Spiny lobster and squid lead California’s fishing economy, says new report

While California’s seafood sales overwhelmingly relied on imported animals, commercial fisheries landed nearly 360 million pounds of fin- and shellfish in 2014, according to a federal report released Thursday with the most recent figures on the nation’s fishing economy.

The state’s seafood industry, including imports, generated a whopping $23 billion — more than 10 percent of the nation’s $214 billion total sales in 2014 from commercial harvest, seafood processors and dealers, wholesalers and distributors, and importers and retailers.

As such, most of California’s nearly 144,000 industry jobs came from the import and retail sectors, according to NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service Fisheries Economics of the U.S. 2014 report. Nationally, 1.83 million jobs are supported by the fishing industry.

California shellfish were the most lucrative product in the state’s home-grown seafood market, with crabs and spiny lobsters native to Southern California getting the most money per pound of all the species fished, at $3.37 and $19.16 per pound, respectively.

But market squid were overwhelmingly the most commonly landed species, with 227 million pounds caught. Squid only returned an average of 32 cents a pound, however. Commercially fished in San Pedro, among other landings, squid are in high demand in foreign markets.

California commercial anglers sold 20.8 million pounds of crab, 17 million pounds of Pacific sardine for 12 cents a pound, and 11.8 million pounds of sea urchin at 77 cents per pound, the report states.

“In California, shellfish have always been more important, at least in terms of value,” said Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association. “This includes squid and Dungeness crab — usually the top two fisheries in value, and spiny lobster, which was an $18 million fishery in 2015.”

California fishers relied heavily on healthy market squid stocks in 2014 but, as El Niño weather conditions entered the following year, squid landings dropped significantly, Pleschner-Steele said.

“We’re now just starting to see squid landings, but at low volumes,” she said.

The lack of squid availability and fishing restrictions on Pacific sardine, which were the third-most commonly caught species in 2014, have been a challenge for fishers who argue there are plenty of sardines in the waters but they aren’t allowed to catch them because of state-imposed restrictions.

Mike Conroy, president of West Coast Fisheries Consultants, said anglers have had an increasingly hard time since 2014 trying to keep their fishing fleets afloat.

“I am sure the number of jobs have been dropping, but that is attributable to the closure of the sardine fishery, a slow squid year, increased regulation and automatic processing,” Conroy said. “Hopefully, with the departure of El Niño and arrival of La Niña, if it materializes, we should see more squid this season.”

The most controversial Southern California fishing operation, however, is the drift gill net fishery for swordfish and thresher sharks. Environmentalists have been fighting to close it for decades because the nets historically have captured large amounts of bycatch, harming and killing unintended species — including turtles and marine mammals. Technological innovations such as acoustic pingers have reduced the problem, but there is state legislation and an active campaign seeking to ban drift gill nets altogether.

“The (drift gill net) fishery is still hanging on,” Pleschner-Steele said. “But it’s much smaller now. Only a dozen or so fishermen have persevered.”

Nearly 2 million pounds of California swordfish were landed in 2014, earning a high return of $2.45 a pound, the National Marine Fisheries report found.

The least lucrative fish in California in 2014 was the Pacific whiting, or hake, which can be found all along the coast. It earned just 9 cents a pound, according to the NOAA report. Among common fin-fish species, salmon was the state’s most lucrative, garnering $4.74 a pound, followed by sablefish and rockfish, at $2.26 and $1.57 a pound, respectively, in 2014.

Read the original post: http://www.dailybreeze.com/

Ray Hilborn receives international fisheries science prize

Ray Hilborn, a UW professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, this week will receive the 2016 International Fisheries Science Prize at the World Fisheries Congress in Busan, South Korea.

Ray Hilborn

The award is given to Hilborn by the World Council of Fisheries Societies’ International Fisheries Science Prize Committee in recognition of his 40-year career of “highly diversified research and publication in support of global fisheries science and conservation,” according to a news release.

For Hilborn, who has received numerous awards for his research — including the Volvo Environment Prize and the Ecological Society of America’s Sustainability Science Award — this recognition is particularly significant because it comes from other experts in fisheries science.

