What seafood guzzles the most gas?

CWPA note: California’s wetfish fisheries are the most efficient in the world (2,000 pounds of protein for 6 gallons of diesel).

Please download ‘Fishing Green‘ from our website californiawetfish.org — (under the Fast Facts link).

Some Inconvenient Truths about California Squid Marketing

Background:
On July 11 the Los Angeles Times carried an opinion editorial “The long journey of local seafood to your plate”, by author Paul Greenberg, who made a pitch for local seafood while lamenting the volume exported overseas.  Seafood News picked up the story, but with a twist.

Indeed, Greenberg could have dodged some critical misstatements, particularly about marketing California’s largest catch, market squid, if he had checked local sources, including the California Wetfish Producers Association, which represents the majority of squid processors and fishermen in the Golden State.  CWPA submitted the following op ed to the LA Times, to set the record straight.

First, here’s the story as it appeared in Seafood News:

Paul Greenberg makes case for locally caught fish while trashing global seafood supply chain

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Los Angeles Times] by Paul Greenberg [Opinion]- July 11, 2014
Copyright 2014 The Los Angeles Times

Another glorious Golden State summer is upon us. San Joaquin Valley peaches are at their height and rolling in to farmers markets from Silver Lake to Mar Vista. Alice Waters’ foragers are plucking Napa zucchini blossoms for the chefs at Berkeley’s Chez Panisse. Barbecues in Sonoma are primed for grilling Niman Ranch grass-fed steaks.
 
And California squid are being caught, frozen, sent to China, unfrozen, processed, refrozen and sent back to the United States in giant 50,000-pound shipping containers.
 
That’s right: Every year, 90% of the 230 million pounds of California squid (by far the state’s largest seafood harvest) are sent on a 12,000-mile round-trip journey to processing plants in Asia and then sent back across the Pacific, sometimes to seaside restaurants situated alongside the very vessels that caught the squid in the first place.
 
Even as the locavore movement finds ever more inventive ways to reduce the distance between farm and table, the seafood industry is adding more and more food miles to your fish. And it’s not just squid. Overall a third of what is caught in American waters — about 3 billion pounds of seafood a year — is sold to foreigners. Some of those exports, such as California squid, wild Alaska salmon and tons and tons of Bering Sea pollock, make the round trip to Asia and back into our ports, twice frozen.
 
Why? To begin with, Americans want their seafood recipe-ready, and seafood distributors here don’t want to clean it. It’s messy, it takes time and, of course, it costs money. For many processors, the much lower labor costs in Asia make it less costly to pay for transporting squid to China and back than to clean it here.
 
Moreover, seafood processing plants are typically located close to the shore, which is exactly where well-heeled people like to build homes. Across the country, processing plants, oyster farms and canneries have been pushed out of their valuable shorefront locations by residents who didn’t want them next door. As a fisherman in Gloucester, Mass., told me recently: “Fish houses are getting turned into hotels all the time. But you never hear about a hotel getting turned into a fish house.”
 
So are we to let our seafood production infrastructure vanish entirely and watch dumbly as American fish and shellfish slip down the maw of the vast churning seafood machine of Asia? Moreover, do we really want to intermingle our food supply with the apparatus of China, a nation that is cruelly stingy with its labor force and that had such severe problems with food safety in 2007 that it executed the director of its food and drug administration for accepting bribes?
 
I would argue no.
 
And there are finally starting to be opportunities for keeping our seafood here — from net to table. In the last five years, dozens of community-supported fisheries, or CSFs, have been formed along U.S. coasts. Like community-supported agriculture co-ops, CSFs allow consumers to buy a share in the catch at the beginning of the season and receive regular allotments of guaranteed local seafood. CSFs help fishermen enormously by giving them start-up capital before they get out on the water. They also lock in a good price for fish that helps fishermen exit the ruthless price-crunching commodity market.
 
A few CSFs are even taking on squid. Alan Lovewell of Local Catch Monterey Bay CSF is collaborating with Del Mar Seafood of Watsonville to micro-process 1,000 pounds of squid for the Local Catch buying coop. This summer, for the first time, Local Catch members will get fully fresh (instead of double frozen) squid tubes and tentacles that make for fabulous grilling, stir-fries and Italian zuppa di pesce.
 
Yes, they’ll pay more for it. But if all Californians were to do it this way, economies of scale would prevail. It costs processors about $1.50 extra per pound to process squid here in America. Wouldn’t you be willing to pay that kind of premium to keep your squid fresh and out of China?
 
