.5 metric tons, of the total 307 metric tons of shrimp landed — which represented only 50.8 percent of the allowable catch and was the lowest seasonal harvest since the fishery was closed altogether in 1978.

New Hampshire was next with 10 percent (31.3 metric tons) and Massachusetts was third with 7 percent (20.3 metric tons).

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission to debate 2017 shrimp moratorium

October 19, 2016 — The Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission will decide in November whether the Gulf of Maine shrimp fishery, which has been closed for the previous three seasons, will remain closed for the 2017 season.

“I haven’t seen the report, but I would be surprised if there was a season,” Berger said. “If there is one, it would probably be a very small one. But again, I haven’t seen the report.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

New AP story finds labor issues persist in Thai seafood industry

September 29, 2016 — A new Associated Press story explores progress made in the past year in reforming abusive labor practices in the shrimp processing sector in Thailand.

The article, “Promises unmet as Thailand tries to reform shrimp industry,” published 22 September, investigates the the difficulties faced by the industry in attempting to implement reforms. The article follows up on a March 2015 AP investigation titled “Seafood from Slaves,” which detailed the use of human trafficking, forced labor and violence against workers in the Thai seafood industry.

“The Associated Press…found that while some Thai companies that export shrimp to the U.S. have given formerly entrapped workers better jobs in-house, others still use middlemen who employ laborers in remote, guarded warehouses,” the AP reported in its new article. “That’s despite industry vows to end outside shrimp processing by the end of last year after human trafficking was exposed in the sheds.”

The owners of these sheds still disregard environmental, labor or safety laws, with 75 percent of the 109 sheds inspected so far this year receiving citations for violations and 24 were ordered to close, the AP reported.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Warming waters threaten young lobsters, study finds

SOUTH BRISTOL, Maine — The Gulf of Maine’s lobster population, which has boomed even as climate change and overfishing have hurt other commercial species, could suffer if water temperatures keep rising, according to a University of Maine study.

The study suggests that, as the Gulf of Maine continues to grow warmer, the state’s $495 million lobster industry — by far the most valuable commercial fishery in Maine — could face the same kind of population decline that has affected urchins, scallops, groundfish and shrimp. Overfishing greatly reduced harvests for many of these species, but warming waters have been identified as an impediment to recovery.

The new lobster study, conducted by UMaine’s Darling Marine Center and by Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, indicates that larvae reared in 66-degree water had a distinctly higher mortality rate than those cultivated in the water 5 degrees cooler, the temperature now typical in the western Gulf of Maine. Water temperatures in the western Gulf of Maine are expected to rise 5 degrees by 2100.

The study looked only at larval lobsters, which spend all their time floating, and not at juveniles or older lobsters that live on the ocean floor.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

GEORGE LAPOINTE and TOM TIETENBERG: Reducing Maine’s carbon footprint

September 8, 2016 — We know the threat of climate disruption to Maine is real in part because we are experiencing early warning signs. The science is also clear that the problems will escalate if we do not act to further reduce carbon pollution.

There are now many important examples of how a warming climate threatens Maine, and here is one that strikes close to home for many Mainers: our changing marine environment could spell serious trouble for commercial fishing and all those who rely on it for a living. Consider the following:

• The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99 percent of world’s oceans.

• Maine’s shrimp fishery has been closed for several years now, attributed in part to warmer waters.

• Lobstermen and other fishermen are bringing up in new species from warming waters with their catch — presence of new species is not usually a good sign. For example, warming weather contributes to large increases in green crab populations, which ravages Maine clam flats and eelgrass beds.

• Clams and other shellfish face an existential threat: the same carbon pollution that is warming the globe is making ocean water more acidic and that makes it more and more difficult to build a shell.

These problems affect many Mainers, from commercial fishermen to all the households and businesses that they interact with. Commercial fishing is a $2 billion part of Maine’s economy, employing roughly 39,000 people.

Read the full opinion piece at Central Maine

NFI Says Greenpeace to Issue Rank and Spank US Foodservice Listings as Early as Monday

August 22, 2016 — SEAFOOD NEWS — According to NFI’s Gavin Gibbons, Greenpeace is close to announcing a major new campaign to fund-raise off of a rank and spank approach to US Foodservice companies.

Similar to its retail rankings, Greenpeace scores companies in a subjective manner on how ideologically close they are to the organization.

For example, their retail “red list” contains recommendations to avoid some of the most sustainable and certified seafood products on the planet, such as Alaska pollock. There is no scientific basis for this.

In fact, Greenpeace is very explicit in their desire to halt commercial sales of these species. They say on their website:

“A crucial component of a responsible seafood operation is stopping the sale of the most destructively caught or endangered species. Greenpeace’s Red List is a scientifically compiled list of 22 marine species that should not currently be made commercially available. ”

And what are these species that Greenpeace would like to see the Foodservice industry stop selling?