“It’s very gratifying in that it is experts in fisheries that are doing the evaluation and selection for this award,” Hilborn said.

As part of his award, Hilborn will give a keynote talk May 27 about how to sustain fisheries in the future by building on management success stories.

“We know how to sustainably manage large fisheries in rich countries. But the real challenge is those approaches won’t work for small-scale fisheries around the world or in countries that don’t have the wealth or governance that we do,” he said.

Hilborn’s research and teaching at the UW is in natural resource management and conservation. He has authored several books, including “Overfishing: What Everyone Needs to Know,” and has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles. He is a fellow of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of Canada and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The World Fisheries Congress meets every four years in different locations, bringing together fisheries scientists from academic institutions and nongovernmental organizations. This is the seventh meeting; the first took place in Athens, Greece, in 1992.

Originally published: http://www.washington.edu   For more information, contact Hilborn at rayh@uw.edu.

Study Finds Growing Numbers of Octopuses, Squids in World’s Oceans

— Posted with permission of SEAFOODNEWS.COM. Please do not republish without their permission. —

Copyright © 2016 Seafoodnews.com

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Newsweek] By Douglas Main – May24, 2016

The global population of cephalopods—a group of animals that includes octopus, squid and cuttlefish—has been slowly but steadily growing for more than 50 years, new research shows.

The growth of these populations may be due in part to increasing temperatures, says Bronwyn Gillanders, a researcher at the University of Adelaide in Australia. Warmer waters allow some cephalopods to grow more quickly, get bigger and live longer, she says.

For example, Humboldt squid, (Dosidicus gigas), also known as jumbo squid, have increased in size and may live twice as long now than they did decades ago, a trend which scientists think is due to warmer water temperatures caused by the El Niño climate oscillation. Prior to the late 1990s, fisherman in South America sought jumbo squid that generally reached weights of four pounds. But since that time, there are many more large Humboldt squid, which can weigh more than 80 pounds, Gillanders says, and those can live two years as opposed to one year, as they used to.

The increase in world cephalopod populations may also be due to the decline in some fish species that prey upon the creatures, says Gillanders, lead author of a study describing the finding, published May 23 in the journal Current Biology.

It’s unclear exactly what effects this may be having in different areas of the ocean, and whether or not these effects are positive or negative. On the one hand, the animals are “are voracious predators and could impact many prey species,” Gillanders says. But “increases in cephalopod abundance may benefit marine predators which are reliant on them for food, as well as humans” who fish and eat them, she adds.

Most cephalopods are also cannibals, so it’s possible the cannibalism may help check further increases in growth, Gillanders adds.

Ocean acidification, which is caused by the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, may hurt cephalopods, but research is just beginning to address this topic, she says.

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Humpback and blue whales feeding in record numbers off SF coast

An unusually large number of humpback whales like this one have been seen over the past two weeks in San Francisco Bay. Photo by Lauri Duke.

By Peter Fimrite

Record numbers of humpack and blue whales are feeding off the coast of San Francisco in a display of gluttony virtually unprecedented for this time of year, marine scientists fresh off a weeklong study near the Farallon Islands confirmed Sunday.

The researchers on the 208-foot-long Bell Shimada, which is now docked at Piers 30 and 32 along the Embarcadero, counted between 30 and 60 humpbacks a day and about 10 blue whales over the past seven days. Those numbers are far higher than normal for this time of year, based on similar studies done over 13 years.

“We don’t know if it’s food-driven or water-temperature- or climate-change-driven,” Jan Roletto, research coordinator for the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, said of this month’s massive numbers of hungry humpbacks.

Last year was also a big year for humpbacks. “They’ve been showing up earlier and earlier” every year, she said.

The researchers suspect the giant cetaceans are following prey — including the tiny shrimp-like creatures known as krill, anchovies and schools of small fish. Several humpbacks were seen over the past few weeks feeding in San Francisco Bay near Fort Point, a highly unusual activity for the whales, which generally prefer to be well offshore.

