Alaska
Alaska cod: Gulf cod stocks creep back, but Bering and Aleutian still down
National Fisherman by Charlie Ess - April 2, 2021
Pacific cod stocks have begun to rebound in the Gulf of Alaska, but the TAC for 2021 remains low at 17,321 metric tons. Last year managers curtailed the fishery in federally managed waters after stock assessments put the biomass near the bottom of the threshold for conducting the fishery.
https://www.nationalfisherman.com/alaska/alaska-cod-gulf-cod-stocks-creep-back-but-bering-and-aleutian-still-down
Spawn on kelp herring fishery off to quiet start
KFSK by Joe Viechnicki - April 2, 2021
A commercial fishery for herring eggs on kelp near Prince of Wales Island in southern Southeast Alaska is off to a quiet start this spring.
https://www.kfsk.org/2021/04/02/spawn-on-kelp-herring-fishery-off-to-quiet-start/
National
Communities, companies taking steps to get COVID vaccine to seafood industry workers
Seafood Source by Steve Bittenbender - April 2, 2021
Later this month, an old U.S. Environmental Protection Agency facility on the waterfront in New Bedford, Massachusetts, will be teeming with seafood industry workers taking the next step toward the industry’s – and the nation’s – recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/supply-trade/communities-companies-taking-steps-to-get-covid-vaccine-to-fishing-industry-workers
Trade, International - China
3MMI - China: More Containers on the Move, New Raw Materials Pricing Set
TradexFoods - April 5, 2021
Our VP of Asia Operations has advised that cold storages in Dalian are now releasing up to 40 containers per day which is a much needed lift from the 10 containers being released per day just 2 weeks ago - though it is still only a small percentage of raw materials required by processing plants.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLqiipnCQJM&t=101s
Environment/Science
At ComFish, Fishermen discuss permanent legal end of Pebble Mine
KMXT by Dylan Simard - April 2, 2021
At the ComFish AK trade show last Tuesday, fishing groups made another push to permanently protect Bristol Bay from the proposed Pebble Mine — this time in the form of federal legislation.
https://kmxt.org/2021/04/at-comfish-fishermen-discuss-permanent-legal-end-of-pebble-mine/
FYI’s
A new Netflix Original titled, Seaspiracy, premiered 24 March. In an effort to help reinforce considerations and dialog based on appropriate scientific rigor and facts, we will be highlighting several blogs from www.sustainablefisheries-uw.org.
Fisheries management regulates the amount of fishing pressure on a population of fish and works to maintain a fish stock biomass withing a sustainable range, or to rebuild depleted populations back to healthy levels.
From SustainableFisheries-UW.org (11 January 2021):
Fishery management is composed of small, concrete actions—which ones are best?
Fishery management is a catch-all concept encompassing a collection of smaller, defined fishing regulations. As a whole, it is continuously evaluated: e.g. FAO produces a biennial report on the status of world fisheries; NOAA produces an annual status of stocks for congress and the American people. Missing, however, has been an evaluation of the smaller regulations within fishery management. There are many levers that managers can pull to alter fishing pressure—which ones are most effective? What tool should managers reach for in the fishery management toolbox? A new paper, Melnychuk et al. 2021, evaluates those specific regulations to determine which are best at contributing to effective fishery management systems. … The management history from this paper pairs well with Hilborn et al. 2020, a paper that traced the biomass of these same fish stocks and found most to be healthy or recovering, indicating that overfishing of those populations has been curbed.
Full article can be found here: https://sustainablefisheries-uw.org/identifying-management-actions-that-promote-sustainable-fisheries/
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