Global Food Collaborative

Tom Gemmell, Marine Conservation Alliance

Table of Contents (Continued) - July 23, 2010

Fish Notes Calendar Here

Disclaimer:  Inclusion of a news article, report, or other document in this email does not imply MCA support or endorsement of the information or opinion expressed in the document.

FEDERAL

1. Two rescued after boat sinks in Norton Sound (7/17)
2. 4 boats take on water, 2 slip under (7/18)
3. Florida Tech grads brave Bering Sea (7/18)
4. State attempts to retain control of crab harvest levels (7/16)
5. NOAA Ship Fairweather Maps Aid Shipping Through Bering Straits (7/20)
6. Coast Guard responds to grounding of Homer fishing vessel, Seward charter vessel reporting fire in engine room (7/20)
7. Commerce Department Appoints Members to Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee (7/20)
8. NPRB.  Now in print: the foundational years
9. NPAFC July 2010 Newsletter
10. Local science teacher aids with pollock survey (7/19)
11. NPFMC Special August Meeting Agenda
12. The Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force Final Report and Presidential Executive Order, Includes Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning
13. Delegation Calls on Homeland Security Secretary to Request Replacement of the Lost HH-60 Helicopter (7/22)
14. Safety interventions reduce fishing deaths (7/22)
15. USCG – safety bulletin re proper maintenance (7/21)
16. The R/V OSHORO MARU returns to Unalaska (7/15)

STATE

17. Petersburg crew catches first Atlantic salmon of the year (7/21)
18. Continued expansion at harbor discussed (7/15)
19. Bristol Bay Fisheries Report
20. Sockeye catch in Bristol Bay exceeds 25 million (7/17)
21. Bristol Bay sockeyes garner 95 cents a pound (7/22)
22. Medvejie experiment aids accident recovery (KCAW Audio) (7/22)
23. Golden king crab fishery limits set (7/20)
24. Commercial fishermen ‘tickled pink’ over salmon prices (7/23)
25. Petersburg Sales activity dropped, jobs increased locally in 2009 (KFSK Audio) (7/23)

MARKETING

26. Fish certification scheme shows its true colours (7/18)
27. Paul Greenberg: The Future Of ‘Wild Fish’  (7/19)
28. Northern Europe a key market for Alaskan canned salmon (KDLG Audio) (7/12)
29. Chefs to visit Cordova (7/21)
30. Island Seafoods to brand its salmon with Pillar Mountain turbines (7/21)
31. Shaking the ‘frozen’ stigma (7/21)
32. Gourmet elite learn salmon way of life (7/22)

MISC

33. New Analysis Of Phytoplankton Growth Raises Concern For Ocean Productivity (7/16)
34. Oregon.  Catch shares: Sustainability for fish and fishermen (6/22)