The weeklong expedition, which covered some 50 miles of ocean from Half Moon Bay to Bodega Bay, was an attempt by scientists with the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary, and Point Blue Conservation Science to document wildlife populations and trends in the area, which is known to be one of the world’s most abundant marine ecosystems.

The researchers took water temperatures; measured ocean acidification; counted birds, whales and other marine mammals; and calculated the amount of krill and other marine organisms to determine what drives sea bird and whale abundance. The researchers also took measurements of ocean nutrients, including testing for harmful algal blooms like the one last year that poisoned sea lions and forced closure of the Dungeness crab season.

“We are coming out of El Niño, so we’re hoping to determine what happens in the ocean after an El Niño,” Roletto said.

So far this year, ocean temperatures appear to be normal, she said. That’s a welcome change from last year, when temperatures reached 6 degrees above normal. The high temperatures apparently contributed to record deaths of seabirds and sea lions, a profusion of alien species and poison-spewing algal blooms. No harmful algae has been found this year, she said.

Besides the whales, mass quantities of zooplankton known as doliolids were found in the water, often clogging scientist’s nets. The tube-like creatures thrive in warm bands of water. The team also found that the bodies of some krill have shrunk because of a lack of phytoplankton, their primary food source. Krill in other areas, particularly between the Farallon Islands and the ocean outcropping called Cordell Bank, were much bigger.

Whither the Lenfest report?

DAVE FRULLA & ANNE HAWKINS:
Whither the Lenfest report?

May 20, 2016 — The following is an op-ed by Dave Frulla and Anne Hawkins, published in the June 2016 issue of National Fisherman:

In 2012, the Lenfest Ocean Program commissioned a report entitled “Little Fish, Big Impact,” regarding management of lower trophic level fisheries. Lenfest and other environmental groups followed the report’s publication with a major domestic and international media campaign. If Lenfest wanted to spark scientific debate and inquiry regarding forage fish management, it did a good job. If, however, its plan was to drive a “one- size-fits-all” solution to a complex problem, the results are far less constructive.

The report consisted of a literature review and basic computer modeling to “quantify” the value of forage fish to their predators. It concluded these fish were twice as valuable to other animals as for human nutritional, agricultural and aquaculture uses. The report thus recommended cutting forage fish catch rates between 50 and 80 percent across the board, to double the amount of forage fish left for fish, seabirds and other predators. It also recommended closures for spawning and around seabirds that rely on forage fish, and instructed no additional forage fish fisheries be authorized.

At release, the Lenfest report was received relatively uncritically, despite its far-reaching conclusions and recommendations. Since then, globally preeminent fishery scientists, including some of the Lenfest report’s own authors, have begun to examine the report’s assumptions and conclusions. Despite the report’s confident tone, there is no consensus on whether special management measures will provide any benefit to forage stocks.

Criticism of the Lenfest report can be divided into two main categories: its application to specific forage species, and its general methodology. Regarding application to specific species, it is important first to highlight there is no common definition of “forage fish.” It is, rather, a loosely formed concept, given how many marine organisms (and not just finfish) can be labeled important prey species for a given ecosystem or even for just one species.

Further, not all low trophic species fit the Lenfest report’s biological archetype. For instance, in April 2015, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Biological Ecological Reference Points Workgroup presented a Memorandum to the Commission’s Menhaden Management Board stating that, “Ultimately, the BERP WG does not feel that the management actions recommended in [the Lenfest report]… are appropriate for Atlantic menhaden specific management,” in part because menhaden do not exhibit the stock-recruit relationship assumed in the Lenfest paradigm. (That is, menhaden recruitment is driven by environmental factors, rather than spawning stock size.)

As to methodology, the Lenfest report largely drew conclusions from ecosystem models that were not designed to evaluate management strategy impacts on low trophic level fisheries. The Lenfest report admits this shortcoming. Indeed, after its publication, Lenfest report authors Tim Essington and Eva Plaganyi co-authored their own follow-up paper showing that among the most common features absent from most of these ecosystem models were natural variability of forage fish stocks, important aspects of spatial structure, and the extent of overlap in size of predator and prey stocks. Regarding the last factor, a predator may eat smaller-sized year classes of prey fish than a fishery targets. Accordingly, humans and the predator fish aren’t competing; the forage species ran the predation gauntlet before being subject to fishing. Overall, Essington and Plaganyi concluded that “most of [the existing] models were not developed to specifically address questions about forage fish fisheries and the evaluation of fishing management.” Model suitability is but one element of the post-Lenfest report work on the scientific agenda for further consideration.