And even if you don’t have access to a CSF, there’s always the option of cleaning the squid yourself. Currently, the 10% of unprocessed squid that doesn’t go to China often gets used as bait. If you ask your fishmonger, you might be able to get some of that whole squid yourself. It’s really not that hard to clean it. And if you mess up the first time around, it’s not a big deal. Squid are actually incredibly cheap compared with most seafood, and it is high in omega-3s and minerals to boot.
 
The next time you fire up the backyard barbecue, consider buying a pound or two of California’s tentacled native seafood, getting out your knife and cutting board and experiencing squid as it’s meant to be eaten: fresh from the ocean and bursting with flavor.

***

And CWPA’s response:

Some Inconvenient Truths about California Squid Marketing
By D.B. Pleschner

In his op-ed to the Los Angeles Times last week, author Paul Greenberg could have dodged some critical misstatements and inaccuracies about the marketing of California squid – the state’s largest catch.

All he had to do was check with local sources, including the California Wetfish Producers Association, which represents the majority of squid processors and fishermen in the Golden State and promotes California squid.

Instead, Greenberg missed the boat on a number of issues, including the overall carbon footprint of seafood, but equally important, the reasons why most of the squid that California exports is consumed overseas!

To set the record straight, here are some inconvenient truths you wouldn’t know about squid by reading last week’s op-ed:

First, size matters and price rules when it comes to California market squid, which are one of the smallest of more than 300 squid species found worldwide. The U.S. “local” market really prefers larger, “meatier” squid, notwithstanding Greenberg’s ‘locavore’ movement.

Greenberg acknowledged the labor cost to produce cleaned squid in California adds at least $1.50 per pound to the end product. In fact, local production costs double the price of cleaned squid, due to both labor  (at least  $15 per hour with benefits) and super-sized overhead costs, including workers’ comp, electricity, water and myriad other costs of doing business in the Golden State.

Del Mar Seafood is one processor in California that micro-processes cleaned squid at the request of markets like the CSA that Greenberg mentioned. In fact, virtually all California squid processors do the same thing at the request of their customers. But at 1,000 pounds per order, we would need 236,000 CSAs, restaurants or retail markets paying $1.50 more per pound to account for the total harvest.  If the demand were there, we’d be filling it!

Greenberg also misconstrued the issue of food miles. Respected researchers like Dr. Peter Tyedmers, , from Dalhousie University in Canada, found that transport makes a minor contribution to overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, when considering the carbon footprint of seafood (or land-based foods). Mode of production is far more important.

Here’s another surprise:  California squid is one of the most efficient fisheries in the world – because a limited fleet harvests a lot of squid within a short distance of processing plants.

Studies show that the California wetfish fleet, including squid, can produce 2,000 pounds of protein for only 6 gallons of diesel. Squid are then flash frozen to preserve freshness and quality. Keep in mind that even with immaculate handling, fresh squid spoil in a few days.

As counterintuitive as it may seem, even with product block-frozen and ocean-shipped to Asia for processing, California’s squid fishery is one of the ‘greenest’ in the world. One recent survey estimated that about 30 percent of California squid is now either processed here or transshipped to Asia for processing (other Asian countries besides China now do the work) and re-imported.

China, although important, is only one export market that craves California squid.  With a growing middle class billions strong, Chinese consumers can now afford California squid themselves. Many countries that import California squid prefer the smaller size, and California squid goes to Mediterranean countries as well.  In short, most of the squid that California’s fishery exports is consumed overseas.  Why? The U.S. palate for squid pales in comparison to Asian and European demand.

Also important to understand: California squid is the economic driver of California’s wetfish industry – which produces more than 80 percent of the total seafood volume landed in the Golden State. California squid exports also represent close to 70 percent by weight and 44 percent of value of all California seafood exports. Our squid fishery contributes heavily to the Golden State’s fishing economy and also helps to offset a growing seafood trade imbalance.

The sad reality is that price really does matter and most California restaurants and retail markets are not willing to pay double for the same – or similar – small squid that they can purchase for half the price.

Nonetheless, we do appreciate Greenberg’s pitch for local seafood. Our local industry would be delighted if, as he suggested, all Californians would be willing to pay $1.50 a pound more for California squid.  We may be biased, but in our opinion California squid really is the best!

D.B. Pleschner is executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, a nonprofit dedicated to research and to promote sustainable wetfish resources.

Fresh fish versus frozen fish: Is it a fair fight?

Consumers may consider fresh fish to be better overall than frozen fish. But, the difference isn’t as clear-cut as it may seem to be.