FEDERAL

1. Two rescued after boat sinks in Norton Sound (7/17). Shaktoolik villagers rescued two young men clinging to buoys after their fishing boat sank in Norton Sound on Friday, but another man is missing and presumed dead, troopers say.A life jacket that Thomas Sagoonick, 36, was trying to put on as the 22-foot aluminum boat sank in rough seas was found among debris that later washed ashore, troopers spokeswoman Beth Ipsen said Saturday. Sagoonick remained missing Saturday evening.The sinking was reported at about 3 p.m. Friday.Brothers Brian Savetilik, 19, and Clarence Savetilik Jr., 24, held onto a buoy and to each other as friends arrived in another boat to rescue them, their mother said.   More
2. 4 boats take on water, 2 slip under (7/18). Four vessels took on water Thursday night, including a 34-foot long commercial fishing boat that capsized 10 miles northwest of Anchor Point.The U.S. Coast Guard hoisted Eric Olsen and Leah Lansdown from their gillnetter, John Henry, just before it sunk below the surface.Petty Officer Jon-Paul Rios said that Coast Guard responded earlier, but the boat said it was fine.The second time Olsen and Lansdown called for help, the ship was ready to go under. The two were in acceptable condition when they arrived on shore.   More
3. Florida Tech grads brave Bering Sea (7/18). Instead of spending their summers sunbathing and surfing, two Florida Tech grads are doing something a little different.  Brevard County residents John Fisher and Karen Vaughan will be spending the coming months aboard fishing boats in Alaska’s Bering Sea. And they’re there for the science.Working as fisheries observers, they will live aboard fishing vessels based out of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, collecting data on various fish species for the National Marine Fisheries Service. Leaving from the home port of the Discovery Channel’s hit show “Deadliest Catch,” these Florida-raised scientists may be on the Arctic seas for up to three weeks at a time.Fisher, a 23-year old oceanography major, left for Dutch Harbor in May. This is his second summer working as an observer. Last year, he spent three months working on pollock trawlers, big boats that drag nets near the bottom in deep water.”I had to learn a completely new set of fish species,” said Fisher, who enjoys surfing, fishing and diving for lobster when he’s home in Indialantic. “It’s amazing how different the fish are on the other side of the continent.” More
4. State attempts to retain control of crab harvest levels (7/16). The how and the who of setting annual harvest levels for Alaska crab is set for review during the October meeting of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council.At issue is whether the role of the state Department of Fish and Game to set the total allowable catch, or TAC, satisfies the legal requirements in the 2007 revisions to the Magnuson Stevens Act that governs federal fisheries policy.Since 1989, the state has set the TAC for Alaska’s Bering Sea crab fisheries under a joint agreement with the federal government, which governs the waters more than three miles off the coast.At the fish council’s June meeting in Sitka, the council adopted the status quo as its preliminary preferred alternative for crab management with the caveat that an interim analysis before the October meeting would determine where the state management plan needs to be “tweaked” to conform with the revised MSA.In an 8-3 vote spearheaded by Fish and Game Commissioner and council member Denby Lloyd, the council set aside complex alternative management plans that would have essentially removed the state’s authority to set the TAC and placed responsibility for setting annual catch limits in the hands of the National Marine Fisheries Service.Fearing that federal fisheries managers would set overly conservative harvest levels, industry representatives and delegates from crab hubs Unalaska and St. Paul voiced strong opposition to any plan that removed crab management from Fish and Game.  More
5. NOAA Ship Fairweather Maps Aid Shipping Through Bering Straits (7/20). As Arctic ice recedes, countries are looking forward to faster, safer and more efficient sea routes across the top of the world. Responding to a request from the U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, Alaska Maritime Pilots and the commercial shipping industry, NOAA sent one of its premier surveying vessels, NOAA Ship Fairweather, to detect navigational dangers in critical Arctic waters that have not been charted for more than 50 years. Fairweather, whose homeport is Ketchikan, Alaska, will spend July and August examining seafloor features, measuring ocean depths and supplying data for updating NOAA’s nautical charts spanning 350 square nautical miles in the Bering Straits around Cape Prince of Wales. The data will also support scientific research on essential fish habitat and will establish new tidal datums in the region.Just as the growing numbers of cars on the road cause traffic “chokepoints,” more ships traversing northern passageways can choke maritime traffic. These maritime traffic snarls occur when nautical charts are outdated, ships do not have sufficient information for navigation or changing maritime conditions – like sea level rise or movements of the seafloor – are not tracked.  More
6. Coast Guard responds to grounding of Homer fishing vessel, Seward charter vessel reporting fire in engine room (7/20). The Coast Guard responded to two separate distress calls after receiving one from a crewmember from the Homer-based 58-foot fishing vessel Polar Star reporting they were taking on water 65-miles west of Kodiak and another from a crewmember aboard the Seward-based 38-foot charter vessel Aurora reporting smoke in their engine room 10 miles southeast of Seward Tuesday morning.Coast Guard Sector Anchorage received to a mayday call from the captain of the 58-foot fishing vessel Polar Star reporting the vessel was taking on water and the crew of five were about to abandon ship on the southern side of the Alaskan Peninsula 65-miles west of Kodiak at 10:10 a.m. Tuesday.The Sector Anchorage command center received the mayday call over VHF radio and immediately diverted the crews of a Kodiak-based C-130 Hercules aircraft and MH-60 Jayhawk rescue helicopter after their assistance was no longer needed by the crew of the Aurora.  The Coast Guard aircraft arrived on scene at 11:20 a.m. and found the crew of the Polar Star in a skiff nearby their grounded vessel.  More
7. Commerce Department Appoints Members to Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee (7/20). The Department of Commerce, in consultation with the Department of the Interior, has appointed 11 new members to the Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee. The 30-member committee, which meets twice yearly, is made up of representatives of diverse interests who advise the Departments of Commerce and the Interior on the development and implementation of a national system of marine protected areas (MPAs). The new members join the 16 continuing members appointed in March 2008. An additional three new members will be appointed later this year.  More/Names
8. NPRB.  Now in print: the foundational years tells the story of NPRB’s development since 2002.The 288-page book describes the scientific foundations of NPRB and synthesizes funded research in the areas of lower trophic levels, fish habitat, fishes and invertebrates, seabirds, marine mammals, humans / local and traditional knowledge, and other prominent issues.It includes detailed appendices about Board and committee members over the years, policies, how Requests for Proposals have changed over the years, and more. The book is also fully indexed by topic and by specific research project.   Download NPRB: The Foundational Years (PDF, 12MB)
9. NPAFC July 2010 NewsletterNo. 28 (July 2010) – download (PDF, 5.1 MB)
   