The ultimate question is whether the public, press and fisheries managers will pay attention as fisheries scientists pursue the important questions the Lenfest report raised, but did not resolve. The situation is reminiscent of the debate that occurred following publication by Dr. Boris Worm and other scientists of a 2006 report in Science suggesting all fisheries could collapse by 2048. That report received the same sort of PR roll-out as the Lenfest forage fish report. (We understand Dr. Worm’s work also received Pew Charitable Trusts/Lenfest funding.)

In 2009, Drs. Worm, Ray Hilborn (not a co-author of the initial report), and 19 other scientists collaborated on a subsequent report in Science concluding that existing fishery management tools were reversing the claimed global trend of depletion for individual stocks, and the situation was not so dire as Dr. Worm originally forecast. To this day, though, Dr. Worm’s original report is presented in press and policy debates without mention of his even more significant subsequent collaborative work. We hope the Lenfest report on forage fish management represents one early element — but not the final word — in consideration of the important topic it addresses.

Read the op-ed at National Fisherman

NOAA: Dungeness crab in peril from acidification

As levels of carbon dioxide rise in the atmosphere due to fossil fuel burning and other human-caused pollution, it changes water chemistry, hurting survival of crab larvae.

The Dungeness crab fishery could decline West Coastwide, a new study has found, threatening a fishing industry worth nearly a quarter-billion dollars a year.

Scientists at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle found that pH levels likely in West Coast waters by 2100 at current rates of greenhouse-gas pollution would hurt the survivability of crab larvae.

Increasing ocean acidification is predicted to harm a wide range of sea life unable to properly form calcium carbonate shells as the pH drops. Now scientists at the NOAA’s Northwest Fishery Science Center of Seattle also have learned that animals with chitin shells — specifically Dungeness crabs — are affected, because the change in water chemistry affects their metabolism.

Carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas, is pumped into the atmosphere primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. Levels of atmospheric C02 have been steadily rising since the Industrial Revolution in 1750 and today are higher than at any time in the past 800,000 years — and predicted to go higher.

When carbon dioxide mixes with ocean water it lowers the pH. By simulating the conditions in tanks of seawater at pH levels likely to occur in West Coast waters with rising greenhouse gas pollution, scientists were able to detect both a slower hatch of crab larvae, and poorer survival by the year 2100.

That in turn likely would cause a decline in the population of a fishery that is of economic importance to tribal and nontribal fishers alike. The total value of the 2014 Dungeness crab catch in Alaska, California, Oregon and Washington was $211.5 million, according to data provided by NOAA fisheries.

The crab fishery is of great cultural importance, too, a birthright of tribal and nontribal Northwest residents for whom fresh-caught Dungeness crab defines part of what it means to live here.

Crab larvae also are an important food source for a wide range of sea life, including salmon.

Dungeness crab, Cancer magister, is a denizen of coastal and Puget Sound waters. Adults occur in the inshore waters where pH today in summer can be as high as 7.6, but in the future, are predicted to lower to 7.1.

Using eggs and larvae from females captured in Puget Sound, scientists determined the hatching success, larval survival and larval development rate at three pH levels: 8.0, 7.5 and 7.1

Three to four times more larvae survived in higher pH than the lower pH tanks. Those larvae also were slower to hatch, said Paul McElhany, a research ecologist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center and senior author of the paper, published online in the scientific journal Marine Biology last month.

While the eggs studied were taken from crabs collected in Puget Sound, “There’s no reason to suspect coastal crabs would respond differently,” McElhany said.

His lab is continuing to examine effects of acidifying seas on other living things. Next up are salmon, where he wants to learn if acidification affects olfactory capacities, potentially damaging the ability to navigate to their home waters.