The species, by order of commercial importance, include warm water shrimp, Atlantic salmon, Alaska pollock, albacore and yellowfin tuna, Atlantic cod, Atlantic sea scallops, hoki, Atlantic halibut, monkfish, redfish, swordfish, orange roughy, Chilean sea bass, Greenland halibut, bluefin tuna, red snapper, sharks and rays, grouper, big eye tuna, and ocean quahogs.

Of the 20 wild caught species targeted by Greenpeace, 15 are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council.

The two farmed species, shrimp and Atlantic salmon, are also certified by both GAA’s Best Aquaculture Practices and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.

So, of the species that Greenpeace is planning to rank companies on because they believe they should not be commercially available, fully 82% of them are certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council or equivalent.

This suggests that the campaign is not about sustainability, but about positioning Greenpeace in opposition to the Marine Stewardship Council, and continuing to fundraise by telling supporters lies about seafood sustainability.

This practice is a very effective publicity and fundraising tool, known as rank and spank.

First Greenpeace creates its own criteria for rankings, not subject to outside review, and releases a report highlighting the malfeasance of companies that sell products Greenpeace wants proscribed.

Then Greenpeace agitates with the public and the publicity shy companies to make some concessions that raise their “score”, allowing Greenpeace to go to supporters and claim they are the tool forcing these companies to change practices.

Then, the cycle is repeated when companies that have complied with Greenpeace are called out again, if they don’t take ideological actions in support of the organization.

For example, Greenpeace called out retailers, and ranked them, by how strongly they pressed the North Pacific Council to close parts of the Bering Sea to protect Bering Sea Canyon habitat. When the US government spent millions of dollars showing that the habitats in question did not have corals, and were not threatened by any fishing activity, the supermarket buyers who had sent letters looked foolish and manipulated.

Some of them took the honest step of withdrawing their letters, once they learned the facts.

As NFI says, “Foodservice companies are among the most dedicated to seafood sustainability and full supply chain sustainability. To target them, rather than laud them illustrates how out of touch Greenpeace is with real sustainability efforts. While the group demands all seafood purchasing decisions be made based on Greenpeace’s arbitrary red list, foodservice providers work hard to ensure they understand the sustainability story of each species and the efforts underway to maintain those stocks.”

Many foodservice companies have committed to sustainable purchasing programs. Some support fisheries improvement projects and virtually all of them now demand full traceability to ensure the integrity of their supply chain.

There is no need for Greenpeace to agitate in this environment. The foodservice companies targeted in this list do not need to respond, except to show what they are already doing to promote sustainability, and to emphasize they were taking these actions long before Greenpeace’s rank and spank system ever came out.

This story originally appeared on Seafoodnews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Is That Real Tuna in Your Sushi? Now, a Way to Track That Fish

August 18, 2016 — “Most people don’t think data management is sexy,” says Jared Auerbach, owner of Red’s Best, a seafood distributor in Boston. Most don’t associate it with fishing, either. But Mr. Auerbach and a few other seafood entrepreneurs are using technology to lift the curtain on the murky details surrounding where and how fish are caught in American waters.

Beyond Maine lobster, Maryland crabs and Gulf shrimp, fish has been largely ignored by foodies obsessing over the provenance of their meals, even though seafood travels a complex path. Until recently, diners weren’t asking many questions about where it came from, which meant restaurants and retailers didn’t feel a need to provide the information.

Much of what’s sold has been seen as “just a packaged, nondescript fish fillet with no skin,” says Beth Lowell, who works in the seafood-fraud prevention department at Oceana, an international ocean conservation advocacy group. “Seafood has been behind the curve on both traceability and transparency.”

What’s worse is that many people have no idea what they’re eating even when they think they do. In a recent Oceana investigation of seafood fraud, the organization bought fish sold at restaurants, seafood markets, sushi places and grocery stores, and ran DNA tests. It discovered that 33 percent of the fish was mislabeled per federal guidelines. Fish labeled snapper and tuna were the least likely to be what their purveyors claimed they were.

Several years ago, Red’s Best developed software to track the fish it procures from small local fishermen along the shores of New England. Sea to Table, a family business founded in the mid-1990s with headquarters in Brooklyn that supplies chefs and universities, has also developed its own seafood-tracking software to let customers follow the path of their purchases. Wood’s Fisheries, in Port St. Joe, Fla., specializes in sustainably harvested shrimp and uses software called Trace Register.

And starting this fall, the public will be able to glimpse the international fishing industry’s practices through a partnership of Oceana, Google and SkyTruth, a nonprofit group that uses aerial and satellite images to study changes in the landscape. The initiative, called Global Fishing Watch, uses satellite data to analyze fishing boat practices — including larger trends and information on individual vessels.