   • Enforcement Evaluation and Coordination Meeting
     J. Imamura download (964 KB)
   • Research Planning and Coordinating Meeting
     J.Y. Kim download (1,221 KB)
   • Salmon Workshop on Climate Change
     J. Irvine download (569 KB)
   • Bill Heard Marked 50 Years of Service in Salmon Research
     S. Urawa, NPAFC Secretariat download (368 KB)
   • International High Seas Tagging Research download (637 KB)
   • Farewell to the Date Line Survey: The Wakatake maru Completes Long-term Monitoring in 2010 . Fukuwaka download (1,222 KB)
   • NPAFC Bulletin No. 5 Climate Change, Production Trends, and Carrying Capacity of Pacific Salmon in the Bering Sea and Adjacent Waters download (612 KB
   • News from the Secretariat download (409 KB)
     
10. Local science teacher aids with pollock survey (7/19). UNALASKA, AK (kucb) - Story Miller, an Unalaska middle school science teacher, departed today on the NOAA ship Oscar Dyson as part of the Teacher at Sea program. She will be spending the next 19 days assisting with NOAA’s annual pollock survey. Miller was one of 35 teachers out of 250 applicants to be selected for a NOAA cruise.Unlike some of the participants in Teachers at Sea, Miller isn’t new to this sort of voyage. Before becoming a teacher, she served in the Coast Guard and she says she’s been trying to find a way to get back out on the ocean since. This also isn’t her first time out on the Oscar Dyson. In May, she brought her student aboard and they simulated the sort of pollock research that Miller will now be doing for real.Miller plans on using the data collected while aboard in her lesson plans. The research team aboard the Oscar Dyson is now completing the third and final portion of the pollock survey, and its official report will be available in September.  Link
11. NPFMC Special August Meeting Agenda
12. The Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force Final Report and Presidential Executive Order, Includes Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning. President Obama signed an Executive Order establishing a National Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Coasts, and Great Lakes on July 19, 2010. That Executive Order adopts the Final Recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force and directs Federal agencies to take the
    appropriate steps to implement them.

    The Executive Order strengthens ocean governance and coordination, establishes guiding principles for ocean management, and adopts a flexible framework for effective coastal and marine spatial planning to address conservation, economic activity, user conflict, and sustainable use of the ocean, our coasts and the Great Lakes.

    Obama Administration officials released the Final Recommendations of the Ocean Policy Task Force on July 19, 2010, which would establish a National Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Coasts, and Great Lakes (National Policy) and create a National Ocean Council (NOC) to strengthen ocean governance and coordination.  The Final Recommendations prioritize actions for the NOC to pursue, and call for a flexible framework for coastal and marine spatial planning to address conservation, economic activity, user conflict, and sustainable use of the ocean, our coasts and the Great Lakes.   More