Other fish species have been found to be harmed by acidifying waters, including clown fish, which mistake predators for prey as pH plummets.

While effects predicted in the research are forecast for the year 2100, levels of acidification could plunge lower sooner, depending on whether levels of greenhouse-gas pollution are brought under control.

“There is some uncertainty about when we reach these levels,” McElhany said.

Read the original post: http://www.seattletimes.com/

Hilborn: Greenpeace attacks funding issue because science is sound

Greenpeace files complaint about UW fishery professor

Greenpeace takes aim at high-profile UW fishery scientist in a complaint alleging he has not properly disclosed industry funding in his academic articles.

Ray Hilborn, a prominent University of Washington fishery scientist, is under attack from Greenpeace for sometimes leaving out mention of industry funding he receives in articles published in academic journals and elsewhere.

In a letter sent Wednesday to university President Ana Mari Cauce, Greenpeace filed a complaint against Hilborn’s research practices, and asked for an investigation.

Hilborn, over the years, has been a critic of Greenpeace as well as other environmental groups and researchers he accuses of overstating the impacts of fishing on marine resources.

In the letter to Cauce, Greenpeace unleashed a broadside against the scientist.

“The failure of Dr. Hilborn to fully disclose his ties to industry put both scientific knowledge and the reputation of the University of Washington at risk,” wrote John Hocevar, Greenpeace USA’s ocean campaigns director.

Since 2003, Hilborn has brought in more than $3.55 million in industry dollars to the University of Washington, representing about 22 percent of the total outside funding he obtained from all sources during that period, according to documents released to Greenpeace under a public-disclosure request.

Hilborn reviewed Greenpeace’s complaint and issued a response. He said his research threatens the repeated assertions by the environmental group that overfishing is universal and that the oceans are being emptied.

“Obviously they are getting desperate because they haven’t been able to mount any type of attack on the quality of the science that I and this large group of collaborators have produced,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “So they got to attack the messenger.”

Hilborn, 68, said he has not felt obligated to disclose industry funding unless it was specifically for the research that is the focus of an academic journal article. Hilborn said he has never deliberately left out mention of such funding.

Some of the biggest industry funding came from groups in the Bristol Bay region of Alaska helping pay for salmon research. The money also flowed from Washington-based seafood companies, a trade association called the National Fisheries Institute, and the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council.

Much of the money is used for staff and student salaries, Hilborn said.

Altogether, the documents obtained by Greenpeace indicate Hilborn drew research funding to the university from at least 69 different industry sources, as well as consulting payments from others.

Greenpeace’s Hocevar, in his letter to Cauce, cites more than a half-dozen specific examples of papers published by Hilborn that allegedly failed to include full disclosure.

This represented a “significant departure from the accepted practices of his research community,” Hocevar wrote.

Greenpeace’s complaint also criticizes an online fisheries-information service that reaches out to the media: cfooduw.org. Hilborn helped launch cfooduw.org last fall with financial help from the seafood industry that is not noted on the website.

A UW spokesman said the Greenpeace complaint involves matters “we take very seriously.”

“We will be looking into the issues raised by Greenpeace to determine if problems exist and what steps might need to be taken to address them,’’ said Norm Arkans, the UW spokesman.

Money and disclosure

Amid shrinking public funding, university researchers often reach out to private industry to fund their work. Researchers also may do outside contract work, which at the UW requires prior approval.

The potential for industry funding to influence research has long been a topic of debate and controversy, and major journals have developed disclosure policies that attempt to lay out an author’s potential conflicts of interest.

For example, the journal Science asks authors “to reveal any financial relationships that could be perceived to influence the research,” according to a statement released by Science.

Hilborn has been published in many major academic journals, including Science, and is widely quoted in the media.

His research at the UW School of Aquatics and Fishery Sciences has focused “on how to best manage fisheries to provide sustainable benefits to human societies,” according to his website. He has helped to launch a global database of fish stocks, and his awards include the 2006 Volvo Environment Prize and, this year, the International Fisheries Science Prize.

