Monday, March 24, 2008P
Business Toolbox: The unthinkable
Prepare yourself for gourmand jellyfish
Somewhere in China right now, there's a cannonball jellyfish from the waters off Panama City just waiting to be eaten.
Shrimpers trying to stay afloat during the off season have been scooping them out of the gulf by the thousands since September. The gelatinous masses have turned out to be a profitable commodity on the Asian market, once they are processed into crispy protein wafers.
"Cannonball is a whole new business to us," said 68-year-old shrimp boat operator Steve Davis. "We used to run from them when we were shrimping because they would fill up the nets. Now we run to 'em."
The Panama City operation is run by Roger Newton, owner of Gulf Jellyfish Inc. He was on the dock at the St. Andrews Marina recently, watching crews unload their cannonball catch.
He said he has been in the business about seven years, more of them good than not. The cannonballs, rounded, non-stinging jellyfish that can grow to nearly a foot wide, start showing up around September and usually stay about three months, though he never can be certain, Newton said.
"If I could play God, I wouldn't be in the fish business," he said.
But what Davis does know is that they are a good way to make money, especially at a time when Asian imports are keeping wholesale shrimp prices low. A day's work and about $70 in fuel can bring in $1,000 worth of jellyfish, he said.
Two trawlers were busy netting cannonball in the bay within sight of the marina, while another boat was tied up to the dock to unload. A large vacuum hose sucked the jellyfish off the boats sunken deck and delivered them to a conveyor belt, where a crewman with a shovel scooped them into plastic bins.
Though they don't sting, they are slimy, and their mucus-like covering will cause a burning sensation if it gets in your eyes, Davis said.
"You can't hardly pick them up. We were going to call that man that's got the dirtiest jobs on television," he said, refering to the Discovery Channel's Mike Rowe.
Another worker with a forklift loaded the bins into a pair of waiting tractor-trailers. The jellyfish go to a processing plant in Georgia, where they are dried out, and the salt is removed. Then, they are packed into 50,000-pound containers for shipping to China and Japan, Newton said.
He retrieved a plastic bag from his truck to show to curious visitors. Inside were three yellowish wafers about 5 inches across.
"They're all protein and taste like whatever you put on them," he said.
According to the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the dried jellyfish are popular in Asia as salad toppers, or with cooked vegetables. A four-ounce serving contains 30 calories, eight grams of protein and 120 milligrams of sodium.
Researchers also believe the jellyfish might be useful in fighting certain types of arthritis because of the collagen they contain. –Miami Herald
Business Toolbox: Pricing
Sometimes, no price is a real object
A restaurant near Sandbanks, in Dorset, has attracted publicity by its intention of introducing a price-free menu (albeit only two days a week). Diners can pay what they like. This is not new. Years ago, a restaurant in north-west London, Just Around the Corner, tried it (for all meals, not just sometimes).
Its owner revealed that only two or three times had diners walked out without paying anything (most memorably, a table of young women) or a derisory sum. Mostly, customers tended to pay slightly more than the price would have been. The restaurant lasted around three or four years, and ceased only when the owner's other restaurants (run on traditional lines) folded.
But I remember an interesting flaw in the no-price concept. On my second time there, an acquaintance at another table came up to me, looking worried. "I don't know how much to pay," he confessed. "If it's too little, the people with me will think me mean. If I leave too much, I'll look stupid."
Some of my friends refused even to try the place. "Why should the burden of deciding the price be on me?" one complained. The restaurant later reopened, under the same name but different ownership, still with the same policy, and lasted many years.
Reviews of its cuisine were positive, but the psychological barrier remained. One critic for a national paper found herself "too neurotic" for the restaurant. The food "would taste much better if it were priced. We've done nothing all evening except fret over the bill". – Marcel Berlins, writing in The Guardian, U.K.
Business Toolbox: Your hires
Celebrity chef’s resume found to be partially false
Robert Irvine has a spectacular resumé.