13. Delegation Calls on Homeland Security Secretary to Request Replacement of the Lost HH-60 Helicopter (7/22). Alaska’s congressional delegation today wrote to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano urging her to request funding to replace the recently lost HH-60 helicopter from Air Station Sitka.The request comes in the wake of the recent HH-60 crash in which three Coast Guard personnel were killed. The crew and helicopter were based in Sitka. The crash occurred in waters near James Island near La Push, Washington. The Alaska congressional delegation extends their condolences and prayers to the families of Lt. Sean Krueger of Seymour, Conn.; Adam Hoke of Great Falls, Mont.; and Brett M. Banks of Rock Springs, Wyo.In their letter, the delegation cited the vast amount of coastline and waters that the Coast Guard is responsible for patrolling and the Guard’s emergency assistance mission as reasons for funding a replacement helicopter.   More
14. Safety interventions reduce fishing deaths (7/22). A new federal report says safety interventions addressing specific hazards in Alaska have resulted in a significant decline in the commercial fishing fatality rate, but more preventive measures are still needed in high risk fisheries.Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that while the overall number of commercial fishing deaths have declined gradually since 1992, vessel disasters and falls overboard continue to be the main incidents leading to fatalities.According to a CDC report published July 16, the Alaska region had 133 commercial fishing deaths from 2000 to 2009 – the highest percentage of any region in the nation. Nationally, a total of 504 fish harvesters died during that decade.Federal officials attributed 61 percent of the total deaths to vessel disasters. They noted that none of those who died from falling overboard were wearing a personal flotation device. The falls were attributed to tripping, losing balance and gear entanglement. The CDC also noted that the majority of those who died from falling overboard were alone on the deck.Of the fisheries for which average annual fatality rates could be calculated, the Northeast United States multispecies groundfish fishery had the highest rate of deaths, followed by the Atlantic scallop fleet and the West Coast Dungeness crab fleet.  More
15. USCG – safety bulletin re proper maintenance (7/21). The US Coast Guard issued a bulletin reminding owners, operators, and masters of the importance of ensuring proper maintenance of systems, equipment, and components. A commercial vessel recently suffered a partial propulsion failure. Investigation revealed that the company’s Safety Management System and the vessel’s Maintenance Management System had both failed to include a line item for routine changing of lube oil filters, even though such maintenance was required by the associated equipment manual. Lessons Learned 04-10 Courtesy Bryant’s Maritime Blog
16. The R/V OSHORO MARU returns to Unalaska (7/15). This week, a group of Japanese scientist have been teaching Unalaska residents about their research.A team of roughly 40 students and academics arrived here on the training vessel Oshoro Maru and kicked off their stay with a community barbecue on Monday night. On Tuesday, some of the researchers spoke about their work to an at-capacity audience at the Museum of Aleutians. The scientists discussed subjects like the differences between plankton conditions in the eastern and western North Pacific Ocean and the role currents play in distributing chlorophyll.The Oshoro Maru has been coming to Unalaska annually on its research voyages. The ship is set to leave today.  Link

STATE

17. Petersburg crew catches first Atlantic salmon of the year (7/21). An Atlantic salmon that escaped from a British Columbia fish farming operation was caught recently in Southeast Alaska’s Sumner Strait, reports Petersburg radio station KFSK. Such catches are an annual occurrence though much reduced in number from the 1990s.   More
18. Continued expansion at harbor discussed (7/15). City Council held a work session July 7 to discuss plans for continued expansion of the Cordova boat haul out and the council’s vision for development of a full-service shipyard.”We had a good rush in May and June,” said Cordova harbor master Dale Muma, about use of the new boat haul out. “But we are going to need more power down there, guys are going to want power down there to work on their boats. By next spring you will have a good indication of the demand.”As the discussion moved to development of a new shipyard, Mayor Jim Kallander asked Muma to lead the discussion with his idea of build-out of the facility. Muma said a minimum is a building to work in.”If you want to reach out and make it a top-notch facility, you are going to need to have a building there. If you have a building you are going to attract the service industry to work out of there. Right now the big problem is that we don’t have the space to put up a building. You do if you give up space to put boats on the ground. That is the decision that Council is going to have to make.”  More
19. Bristol Bay Fisheries Report July 17 [MP3 Audio, 6.04MB]
20. Sockeye catch in Bristol Bay exceeds 25 million (7/17). Sockeye salmon fishermen, undeterred by late runs of the prized fish into Bristol Bay, boosted their harvest through July 16 to 25.5 million reds,out of a total run of 36.3 million fish.Some 1,500 fishermen were still on the grounds, hoping to boost the harvest to the forecast of 30.5 million fish.”It’s a banner year, and last year was a good year too,” said Bob Waldrop, executive director of the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association. “Only in Bristol Bay can you call a total run of 36 million fish disappointing.”From the perspective of the entire fishery over a ten year period, it is pretty hard to be disappointed, although some people got hurt for sure,” he said.The value of the harvest to fishermen remained an unknown, with no processors commenting on what they planned to pay.The Alaska Department of Fish and Game forecast for the famed Bristol Bay sockeyes was a run of 39.7 million, with a harvest of 30.5 million fish. With all those fishermen still out there harvesting, Waldrop said the total catch would go significantly higher before it’s all over.