By ​Andrea Moore, Food Tank June 23, 2014

Ben Pierce/Bozeman Daily Chronicle/AP/File

Josh Bergan fights a rainbow trout on Hebgen Lake in Montana. Consumers may consider fresh fish to be better overall than frozen fish, but the difference isn’t as clear-cut as it may seem to be.

Fresh versus frozen doesn’t seem like a fair fight. Who would pick that old, damaged, nutrient-poor frozen fish when they could have a new, unblemished, nutrient-rich fresh one?

In the case of seafood, the assumptions surrounding those f-words are inconsistent with the reality of getting quality fish to the dinner table in a waste-conscious way. So let’s ignore the imagery for a minute and consider some fish logistics.

From the Depths

To find, reach, fish, and return from fishing holes in the open ocean costs time, money, and freshness. Commercial fishing operations have two options:

1. Store fish on ice and return before they spoil (according to the FAO, cod and haddock last 15 days or so).
2. Flash-freeze fish and return when the hold is full.

The economics definitely favor freezing, and in developed countries in 2012, 55 percent of processed fish for human consumption was frozen, up from 38 percent in 1972. But aren’t we sacrificing nutrition for convenience by choosing to freeze instead of chill?

Delaying Decay

Fish are like any other organism—when they die, they begin to decay. Immediately. Yes, chilling slows that decay as well as microbial growth and nutrient loss, but the only way to stop those processes is freezing.

Aboard fish processing ships, products are flash-frozen using freezing plates, air blasts, or liquid nitrogen spray, which reduces the internal temperature of products to -20°C in minutes to a few hours. This rapid freezing preserves nutrients and decreases the formation of ice crystals that damage cell membranes and negatively affect the texture of thawed products.

Flying Fish

For a fresh fish to get from the sea to the scenic prairies, it needs to fly. But after an unknown time on a ship, an airplane, and store shelves, how fresh could that fish in your fridge really be? If you’re a skeptical consumer, you’ll try the sniff test, and if there’s any doubt, you’ll probably throw it out. What a waste! Not only the fish, but the resources used in obtaining, storing, and shipping that fish.

You might be less skeptical of a thawed fish’s freshness and you’re definitely more likely to only thaw the amount you need. That reduces waste. And, because the clock on frozen seafood is ticking so slowly, products can be shipped in containers, which is a slower but cheaper method, often reflected in the product’s price at the supermarket.

The Verdict

Maybe fresh versus frozen really wasn’t a fair fight after all. Nutrients, waste, cost—frozen beats fresh on many fronts. But does that mean you should turn down your local fisherman’s daily catch in favor of a frozen filet?

Sustainable Fresh or Sustainable Frozen?

Let’s remember the big picture when it comes to seafood: sustainability. In my recent article, I discussed why sustainable seafood is important and how to find it—fresh or frozen. Because of overfishing, we should always be thinking sustainable first, but when do you choose sustainable fresh or sustainable frozen?

Easy.

If the fish can get from the boat deck to your backdoor in half a day without flying first class, fresh is a safe bet. Otherwise, feel confident that a conscious choice for frozen is a healthier and less wasteful one.

Read the original article here.

California congressman calls ocean acidification “the biggest thing no one is talking about”

SEAFOODNEWS.COM Press-Democrat] By Mary Callaghan – June 18, 2014 –

BODEGA BAY, It’s been called the “evil twin” of climate change, an environmental peril so daunting and widespread that it could undo much of the world’s food web, undermine global nutrition and devastate coastal economies.

Ocean acidification, however, is often largely overlooked outside the circles of scientists, yet North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman is seeking to somehow change that and spur action on the issue before it’s too late.

Acidification of the world’s oceans, said Huffman, D-San Rafael, “is the biggest thing that nobody is talking about.”

Shellfish grown off the nation’s West Coast already display the ill effects of rapid changes in the ocean’s chemistry, an early sign that the health of the marine ecosystem could hang in the balance, Huffman said.

“You can’t really overstate the impact of this,” Huffman said at a news conference this week at Bodega Marine Laboratory that was attended by representatives from science, aquaculture and government.

“We’re very, very quickly approaching the tipping point, I believe,” Huffman said.

Huffman’s district runs from the Golden Gate to the Oregon border, taking in about a third of the coast of California, where seafood is a $24-billion industry, supporting 145,000 jobs.

The 2nd Congressional District is on the front lines of the issue because the shift toward ocean acidity is expected to be especially pronounced along the North Coast, said John Largier, an environmental science and policy professor at Bodega Marine Lab.