He also has obtained funding from environmental organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council.

But Hilborn, over the years, has spoken out against what he portrays as the unwarranted gloom and doom pushed by some environmental groups, which he accuses of pushing bad news about fisheries to boost fundraising.

In a 2011 New York Times opinion piece headlined “Let Us Eat Fish,” Hilborn denounced “apocalyptic predictions about the future of fish stocks.” On his website and elsewhere, he has sought to debunk what he calls “myths” that include that most fisheries are overfished and that all fish stocks could be gone by 2048.

“On average, fish stocks worldwide appear to be stable, and in the United States they are rebuilding, in many cases at a rapid rate,” Hilborn wrote.

And in 2013 testimony submitted to Congress, he declared: “The major threat to sustainable jobs, food, recreational opportunity and revenue from U.S. marine fisheries is no longer overfishing, but underfishing.”

Critics and supporters

Greenpeace is attempting to label Hilborn an “overfishing denier,” comparing the professor to so-called climate-change deniers who are a minority in a scientific community that overwhelmingly accepts that fossil-fuel combustion contributes to global warming.

“This issue is analogous and no less important,” said Hocevar, who accuses Hilborn of downplaying the effects of overfishing.

Other researchers dispute Greenpeace’s comparison. They say Hilborn has been a leader over the decades in a wide range of important research projects in the North Pacific and globally.

“I think that in general Ray’s work has been highly acclaimed by many scientists. He is not sitting way on the edge,” said Gunnar Knapp, a University of Alaska-Anchorage fishery economist who has collaborated on research with Hilborn.

But some marine scientists have been at odds with him.

They include Daniel Pauly, a University of British Columbia marine biologist who shared the 2006 Volvo prize with Hilborn. Pauly has authored numerous papers about the global decline in fish stocks that have been attacked by Hilborn as lacking creditability.

In an interview, Pauly criticized Hilborn as an industry-friendly scientist who has failed to properly disclose his funding.

“We all are certainly affected by where we get money from, and certainly have to make that available for discussion,” said Pauly whose own affiliations include an unpaid seat on the board of Oceana, a major marine-conservation group.

Hilborn said he draws money from a wide range of sources, and rejected the notion that he has been swayed by industry money.

That money is not a problem “but a natural part of working on solutions,” Hilborn said. “They (industry) should be paying part of the bill.”

Read the original story: http://www.seattletimes.com/

Greenpeace Attacks Ray Hilborn as ‘Overfishing Denier’ as He Receives Major Int. Science Prize

— Posted with permission of SEAFOODNEWS.COM. Please do not republish without their permission. —

Copyright © 2016 Seafoodnews.com

After suffering a series of defeats in which US government Science bodies demolished Greenpeace claims of overfishing and habitat destruction in US waters, Greenpeace has turned on Univ. of Washington Professor Ray Hilborn. Hilborn is the foremost scientific advocate of fisheries stability and has contributed to worldwide understanding that when fisheries quotas and habitat protections are enforced, stocks recover and can be fished sustainably.

Greenpeace lost a major battle and public relations campaign recently over Bering Sea Corals when a huge scientific effort undertaken by NOAA decisively showed the claims of habitat destruction by Greenpeace were unfounded. This embarrassed Greenpeace in front of its retail partners— to whom it had described the Bering Sea Coral campaign in apocalyptic terms as a do or die mission to preserve the Bering Sea.

In two weeks, Prof. Hilborn will receive the International Fisheries Science Prize at the World Fisheries Congress in Busan, South Korea. This prize is awarded every four years by a consortium of international fisheries science organizations.

The award to Prof. Hilborn is in recognition of the profound impact he has had in a 40-year career where he has applied research and scientific investigation to the ever-changing problems of fisheries management and conservation.

Hilborn has been the leading voice that has changed public and government perception that overfishing was an environmental disaster that could not be controlled. instead he and his colleagues have documented time and again where fisheries management is successful and have compiled the most detailed global database on fish stocks and catch history to show that in many of the developed areas of the world, fisheries sustainability has been achieved.