    “We might reach the total run, but it doesn’t look like we are going to reach the total catch,” he said.

    Processors with facilities in the Naknek area meanwhile were scurrying to head, gut and fillet much of the harvest. Several processors said they were producing very few canned fish and they were happy to put the fish into higher margin items, Waldrop said.  More

21. Bristol Bay sockeyes garner 95 cents a pound (7/22). Commercial fishermen in the famed Bristol Bay wild Alaska sockeye salmon fishery were heading home in late July with smiles on their faces, warmed by base prices averaging 95 cents a pound for the 28 million reds netted.”I think most fishermen were pleasantly surprised,” said David Harsilla, president of the Alaska Independent Fishermen’s Marketing Association, which has for more than 40 years represented the interests of Bristol Bay fishermen.Harsilla, who fished for Alaska General Seafoods in north Naknek, said in an interview July 21 that harvesters he has talked with have been pleasantly surprised that the price came up to what they anticipated.”We had a lot of nice fish this year and they are being shipped into markets that want them,” he said. “More fish is being shipped out fresh.”Processor sources in Bristol Bay said that Yardarm Knot Fisheries was offering 96 cents a pound base price, while Trident Seafoods, Icicle Seafoods, Peter Pan Seafoods and Ocean Beauty Seafoods were all offering a base price of 95 cents a pound for reds. Leader Creek Seafoods, which has a profit sharing plan, does not post prices, but matches other companies’ going home base prices right after the season, with profit sharing determined at a later date, company officials said.The highest base prices posted for Bristol Bay sockeyes in the last 26 years was $2.11 a pound in 1988, and the lowest, in 2001, was 42 cents a pound. According to the latest price statistics posted by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, that the 2008 base price in the bay averaged 73 cents.  More
22. Medvejie experiment aids accident recovery (KCAW Audio) (7/22).  Earlier this month, two hatcheries in Sitka both suffered devastating accidents over the same weekend. The Sheldon Jackson Hatchery lost about 240,000 salmon fry when a water intake pipe became blocked.At Medvejie Hatchery, a few miles south, the damage was worse.A closed water-intake valve resulted in the loss of nearly 1 million Chinook fry. But Medvejie also has been conducting an experimental program that, in the weeks since the accident, has helped the hatchery recover from the damage caused by the accident.Medvejie Hatchery is at the end of a narrow dirt road about 10 miles outside the center of town. It sits inside a secluded cove, where, down in the water, floating metal boardwalks encircle saltwater pens full of salmon.The hatchery is run by the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Assocation, or NSRAA.  More/Audio
    
23. Golden king crab fishery limits set (7/20). We’re three weeks away from the opening of the Aleutian Islands’ commercial golden king crab fishery – the open date is August 15th, and the fishery will close nine months later on May 15. Preseason inspections will be available in Dutch Harbor starting August 10 and vessel registration will being August 12th.
    The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced that total allowable catch will remain just shy of 6 million pounds, the same as last year’s limit. They limit has been stable for a decade now, and has never gone above 6 million pounds or below 5.7 million pounds.