He spent a decade as the executive chef for the royal household. He "travelled extensively" with Prince Charles and Princess Diana, "cooking at all the royal palaces." He even "assisted in the creation and painting of the royal wedding cake." (That was paint?)
According to his curriculum vitae, Irvine has prepared meals at the White House, including "inaugural dinners for presidents Bush (Sr.), Clinton and Bush." He's participated in state dinners and luncheons, including events for Francois Mitterand, Tony Blair, Ariel Sharon and "Alvero Velez." (We’re assuming that's a typo and he means Álvaro Uribe Vélez, not some guy who repairs carburetors in Bogotá.)
His listed celebrity clients include Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie, Paris Hilton and Elton John. His corporate clients include Ford, Kraft and Unilever.
And, apparently, his hobbies include embellishing the truth.
The host of Dinner: Impossible (Food Network Canada, 10 p.m.) is now "in hot water," to quote one puntastic headline.
To quote a few more, he is "peppered in controversy," accused of "cooking up his past" with a "souped-up resumé" that contains "spicy claims" sure to be a "recipe for disaster."
His "trouble in the kitchen" – that's the last one, I promise – began on Feb. 17 when the St. Petersburg Times published an investigation into some of Irvine's claims.
As it turns out, he's not a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order and the Queen did not give him a Scottish castle.
Irvine does not have a science degree in food and nutrition from the University of Leeds. He's not pals with Prince Charles. And if he had anything to do with the royal wedding cake, it was limited to "picking fruits," which is a bit like saying you invented sliced bread because you eat sandwiches.
As for the White House, he did spend some time in the Navy Mess facility, which is affiliated with the West Wing. But as one official told the Times, Irvine did not have "anything to do with the preparation, planning or service of any state dinner or any other White House executive residence food function, public or private."
Bloody hell!
It almost makes you wonder what Irvine left off his resume. You know, like the years he spent cooking Caribbean jerk grouper and strip steaks with chipotle peach glaze as the personal chef to William Shakespeare. Or the gravity-calibrated shrimp salad he created for space shuttle missions. Not to mention his varied apprenticeships, first as sous-chef for Uncle Ben, next as pastry chef for Betty Crocker and, finally, as sap mixologist for Aunt Jemima.
In an online marketing blurb for Dinner: Impossible, Irvine is described as a combination of "James Bond" and "MacGyver." We suppose this is more palatable than "Stephen Glass" and "Nixon."
The show, now in its fourth season, will continue to air. But given this simmering pot of mendacity, the Food Network announced Irvine's contract would not be renewed. Mind you, the official statement was notably ambiguous: "We appreciate Robert's remorse about his actions, and we can revisit this decision at the end of the production cycle, but for now we will be looking for a replacement host." – Boston Globe
Business Toolbox: Your hires
Celebrity chef’s resume found to be partially false
Robert Irvine has a spectacular resumé.
He spent a decade as the executive chef for the royal household. He "travelled extensively" with Prince Charles and Princess Diana, "cooking at all the royal palaces." He even "assisted in the creation and painting of the royal wedding cake." (That was paint?)
According to his curriculum vitae, Irvine has prepared meals at the White House, including "inaugural dinners for presidents Bush (Sr.), Clinton and Bush." He's participated in state dinners and luncheons, including events for Francois Mitterand, Tony Blair, Ariel Sharon and "Alvero Velez." (We’re assuming that's a typo and he means Álvaro Uribe Vélez, not some guy who repairs carburetors in Bogotá.)
His listed celebrity clients include Oprah Winfrey, Angelina Jolie, Paris Hilton and Elton John. His corporate clients include Ford, Kraft and Unilever.
And, apparently, his hobbies include embellishing the truth.
The host of Dinner: Impossible (Food Network Canada, 10 p.m.) is now "in hot water," to quote one puntastic headline.
To quote a few more, he is "peppered in controversy," accused of "cooking up his past" with a "souped-up resumé" that contains "spicy claims" sure to be a "recipe for disaster."
His "trouble in the kitchen" – that's the last one, I promise – began on Feb. 17 when the St. Petersburg Times published an investigation into some of Irvine's claims.