This message is anathema to Greenpeace, whose fisheries activism depends on maintaining a continuous atmosphere of crisis.

The latest attack is a letter to the University of Washington questioning the funding Ray Hilborn has received from 2003 to January 2016.

Greenpeace tries to smear Hilborn with the same charges used against Climate Science deniers, who have concealed funding sources in published papers. The difference is 1) that Hilborn represents mainstream fisheries science, not radical extremes beyond scientific consensus, and 2) Hilborn fully discloses his financial backing.

Of the $3.55 million in industry funding identified by Greenpeace, over $2 million has gone to support the University of Washington field program in Bristol Bay Alaska, a program that is widely acknowledged to be the premier science program working on salmon ecosystems. This is funded partly by Alaskan CDQ groups.

The best approach is to let Ray speak in his own words. I think most readers will agree with him that this is a sign of desperation on the part of Greenpeace, as Hilborn is successfully countering its message of imminent destruction of all fisheries.

Ray Hilborn:

I would like to thank Greenpeace for offering this opportunity to advertise our research and its results.

Greenpeace is unable to attack the science I and my collaborators do; science that threatens their repeated assertions that overfishing is universal and that the oceans are being emptied. On the contrary, it is clear that where effective fisheries management is applied, stocks are increasing not declining, and this is true in North American and Europe as well as a number of other places. Overfishing certainly continues to be a problem in the Mediterranean, much of Asia and Africa.

This prize is awarded every four years by fisheries science organizations from a number of countries including the U. S., Australia and Japan. In my plenary address I will be showing where overfishing is declining or largely eliminated, as well as where it remains a problem. This is a message Greenpeace seeks to discredit.

Instead of focusing on the science, Greenpeace has alleged that I failed to disclose “large amounts of money from the fishing industry and other corporate interests. ”

The essential issue is conflict of interest. Greenpeace seems to believe that industry funding is tantamount to a conflict of interest, regardless of its purpose. Thus, any time I discuss fisheries I would need to disclose each and every grant or contract I have ever received as a conflict of interest. Taking that approach I would also have to disclose funding from all of the environmental NGOs that have also helped to fund our research and education efforts, including the Society for Conservation Biology, the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Perhaps I would also need to disclose the numerous private foundations and government agencies that have funded our work every time I discuss fisheries. The list of funders would be as long as some of the papers.

I, like all reputable scientists, take conflict of interest seriously. This is one reason we acknowledge all funders of the research work discussed in each paper at the end of the document.

The other, of course, is to give credit where credit is due. The fishing industry, like environmental NGOs, government agencies, and public and private foundations, are actively involved in funding our research and education efforts that help create and sustain fisheries nationally and globally. In fact, it is in the financial interest of fishing communities and industries to find solutions that are sustainable and provide for healthy stocks into the future. And funding from these groups should be considered part of an inclusive, transparent and honest research process.

According to Greenpeace’s calculations, industry funding constitutes 22% of the research funds received by the University of Washington to support research and education efforts I lead. Those monies support staff and students and pay for field expenses.

During the period Greenpeace collected data on my grants and contracts, I received $16.1 million in research funding, of which Greenpeace classified $3.5 million as industry.

The top three “industry” groups they list are community groups in small Alaskan communities where fishing is the source of survival. These are not big industrial interests but small communities.

Of the total industry funding, over $2 million has supported our field program in Bristol Bay Alaska, a program that is widely acknowledged to be the premier science program working on salmon ecosystems.

Fisheries issues are contentious because natural resources are limited, directly affect the lives of many, and everybody has, or wants, a stake. My belief is that all voices need to be heard, and all stakeholders need to be at the table.

Copyright © 2016 Seafoodnews.com

Monterey Bay squid season basically a bust

open letter to the reporter:

---

 

Monterey Fish Company president Sal Tringali looks over the fresh fish display at his store on Monterey Municipal Wharf No. 2 on Wednesday. Tringali oversees a five-boat fleet that provides local restaurants with most of their fresh seafood, including squid. Vern Fisher — Monterey Herald

Vern Fisher — Monterey Herald The fresh fish display at Monterey Fish Company on Wednesday.