    The community development quota is 315,000 pounds, and the Adak community allocation is 283,500 pounds.  Link

24. Commercial fishermen ‘tickled pink’ over salmon prices (7/23). “I love it. I wish I would have done this 10 years ago,” fishing vessel Kira captain Bucky Eddy, 30, said as his hands mended gill net. “I am definitely not upset with my chosen profession.”Eddy is just one of the many Juneau-area fishermen content with this year’s prices as the commercial salmon season approaches the halfway point in the gillnet and seine seasons.Another is Rick Fitch, captain of the Mollie Lindell, who has been fishing for 52 years.”Prices were better 20 years ago,” Fitch said. “That was when diesel fuel was 13 cents and a good boat could be bought for about $2,500.”Fitch, wife Patti and their Belgian barge dog, Keta (Tlingit for dog salmon), love to fish in the Juneau waters, especially when prices are climbing.”I am optimistic that they will continue to rise,” Fitch said. “Everything else costs a lot more now-a-days, but this is a lifestyle. I raised my kids on a boat.”   More
25. Petersburg Sales activity dropped, jobs increased locally in 2009 (KFSK Audio) (7/23).  Petersburg saw a decline in overall commercial sales last year, and also a drop in earnings for the local fishing fleet. However the town actually saw a small increase in jobs numbers last year, bucking region-wide and state-wide trends. Those were a few of the findings in a new economic trends report put out this month by Petersburg’s Economic Development Council.

MARKETING

26. Fish certification scheme shows its true colours (7/18). NEXT time you spot the telltale blue label at your fishmonger’s counter, you needn’t worry about whether your supper of “sustainable Alaska salmon” actually came from depleted stocks in the Atlantic.Several landmark studies have, over the past 20 years, highlighted the problem of mislabelled fish. One-third of fish on sale in the US is not the species it is sold as, and one-quarter of cod and haddock sold in Ireland is neither of these.Now an exercise in eco-forensics has found that the certification scheme run by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), a global not-for-profit organisation, offers a way of ensuring you get what you think you’re buying.In a blind study, Rob Ogden of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland tested 240 MSC-certified samples bought at supermarkets, restaurants and markets in the US, UK, Japan and Germany. He compared their DNA with validated reference samples. “Nothing came back as anything other than what it should have been,” he says.The study was able to differentiate between species such as farmed Atlantic salmon and the more expensive but sustainable Alaska salmon, and various populations of toothfish. This opens the possibility of telling apart sustainable and unsustainable fisheries of the same species. Ogden now plans to develop tests to distinguish between different populations of cod, herring and hoki. Link
27. Paul Greenberg: The Future Of ‘Wild Fish’  (7/19). Writer Paul Greenberg has been eating fish caught in local waters since he was a kid growing up in Connecticut. Most of the fish he caught himself — but occasionally, he would visit the fishmonger in his hometown and purchase wild fish, fresh from the sea.But when he visited fish markets as an adult, he realized that the types of fish for sale had changed. Instead of a variety of wild-caught fish, Greenberg saw four varieties of fish — salmon, sea bass, cod and tuna — that seemed to consistently be on fishmongers’ shelves, despite having little to do with the waters adjacent to his local fish market.  More/NPR Audio
28. Northern Europe a key market for Alaskan canned salmon (KDLG Audio) (7/12).  Despite a decline in production share in recent years, nearly half of the salmon caught in Bristol Bay is canned. About 71.8 million pounds of canned salmon was produced last year, 40.5 percent of total production. That represented an 11.2 percent decline in overall share as production increased in fillets, fresh and fresh frozen. But as KDLG’s Jacob Resneck reports, that doesn’t mean canned salmon should be completely written off. Markets in Europe, especially the United Kingdom, remain robust. (4:42)
29. Chefs to visit Cordova (7/21). Cordova will serve as home base as a group of chefs from the nationally acclaimed Oceanaire Seafood Room tour the region, visit with fishermen processors and managers, and learn about salmon and other seafood harvested from the Copper River and Prince William Sound region.The group arrives on Wednesday, July 21st for a four-day crash course in everything Copper River. Their knowledge and skills will be put to the test on Saturday, July 24th when they are tasked with creating a five-course regionally inspired culinary feast at the Copper River Highliner Dinner, held at the Reluctant Fisherman Inn.  More
30. Island Seafoods to brand its salmon with Pillar Mountain turbines (7/21). Adding value to a product like seafood usually means adding cost, too.But Kodiak’s Island Seafoods plans to add value to its salmon with only the reputation of the Pillar Mountain wind turbines.Coming soon, salmon produced at the small Shelikof Street processor will have a new message touting the processing plant’s connection with sustainable energy.“We’re going to have a green label that says something like, ‘Sustainable fish produced by clean, sustainable wind turbine energy,’” general manager John Whiddon said.Electricity from the turbines will not be routed toward Island Seafoods any more than to any home or business on the grid. But because Island Seafoods needs less energy than the turbines produce, its products might be considered as made from sustainable energy.The company hopes environmentally conscious consumers will be more drawn to fish that is wild, part of a sustainable fishery, and part of an electricity grid that is trying to move away from diesel fuel.  More
31. Shaking the ‘frozen’ stigma (7/21). By Steven Hedlund, SeafoodSource editor
    21 July, 2010 – In the seafood universe, “fresh” is a powerful adjective. Chefs and retailers are willing to pay a premium for fresh fish. So are consumers, who associate “fresh” with quality and superiority. To seafood professionals, however, “fresh” simply signifies “not frozen.”