As it turns out, he's not a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order and the Queen did not give him a Scottish castle.
Irvine does not have a science degree in food and nutrition from the University of Leeds. He's not pals with Prince Charles. And if he had anything to do with the royal wedding cake, it was limited to "picking fruits," which is a bit like saying you invented sliced bread because you eat sandwiches.
As for the White House, he did spend some time in the Navy Mess facility, which is affiliated with the West Wing. But as one official told the Times, Irvine did not have "anything to do with the preparation, planning or service of any state dinner or any other White House executive residence food function, public or private."
Bloody hell!
It almost makes you wonder what Irvine left off his resume. You know, like the years he spent cooking Caribbean jerk grouper and strip steaks with chipotle peach glaze as the personal chef to William Shakespeare. Or the gravity-calibrated shrimp salad he created for space shuttle missions. Not to mention his varied apprenticeships, first as sous-chef for Uncle Ben, next as pastry chef for Betty Crocker and, finally, as sap mixologist for Aunt Jemima.
In an online marketing blurb for Dinner: Impossible, Irvine is described as a combination of "James Bond" and "MacGyver." We suppose this is more palatable than "Stephen Glass" and "Nixon."
The show, now in its fourth season, will continue to air. But given this simmering pot of mendacity, the Food Network announced Irvine's contract would not be renewed. Mind you, the official statement was notably ambiguous: "We appreciate Robert's remorse about his actions, and we can revisit this decision at the end of the production cycle, but for now we will be looking for a replacement host." – Boston Globe
Tuesday, March 25, 2008P
Business Toolbox: Sustainability
Chicago aquarium takes lead in smart seafood
You're at the grocery store or restaurant, and trying to choose what kind of fish to eat. But which fish are the best fish when it comes to sustainability?
For the first time, the answers to questions about Great Lakes fish are contained in a Right Bite card put out by the Shedd Aquarium of Chicago.
For about 10 years, Shedd officials have focused on informing people about seafood, with wallet-sized Right Bite cards that arrange species into categories of Best, Good and Avoid.
This year, the cards for the first time also contain information about Great Lakes fish.
Some are doing well when it comes to trapping methods and population management, like yellow perch from Lake Erie and most whitefish, researchers say.
Other fish, like lake trout from Lakes Huron and Michigan, shouldn't be eaten due to a loss of habitat, overfishing and harm by invasive sea lamprey, the cards advise. "We just want to raise awareness," said Michelle Jost, Shedd's conservation programs manager. "Eating fish is good for you. Eating the right fish is good for the environment."
The cards summarize peer-reviewed research done by Carla Ng, a Ph.D. candidate at Northwestern University's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. The research was paid for by Shedd Aquarium, a nonprofit, with support from the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation.
The cards are color-coded like a traffic light.
"They're designed so people don't have to remember this stuff," Jost said, referring to the research, which clocks in at 230 pages.
"They can just pull the card out at a grocery store or restaurant and help guide their decisions ... We're trying to shift interest and shift the market toward more sustainable choices."
By the way, pollock, found in fish sticks at the grocery store and McDonald's Filet-O-Fish, is in the "Best Choices" category, Jost said.
The Right Bite card is the result of a partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California and a Great Lakes stakeholders group that included representatives from state, federal, tribal and Canadian agencies, along with conservation and environmental groups. – Bay City Times, Michigan
Business Toolbox: Don't try this at home
One dies after eating puffer fish
CEBU CITY, Philippines -- One person died and nine others fell ill after eating a poisonous variety of puffer fish locally known as “butete” in Barangay (village) Malbago in Madridejos town on Bantayan Island.
Abner Batbatan, 34, caught the butete and cooked it for his family's lunch.
A few hours later Batbatan, his wife and three children, five other relatives and neighbors started to suffer dizziness and severe stomachache.
They were all brought to the Bantayan District Hospital where Batbatan died.
Madridejos Mayor Salvador dela Fuente said the rest of the victims were in stable condition, but they were still being assisted by the doctors so they will not get dehydrated.