Sea to Table hopes to sell fish directly to home chefs starting this year, too.

But local seafood can cost more than many Americans are accustomed to paying, which partly accounts for the rampant seafood fraud in this country.

“U.S. fisheries are very well managed and are actually growing nicely,” said Michael Dimin, the founder of Sea to Table. “But the U.S. consumer’s been trained to buy cheap food, and imported seafood is really cheap because of I.U.U. fishing.” I.U.U. stands for illegal, unreported and unregulated. The result is unsustainably fished, cheap seafood flooding American fish markets and grocery chains.

“To us, the secret is traceability,” Mr. Dimin said. “If you can shine a light on where it came from, you can make informed decisions.”

Read the full story at the New York Times

AL BURCH: Governor should recognize value of Alaska groundfish industry

July 25, 2016 — My brother and I were some of the pioneers of the trawl fishery here in Kodiak. We started from scratch when the United States claimed a 200-mile zone. I remember the foreign fleets off our shores, and once they were replaced by U.S. vessels like ours, I remember how the trawl fishery for pollock and cod helped put the town back on its feet after the collapse of the crab and shrimp fisheries in the late 1970s. I am proud of the fact that the fishery I helped pioneer now supports a year-round fishing economy here in Kodiak.

Although I am retired now, I continue to follow how the fishery is run. And I am concerned.

In the past, when we were struggling to build the fishery, the state of Alaska was on our side. We worked hard together to build a fishery that was managed by scientific principles and research, with no overfishing. We pioneered putting observers on U.S. vessels, and unlike a lot of other fisheries here in Alaska we have had observers for roughly 30 years. We worked alongside the state and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to meet conservation and management challenges together, to ensure practical solutions that ensured an economically sustainable fishery for Kodiak and other Alaska coastal towns.

But now it seems that the state of Alaska is not concerned about the impacts of its decisions on the hard-working participants in this fishery and communities like mine that are dependent on groundfish.

Read the full opinion piece at Alaska Dispatch News

ALASKA: Sea Share steadily expands donations of fish to the needy

July 18, 2016 — The decades long “bycatch to food banks” program has grown far beyond its Alaska origins.

Today, only 10 percent of the fish going to hunger-relief programs is bycatch — primarily halibut and salmon taken accidentally in other fisheries. The remainder is first-run products donated to Sea Share, the nation’s only nonprofit that donates fish through a network of fishermen, processors, packagers and transporters.

Sea Share began in 1993 when Bering Sea fishermen pushed to be allowed to send fish taken as bycatch to food banks — instead of tossing them back, as required by law.

“Back then, that was the only thing that we were set up to do, and we are the only entity authorized to retain such fish. It became a rallying point for a lot of stakeholders, and from that beginning we’ve expanded to the Gulf of Alaska, and grown to 28 states and over 200 million fish meals a year,” said Jim Harmon, Sea Share director.

Some seafood companies commit a portion of their sales or donate products to Sea Share. Vessels in the At-sea Processors Association have donated 250,000 pounds of whitefish each year for 15 years, which are turned into breaded portions. Sea Share’s roster also has grown to include tilapia, shrimp, cod, tuna and other seafood products.

Over the years, Sea Share has ramped up donations in Alaska, where halibut portions from Kodiak fisheries are used locally, in Kenai as well as being flown to Nome and Kotzebue, courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard. A new freezer container has been stationed at the Alaska Peninsula port of Dillingham, holding 8,500 pounds of fish, and several more are being added to hubs in Western Alaska, Harmon said.

“I think we’ll probably do 250,000 pounds in the state this year,” he added.

Read the full story at the Alaska Dispatch News

Flavor gives Mississippi wild-caught shrimp competitive advantage

July 8, 2016 — BILOXI, Mississippi — Better flavor gives Mississippi wild-caught shrimp a competitive advantage over imported and pond raised shrimp, experts say.

Dave Burrage, Mississippi State University Extension Service fisheries specialist, said in a news release Thursday consumers who participate in blind taste tests tend to prefer the taste of wild-caught Gulf shrimp over that of pond-raised, imported products.

“Fresh Gulf shrimp get their distinctive flavor from their natural diet, as opposed to the artificial feed given to shrimp raised in captivity,” Burrage said. “If you have ever stood on the beach where waves are breaking and smelled the salt mist in the air, that is what fresh shrimp taste like.

“Mississippi shrimpers have no trouble selling all they catch, as shrimp continue to be the leading seafood item consumed in the U.S.,” he said.

Ben Posadas, Extension seafood marketing specialist at the Coastal Research and Extension Center in Biloxi, said imported shrimp comprise about 90 percent of the total supply in the United States.

“Imports of shrimp have led to the continued decline in shrimp prices over time, since imported shrimp are cheaper,” Posadas said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at GulfLive.com