    Frozen fish, on the other hand, can be a tougher sell. There’s a stigma attached to frozen seafood, resulting from years of neglect at the production level and a lack of education at the consumer level.

    Reversing the misperception that frozen seafood is inferior to fresh is a tall order. But there’s a revolution of sorts under way. It seems a growing number of seafood companies are realizing the attributes of frozen seafood, taking greater care in handling and storing it and ensuring it’s thawed properly. An increasingly number of restaurateurs and retailers are seemingly on board, too.  More
    
    

32. Gourmet elite learn salmon way of life (7/22). This weekend the Copper River/Prince William Sound Marketing Association hosts an elite team of food writers and chefs for a four-day crash course in our salmon way of life. The group will hear presentations on salmon runs and fishery management, meet local fishermen and processors and even get out and make a couple sets on the Copper River flats.The trip intentionally coincides with the final weeks of the Copper River sockeye run and is designed to draw attention to the varieties of fish available across the entire season from May through September, as well as the sustainable approach to fishery management on the Copper River and in Prince William Sound.The six food writers have collectively been published in Gourmet, the New York Times, Washington Post, Saveur, Men’s Health, Cooking Light, Newsday, Coastal Living, Elle and Food Arts. Their combined television appearances include Oprah, The Today Show, and Public Television. They have authored books, cooked in legendary restaurants and won awards.Trevor White, Oceaniare’s Houston Executive Chef, is back for his third tour of duty with the marketing event. White is responsible for, among other good things, bringing Reluctant Fisherman Restaurant Chef Paul Choi to Cordova.   More

MISC

33. New Analysis Of Phytoplankton Growth Raises Concern For Ocean Productivity (7/16). The journal publication the story is based on is available online:http://bit.ly/aTUM3VCORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study concludes that an old, fundamental and widely accepted theory of how and why phytoplankton bloom in the oceans is incorrect.The findings challenge more than 50 years of conventional wisdom about the growth of phytoplankton, which are the ultimate basis for almost all ocean life and major fisheries. And they also raise concerns that global warming, rather than stimulating ocean productivity, may actually curtail it in some places.This analysis was published in the journal Ecology by Michael Behrenfeld, a professor of botany at Oregon State University, and one of the world’s leading experts in the use of remote sensing technology to examine ocean productivity. The study was supported by NASA.The new research concludes that a theory first developed in 1953 called the “critical depth hypothesis” offers an incomplete and inaccurate explanation for summer phytoplankton blooms that have been observed since the 1800s in the North Atlantic Ocean. These blooms provide the basis for one of the world’s most productive fisheries.  More
34. Oregon.  Catch shares: Sustainability for fish and fishermen (6/22). As a participant in the West Coast trawl fishery for the last 20 years, I’m looking forward to the implementation of the “catch shares” program for the groundfish trawl fishery that’s been developed over the last seven years.Everyone has aspects of the program they would like to change, which is probably a good sign that it doesn’t favor any single group. Nobody I’ve spoken with believes it’s a perfect system. I do believe, however, that it’s far better than our current system of management, which forces fishermen to discard perfectly good fish and has led to the deterioration of fishing infrastructure up and down the coast. Progress rather than perfection should be our aim. If we try to keep tweaking the program until it’s perfect, we run the risk of continuing to fish under a failed system.  More