He said the Madridejos municipal government will shoulder the medical expenses of the victims aside from giving P1,000 financial assistance to each victim.
Batbatan's family will also get a burial aid.
Despite frequent warnings about the high risk of eating puffer fish because of the high toxin level, small fishermen still catch and prepare the fish for their meals.
Residents insist that if properly cleaned and cooked, eating a butete would not cause any harm.
Last year, four persons were killed and five others fell ill after eating butete in the same barangay. -- Cebu Daily News, the Philippines
Business Toolbox: Cheating
Fish fraud nets $60,000 fine
WASHINGTON — True World Foods Chicago, LLC, was sentenced to pay $60,000 for its role in purchasing and re-selling falsely labeled frozen fish fillets in violation of the Lacey Act, the Justice Department announced. The Lacey Act prohibits, among other things, the receipt, acquisition or purchase of fish that was taken, possessed, transported or sold in violation of U.S. laws or regulations.
The corporation further forfeited $197,930, the purchase value of the fish, and agreed under a plea agreement entered on Dec. 10, 2007, to publish a full page advertisement regarding this incident in a seafood industry publication of wide circulation.
True World Foods Chicago, LLC, is a wholly owned subsidiary of True World Foods, LLC, a Delaware corporation, of which the sole shareholder is True World Holdings LLC, a Virginia corporation. True World Foods Chicago, LLC, admitted in its plea agreement that between Nov. 24, 2004, and May 5, 2005, it bought and received from two other corporations, in a series of six transactions, approximately $197,930 of fish commonly known as basa or Vietnamese catfish ( Pangasius hypophthalmus ).
The fish had been imported from Vietnam by one of the other corporations falsely labeled as sole in violation of U.S. laws prohibiting the making or submission of a false label for fish, and prohibiting the entry of merchandise by payment of less than the amount of duty legally due. There is an anti-dumping duty applicable to the fish in question of 63.88 percent.
Former True World Foods Chicago employee David S. Wong previously pleaded guilty for his part in purchasing and re-selling the frozen fillets of the fish Pangasius hypophthalmus.
According to the indictment in this case, between July 2004 and June 2005, two Virginia-based companies, Virginia Star Seafood Corporation and International Sea Products Corporation, illegally imported from Vietnamese companies Binh Dinh, Antesco and Anhaco, more than 10 million pounds of Vietnamese catfish by identifying the fish to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials as other species of fish, including but not limited to sole, grouper, flounder and conger pike.
The indictment further alleged that, after the Vietnamese catfish was imported into the United States, Henry Nguyen and other salesman for the Virginia companies marketed and sold the illegally imported catfish to seafood buyers including Henry Yip of T.P. Company, David Wong of True World Foods, Inc., and David Chu of Dakon International. – Press release
Wednesday, March 26, 2008P
Pregnant women eat fish and improve child’s intellect
Women who eat fish regularly during pregnancy give their unborn children a dramatic intellectual advantage, scientists have discovered.
Research based on more than 300 children tested at the age of three shows that those whose mothers who ate fish more than twice a week during the second trimester performed better in intelligence tests.
"Maternal fish intake more than twice a week was associated with improved performance on tests of language and motor skills. Dietary recommendations for pregnant women should incorporate the nutritional benefits as well as the risks of fish intake," said the Harvard University researchers, who report their findings in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
"In the present study, women who ate more than two weekly servings of tuna had children who performed better on the developmental tests," Professor Emily Oken, who led the study, said.
But the effects may hinge on the type of fish, because the research also shows that the children of women with the highest levels of mercury – a heavy metal found in trace amounts some fish – scored poorly.
While mothers-to-be might feel safer eating white fish such as cod and haddock, as they tend to have lower mercury levels, these also have lower levels of fatty acids. Small fatty fish such as sardines and canned light tuna tend to contain relatively more fatty acids with less mercury, whereas dark meat fish, such as swordfish and mackerel, while offering more fatty acids, also tend to contain more mercury.