Absorption of excess carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere at historically high rates is lowering the pH of oceans around the planet, scientists say.
Its impact on the North Coast is amplified by a natural upwelling that serves as a kind of conveyor belt, bringing deep water made naturally acidic and rich in carbon dioxide by decaying organic matter toward the surface, where it absorbs still more carbon dioxide.

This dynamic effectively puts the northern California coast “at the forefront of acidification,” said Largier, who is one of several marine lab scientists studying aspects of acidification and was among those joining Huffman on Monday.

And yet, while global warming has a high degree of public recognition, ocean acidification is a less familiar phenomenon, Huffman said.

Terry Sawyer, owner of Hog Island Oyster Co. on Tomales Bay, put it this way: “We’re dealing with something that’s hard to touch. It’s hard to see, hard to taste, smell, etc.”

Huffman organized the event in part to highlight bipartisan legislation that he is co-sponsoring with Washington state Congressman Derek Kilmer. The Ocean Acidification Innovation Act is intended to spark new research and innovation in adaptive strategies through X-Prize-style competitions. The bill would leverage existing federal funds to create competitions for research into solutions, Huffman said.

But he said he also wanted to awaken public awareness to an environmental threat that has yet to receive the attention given to climate change. “This one has a potential to just be enormous and overwhelming,” he said.

“Nothing is quite as scary as acidification,” said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

Scientists say the oceans absorb a quarter or more of the carbon dioxide humankind puts into the atmosphere — about 22 million tons a day, on top of the estimated 525 billion tons absorbed over the past two centuries. What exactly that means for the planet is still not known, Largier said, though “it doesn’t look good.”

Shellfish, however, and particularly West Coast oysters, are providing some clues. Scientists are looking at reproductive failures in their midst in recent years — problems they ascribe to the interference of low pH water with the synthesis of calcium carbonate through which oyster larvae, and presumably other shellfish, develop hard, protective shells.

Sawyer and other West Coast purveyors of farm-raised oysters have seen “complete crashes” at some hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest, where he and other producers obtain the oyster larvae to seed their farms. Sawyer has had similar die-offs at his Tomales Bay operation, enough so that he’s building a new hatchery in Humboldt Bay to provide seed for his farm. He and his staff, meanwhile, are working closely with the marine lab to monitor and document conditions at his facility and develop strategies to try to adapt.

The entire fishing industry is at risk, given the role of calcium carbonate synthesis in skeletal development, potentially disrupting the entire food web, from the lowest phytoplankton on up, Largier said.

Largier and his colleagues emphasized that the world’s oceans are already contending with pollution, areas of low oxygen and rampant over fishing. Those problems are likely to compound any effects of acidification.

“The science is really early days,” Largier said.

UC Davis researcher Daniel Swezey, said one of the alarming features of ocean acidification is that a certain amount is inescapable, given the volume of past and current carbon dioxide emissions. “We’re kind of locked in to a certain amount of change,” he said. Largier said reducing carbon dioxide emissions is the only real fix but conceded that even large-scale, global changes in human behavior might not be evident for decades.

But that’s “no reason not to start acting now,” Largier said.

“Even if we completely adapt,” said Grader, “if we don’t start changing the ways we’re doing things now, we’re going to lose our ocean. We’re going to lose the planet.”

Posted by permission from SeafoodNews.com. Subscribe to their seafood industry news here.

Point of View: Seafood’s future hinges on reducing carbon pollution

By Bruce Steele
June 01, 2014

Bruce Steele has spent more than 40 years as a commercial diver and fisherman in Oregon and California. He is a longstanding leader in resource management and industry associations.

A decade ago, Japanese researchers showed that seawater soured by carbon pollution would hamper sea urchins’ reproductive capabilities. I read their report and saw trouble on the horizon. As a commercial urchin diver in California, I hoped this trouble would stay far away. Now it’s here.

Christina Frieder at UC-Davis has demonstrated that waters acidified to pH 7.8 — a level already detected along the West Coast — can reduce fertilization success by 20 percent in red sea urchins, which are harvested from California to Alaska. Frieder states that 60 percent reductions in fertilization success may occur in the decades ahead as pollution pushes seawater pH down to 7.5. This means that red sea urchins will have a harder time recruiting into the fishery, and they will be less abundant. Surface waters had an average pH of 8.2 in pre-Industrial times; acid from carbon emissions has reduced that to about 8.1 in today’s ocean, and it’s heading south fast.