 

Monterey >> If Monterey had a signature restaurant dish, cioppino and fried calamari would battle it out for the top spot. But the common ingredient in each is squid, those prehistoric looking cephalopods (scientific name loligo) that school in the cool, nutrient-rich waters of Monterey Bay.

In August a worldwide television audience tuned in for “Big Blue Live,” a BBC-PBS production that showcased our marine sanctuary teeming with sea life, from tiny shrimp to giant blue whales.

Then “the boy” arrived.

“Once El Niño showed up things started to look different in the bay,” said Sal Tringali, president of Monterey Fish Company, who oversees a five-boat fleet that provides local restaurants with most of their fresh seafood, including squid.

Not to panic; our shared “Serengeti of the Sea” is still a pristine habitat. But warming waters along the West Coast have changed the waterscape — at least for now. For example, local squid fishermen have turned out their bright boat lights because the season is basically a bust.

“There’s no squid,” said Tringali. “No anchovies either. We’ve seen this before during El Niño.”

It’s quite typical for squid to move on during an El Niño period, according to professor William Gilly, squid expert for Pacific Grove’s Hopkins Marine Station, run by Stanford University.

“We saw a crash in landings in 1997-98 and again in 2009-10 (both El Niño years),” he said. Each time the fishery recovered with the return of the more familiar La Niña.

Gilly points to an anomalous offshore “blob” of warmer water (about 3 degrees above normal) that scientists actually began charting two years ago. This caused squid to move north (in this case), with fishermen landing schools as far away as Sitka, Alaska.

Surging demand in China, Japan, Mexico and Europe has boosted prices and launched a fishing frenzy worth more than $70 million a year. The vanishing act is a concern to fishermen, to wholesalers such as Tringali and to restaurant owners such as Kevin Phillips, who serves more than 1,000 pounds of fresh squid each week out of Abalonetti Bar and Grill on Fisherman’s Wharf.

Abalonetti has built such a renowned reputation as a calamari restaurant that Phillips hires an employee full time to clean and dress squid in a small room behind the restaurant.

“We have not run out yet,” Phillips said. “When Monterey Fish Company runs low, we get the last, then we have a few other sources for West Coast loligo.”

Phillips tries hard to maintain the quality of the squid served at Abalonetti, and isn’t shy about revealing the industry’s dirty little secret: “Many local restaurants, along with most of the country, are using Monterey Bay squid processed in Asia,” he said. “It comes ready to use.”

Much of the local catch — 90 percent of the 230 million pounds landed each season along the California coast — is frozen, shipped to China, unfrozen, processed, refrozen, packaged and sent back to the United States as part of a 12,000-mile journey that leaves one giant carbon footprint. It is genuine California squid, and cheaper and convenient, but the process doesn’t score high in the categories of freshness and sustainability.

When you own a restaurant, and customers create a voracious demand for calamari, some sacrifices must be made — especially during El Niño.

“My first choice is local squid caught and cleaned here,” said Sam Mercurio of Domenico’s on the Wharf. “When squid are running strong Monterey Fish will put aside some tonnage and freeze it for slower years. We also look to the East Coast, but the squid there is bigger, tougher and not as sweet. I’m always looking for the best product, not the cheapest. I’m so picky, if I don’t like what I see I ship it back.”

A fisherman himself, Mercurio relies on his relationship with his comrades to supply his restaurant with seafood.

“We know exactly where to source everything,” he said.

But these days that’s a challenge. It hasn’t been a good run for the entire Monterey Bay fishing industry. Once known as the Sardine Capital of the World, that fishery is currently closed due to low numbers (sardines are known for their wide-ranging “boom-and-bust” population cycles). Warm waters and a resulting neurotoxin undermined most of the Dungeness crab season. And the commercial California king salmon season started slowly May 1, with Monterey Bay boats reporting meager results.

But it’s the elusive squid that has everyone the most concerned.

“We’ve seen this before and have come close to running out,” Phillips said. “Sometimes it’s better to specialize in chicken wings.”

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