In the study, the researchers monitored 341 mothers and their children. At the age of three the children completed two tests designed to assess various aspects of intelligence. The results show that higher fish intake was associated with better child test performance, but higher mercury levels with poorer scores.
The researchers, who have carried out a second study with similar results on babies, said it may be that omega-3 fatty acids, which are linked to neurological development and which are abundant in fish, especially oily fish, are responsible for the improved performances.
The Food Standards Agency recommends pregnant women avoid eating shark, swordfish and marlin and limit the amount of tuna to two steaks or four mid-size cans a week because of the levels of mercury. It also recommends two portions of oily fish a week. Oily fish includes fresh tuna, sardines and trout. – The Independent, U.K.
Business Toolbox: Fishy business
'Miracle’ fish sticks sell for $79
ELYRIA, Ohio -- What a northern Ohio woman billed as "Good Friday Miracle Fish Sticks" have sold for about $79 on eBay.
Victoria Landis of Elyria says in one box of frozen fish sticks, she found pairs stuck together like three crosses. Landis says they looked just like the familiar image of the crosses on Calvary Hill when Jesus was crucified.
She put the fish sticks back in the freezer and got them out several days ago to post on eBay in hopes of raising money for the new family van she's been praying for.
The auction ended yesterday morning. Landis explains that the price includes the expected high cost of next-day shipping in five pounds of dry ice, so the unidentified buyer will have the fish sticks while it's still Holy Week. – Associated Press
Business Toolbox: The economy
Restaurant patronage declines
Restaurant business has hit a five-year low, according to the National Restaurant Association. Forty-nine percent of eateries it polled in January reported declining sales in December. That figure was up from 44 percent in November, suggesting a downward trend.
Overall restaurant sales growth is expected to slow to 3.6 percent in 2008, from 5.1 percent in 2007, said Sarah Malik, a Johnson & Wales University Charlotte campus faculty member. – Charlotte (N.C.) Observer
Thursday, March 28, 2008P
Business Toolbox: Your supply
Lake Erie perch declining for Canada
Catch limits on walleye and yellow perch have dropped for the second year in a row for the Lake Erie commercial fishery and are expected to decrease again next year.
"It's going to be hard times for the guys in Essex County. It's a bad, bad year for them," said Peter Meisenheimer, executive director of the Ontario Commercial Fisheries' Association.
Meisenheimer said the catch limits aren't as bad as first anticipated, but with the strong Canadian dollar, he predicted this year could be the worst year for the commercial fishery since 1984.
He couldn't predict how much money could be lost in the industry, which operates mostly out of Wheatley and Kingsville and has hauled in $20 million to $40 million of fish a year, before the processing value is added. The final quotas for each area and licence on the lake haven't been worked out yet.
At a meeting in Niagara Falls last week, fishery managers from Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Ontario recommended decreasing quotas because of poor spawning years in 2002, 2004 and 2006. Although the final quotas aren't set, the overall drop for the Ontario commercial fishing industry based on last week's numbers is 16 per cent for yellow perch and a 30 per cent drop for walleye.
"Don't expect any increases in the foreseeable future," said John Cooper, a Lake Erie Management Unit spokesman with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. – Windsor Daily Star, Canada
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health
Omega 3 found to fight rheumatoid arthritis
Unless you have been living on a desert island for a couple of years, you can't have missed the barrage of information in the media about the health benefits of fish oils. They have been touted as a panacea for everything from arthritis and heart disease to Alzheimer's and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Scientists have known for some time that a diet rich in omega-3 fats can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and reduce levels of triglycerides – the sort of fat found in the blood that has been linked to heart disease. Now, doctors at Ninewells hospital in Dundee, Scotland, have announced the results of a study showing that people suffering from rheumatoid arthritis who regularly took cod-liver oil were able to reduce their medication.
Recently, a large Italian study published in The Lancet showed that fish oils given to more than 4,000 patients after a heart attack helped to prevent a secondary event, prompting the Italian health service to give fish-oil capsules to anyone who has had a heart attack. Last year, NICE (the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) announced that a daily 1mg fish-oil capsule should be prescribed to anyone who has had a heart attack.