Now ocean acidification is my problem. If you work in seafood, it’s yours too.

Red king crab suffers 100 percent mortality of larvae after 90 days in seawater at a pH of 7.5. Oysters, mussels, clams, abalone and some scallops are vulnerable, which shellfish farmers are learning the hard way. Corals that shelter vulnerable fish populations in much of the world are at risk. Shells of pteropods, common zooplankton that are a key food source for salmon, are already dissolving in Pacific Northwest waters. Two recent studies found that modest levels of acidification can impair growth in American lobsters. Direct impacts on fish are also becoming clear: Some fish lose their ability to smell and evade predators or distinguish them from their own prey. The catalog of harm includes damage to organ tissues, neurological functions, growth and reproduction.

For the seafood industry, some consequences are now inevitable. But there is no place to hide, so we had better defend ourselves. Both the causes and the consequences of acidification can be reduced.

How to curb the causes? Strong policies to reduce carbon emissions would be a good start. Without those, everything else we do will amount to an epitaph.

This industry can and should push Congress and the Obama administration to protect fisheries from carbon pollution. California and nine Atlantic states from Maine to Maryland have embraced market-based systems — akin to individual fishing quotas — to cut emissions. This hasn’t broken their economies. Now even China is trying a market system to cut emissions in five cities. India has launched the world’s first nationwide cap-and-trade regime to curtail carbon pollution.

Protecting seafood supplies will require especially deep cuts in carbon pollution. A recent paper published in Nature by Steinacher, et al., illuminates the geochemical vulnerability of productive fisheries: If CO2 emissions push atmospheric concentration beyond 550 parts per million, more than 90 percent of waters where coral reefs grow are likely to become chemically hostile to many corals and other calcifiers.

How to reduce harm? We are learning tools for adaptation. To save collapsing “seed” supplies for Pacific Northwest shellfish farms,  hatcheries have found effective but costly ways to measure and manipulate seawater chemistry in their tanks. That’s how they protect larvae that were dying by the billions in corrosive waters during their most vulnerable first days of life. In coastal bays, researchers along the West Coast are investigating whether photosynthesis by sea grass can soak up enough CO2 to protect neighboring calcifiers from acidifying waters, a research priority identified by Washington’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Ocean Acidification.

Can we protect fish stocks in open waters? Maybe. No-fishing areas, which I fought for many years, do increase density and size of formerly fished stocks. That might help protect reproductive capacity of broadcast spawners like red sea urchins: Acidification makes their sperm swim slower and survival time of urchin sperm limits successful fertilization. Another approach is increasing the size limit of sea urchins that can be harvested, to increase sea urchin densities and spawning success.

Working with researchers from two University of California campuses, the sea urchin industry has funded and facilitated a long-term study of larval sea urchin recruitment. Our one-of-a-kind data set shows trends in sea urchin survival at 15 sites. If decreased red sea urchin recruitment does show up, we will see it in the data. Keeping track of recruitment has helped us manage our fishery in the past and it will help us recognize when we need to protect spawning capacity. But that’s only treating the symptom.

Frieder’s findings on red sea urchins are a harbinger of trouble for the whole ocean. To stay in business, seafood producers of all kinds will need to belly up to some tough new management practices. We will also need to become effective champions for pollution controls that most of us have ignored until now.

Bruce Steele has spent more than 40 years as a commercial diver and fisherman in Oregon and California. He is a longstanding leader in resource management and industry associations.

Read the original article here.

Has There Really Been A Sardine Crash?

Sardines have been a hot news topic in recent weeks. Environmental groups and others have claimed that the sardine population is collapsing like it did in the mid-1940s.

The environmental group Oceana has been arguing this point loudly in order to shut down the sardine fishery. That’s why they filed suit in federal court, which is now under appeal, challenging the current sardine management.

So what is the truth about the state of sardines? It’s much more complicated than environmentalists would lead you to believe. In fact, it’s inaccurate and disingenuous to compare today’s fishery management with the historic sardine fishery collapse that devastated Monterey’s Cannery Row.

Read the full story here.

Viewpoints: The state of sardine populations

Sardines have been a hot news topic in recent weeks. Environmental groups and others have trumpeted that the sardine population is collapsing like it did in the mid-1940s.

The environmental group Oceana has been arguing this point loudly in order to shut down the sardine fishery. That’s why it filed suit in federal court, in a case now under appeal, challenging the current sardine management.

So what is the truth about the state of sardines? It’s much more complicated than environmentalists would lead you to believe.