So what's so special about fish oils? The magic ingredient is omega-3, the name given to a family of polyunsaturated fatty acids, which the body needs but cannot make itself. It was first recognised as beneficial to health in the 1970s by Danish physicians, who were puzzled by the low incidence of heart disease in the Greenland Inuit, in spite of their very high-fat diet.
These studies showed that the Inuit diet of whale meat, seal blubber and salmon appeared to confer a low incidence of cardiovascular disease and other inflammatory diseases such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes and psoriasis.
Omega-3 fatty acids are converted in the body into natural anti-inflammatory substances known as prostaglandins and leukotrienes. Diets high in omega-3 have been shown to improve inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and to lower cholesterol and blood pressure. The advice from the Government is that we should eat at least two portions of fish a week, one of which should be the oily type – sardines, herring, mackerel, trout. Salmon, pilchards, kippers, fresh tuna, anchovies, swordfish, bloater carp and sprats are also rich sources.
However, the Western diet does not contain huge amounts of oily fish, so most of us do not have enough omega-3 fatty acids in our blood. Also, say lipids experts, our diet contains way too much of the other essential fatty acid family, the omega-6s, which compete with omega-3 and generally encourage inflammation. Ideally, we would have a ratio of two omega-6 to one omega-3 – that is, twice as much omega-6 as omega-3.
"Current statistics show that, in this country, the ratio is more like 25:1, and in the US it may be as high as 50:1. This overload contributes to long-term diseases such as heart disease, cancer, asthma, arthritis and depression," says Professor Keith Coupland, the director of the Lipid Nutrition Unit at Hull University.
However, at the moment there is no generic test for levels of omega-3 in the blood, and there is no recommended daily amount of omega-3 – so how can we tell if we are lacking in this essential fatty acid? At a recent symposium on fatty acids and lipids, a lipids expert from Harvard University called for a blood test that could measure omega-3 levels accurately so that doctors could predict who was at risk of heart attack. Coupland believes that if a test such as this was available in GPs' surgeries, people could be encouraged to take more responsibility for their health.
One Glasgow GP is ahead of the game. Dr Tom Gilhooly, who also runs the Essential Health Clinic, offers tests to find out the nutritional status of patients' blood. He then offers advice on dietary change and supplementation. "Working with patients to increase their omega-3 levels can help to treat conditions as varied as MS, depression, drug addiction and Crohn's disease," he says. – The Independent, U.K.
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health
Eat fish, make your child smart
In a study scheduled for April publication in the American Journal of Epidemiology, a team of nine respected scientists from Harvard and the University of Michigan found that women who ate the most fish (more than two weekly servings) during the second trimester of their pregnancies delivered children with the highest scores on two cognitive tests when they reached 3 years of age.
This finding flies in the face of conventional wisdom about supposed dangers lurking in fish, especially for women of childbearing age. The research covered hundreds of mother-child pairs who enrolled in Project Viva, a Massachusetts-based study that has followed mothers since early pregnancy.
This study also confirmed that conventional wisdom about the healthfulness of eating canned tuna during pregnancy is dead wrong. Researchers wrote: “The 28 mothers (8 percent) who reported eating canned tuna at least twice weekly had children with higher scores … compared with the 130 mothers (38 percent) who reported never eating tuna fish” while pregnant.
Center for Consumer Freedom Research Director David Martosko said: “At a time when environmental activists are branding fish with a skull and crossbones, this is helpful evidence that fish is still the same health food it’s always been. U.S. cases of mercury poisoning from eating fish have never materialized in the medical literature, but women who run away from the fish counter during their pregnancies are clearly putting their babies’ health at risk.”
Project Viva investigators have previously found that “fish intake among pregnant women declined following the 2001 federal mercury warnings” issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration. – Center for Consumer Freedom
Friday, March 28, 2008P
Business Toolbox: Sustainability
Retailers force British fleet to go green
Britain's fishing industry is in line to become one of the greenest in the world, with a record number of fleets to be awarded coveted "eco-labels" for their catches of haddock, dover sole, herring and prawns.