In fact, it’s inaccurate and disingenuous to compare today’s fishery management with the historic sardine fishery collapse that devastated Monterey’s Cannery Row.

In the 1940s and ’50s, the fishery harvest averaged 43 percent or more of the standing sardine stock. Plus, there was little regulatory oversight and no limit on the annual catch.

Today, the allowed annual U.S. catch totals roughly 5 percent and coastal sardine exploitation averages less than 15 percent of the northern stock.

Read the full story here.

State, squid industry getting together

Recently, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) closed the commercial fishery for market squid Loligo (Doryteuthis) opalescens. The closure came a month earlier than the year before.

This was the fourth straight year that the squid fishery closed early; the season typically extends all year, from April 1 to March 31. The difference this year – unlike the past – was that the Department collaborated with the squid industry on day-to-day management, including the closure date.

Squid fishermen and seafood processors, working with the Department, tracked catches daily from season start in April. They determined that the season’s harvest limit of 118,000 short tons of market squid would be reached early because squid began spawning far earlier than normal  in Southern California in 2013, a fact documented by industry-sponsored squid research.

Read the full article here.

Wetfish industry, state work together to manage squid fishery

Recently, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) closed the commercial fishery for market squid Loligo (Doryteuthis) opalescens. The closure came a month earlier than the year before.

This was the fourth straight year that the squid fishery closed early; the season typically extends all year, from April 1 to March 31. The difference this year — unlike the past — was that the Department collaborated with the squid industry on day-to-day management, including the closure date.

Squid fishermen and seafood processors, working with the Department, tracked catches daily from season start in April. They determined that the season’s harvest limit of 118,000 short tons of market squid would be reached early because squid began spawning far earlier than normal in Southern California in 2013, a fact documented by industry-sponsored squid research.

This uncommon industry initiative — a precedent-setting voluntary effort to cooperatively manage the squid fishery — represents a big step forward for conservation and responsible fishing.

Beginning in 2010, the superabundance of squid available to California fishermen was the product of a decadal resource “boom” the likes of which had not been experienced since 1999. Strong La Niña conditions produced a perfect storm of enhanced ocean productivity and market squid took advantage.

The fishery responded in kind, and markets increased their packing capacity to process the abundance. The squid fishery exceeded the seasonal catch limit in both 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons.

In 2012-13, in lieu of proposed “slow down” restrictions that the industry opposed, the California Wetfish Producers Association (CWPA), a nonprofit organization representing the wetfish industry — including squid — volunteered to help track landings at the end of season. CWPA received full cooperation from participating markets, which helped to validate the Department’s preliminary totals.

Department representatives attended the CWPA annual meeting in March 2013 and discussed ways to improve in-season tracking of squid landings to achieve the goal of attaining the total allowable catch as closely as possible without exceeding the catch limit.

CWPA members volunteered to submit landing receipts daily in order to help track landings virtually in real time from the season start in 2013, and the collaboration between industry and agency began.

All major squid processors signed the CWPA agreement. The Department established a single email address to accept daily landing receipts so markets could voluntarily scan and submit via email.

In addition, it provided a website where markets could voluntarily upload scanned landing receipts, if they preferred. Additionally, the Department agreed to create and post landing updates on CDFW’s market squid page for individual processors and fishermen to monitor fishery progress.

Read the full opinion here.

Magnuson Reauthorization must address food, jobs, and revenue, as well as fish says Ray Hilborn

Ray Hilborn is a Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, and one of the world’s reknowned experts on fisheries. He has long advocated a broad view of the benefits of fisheries in the food system, and asked that we consider the ecological impacts of not fishing as well as those of fishing. This is a guest editorial written following the Managing Our Nation’s Fisheries Conference, held earlier this month in Washington, DC.

The recent Managing Our Nations Fisheries conference in Washington D.C. and the upcoming reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Management and Conservation Act has focused attention on the nation’s fisheries, how well they are doing, and what can be done to improve the contribution of U.S. fisheries to our national well-being. A logical first step in evaluation of our fisheries is to first ask what are the objectives of American fisheries management?

The text of the act begins with “To provide for the conservation and management of the fisheries, and for other purposes”, but then becomes more specific by stating that rebuilding fish stocks, ensuring conservation , protecting essential habitat are all intentions of the act. Also, the act makes it clear that one objective is to provide for “the development of fisheries which are underutilized or not utilized … to assure that our citizens benefit from the employment, food supply, and revenue which could be generated thereby.”

Read the full story here.