The Marine Stewardship Council, which oversees the best-known environmental scheme for fisheries, said several of the UK's largest fleets were on course to join its labelling scheme, proving their environmental credentials.
By next year, the council estimates 275,000 tonnes of fish such as mackerel, haddock and sea bass caught by British trawlers will carry its trademark blue eco-label, making it possible for takeaways and supermarkets to begin selling "green" fish and chips and eco-labelled scampi.
At present, the only eco-labelled fisheries in British waters are small, niche industries catching seafood such as dover sole -- one of the most threatened fish in British waters -- langoustines and cockles, which currently account for just 4,580 tonnes each year.
The industry's drive towards environmental accreditation marks a profound shift in attitude after decades of open conflict with green campaigners over plunging fish stocks and illegal landings, particularly in the North Sea. It requires fisheries to agree to strict catch levels, protecting young and spawning stock, cutting the "by-catch" of non-target species and using only the correct fishing nets.
In parallel with the MSC programme, the Sea Fish Industry Authority has persuaded 437 UK trawlers -- roughly 60% of the British fleet -- to join a "responsible fishing" scheme similar to the red tractor quality mark used by farmers, although its environmental standards are weaker.
Trawlermen have come under intense pressure to take part in conservation schemes from companies such as Young's, the UK's largest seafood supplier, and supermarkets.
Britain's biggest retailers, particularly Asda and Morrisons, have faced embarrassing campaigns of direct action, led by Greenpeace, over their sale of fish from depleted seas, and supermarkets are now competing to become the UK's greenest fishmonger, dropping threatened species such as skate, dover sole and swordfish from their counters. – Guardian, UK
Business Toolbox: The toll
A miracle only five men died
The Alaska Ranger radioed its distress call at 2:52 a.m.: "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday."
"We are flooding — taking on water in our rudder room," the man said as he relayed the 203-foot fishing trawler's location in the Bering Sea.
The Ranger was sinking early Sunday, and at 120 miles west of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, the ship and its crew of 47 were in a frigid, nautical nightmare — headed toward catastrophe.
It would take the nearest U.S. Coast Guard helicopter nearly 2 1/2 hours to reach the scene, and when it did, the copter's crew saw lights flickering in the darkened seas.
"Initially we saw three lights flashing," said Coast Guard Lt. Steve Bonn, the pilot who soon realized that those lights were safety beacons attached to life rafts and the survival suits of Ranger crewmen. "We then saw four, five, six, eight [lights]; we saw a dozen blinking around the water," he said, describing how he flew higher.
"We were starting to see the scale — they were scattered over a mile."
The ship's alarm had awakened Jeremy Freitag, 22, as he slept early Sunday. Within minutes, he and his shipmates mustered on deck to board life rafts, but one raft became lodged under the bow and another broke away as it was being lowered.
"I jumped," Freitag told the Tribune.
Eventually he swam through icy seas to a raft, where someone pulled him aboard. There, for an hour, he listened to the screams and shouts of his colleagues floating in the sea. He and others helped those they could while they waited in near-freezing waters for help to arrive. Bonn and his crew pointed their HH-60 Jayhawk chopper toward the lights of men such as Freitag. Flight mechanic Robert Debolt lowered rescue swimmer Petty Officer 2nd Class O'Brien Hollow in a basket, which returned twice, loaded with shivering men.
The crew flew 13 Ranger crewmen — all they could fit, even after tossing gear into the sea — to a Coast Guard cutter that was 60 miles away and rushing toward the scene. By daybreak, the Jayhawk, the cutter, another Coast Guard helicopter and the Alaska Warrior, a Ranger sister ship, had managed to save 42 men from the icy, 20-foot seas.
It was a miraculous moment, but one muted by the fact that four crewmen, including the Ranger's captain, died that morning of hypothermia. A search for a missing man was suspended Monday night, given that surviving long in water around 35 to 40 degrees is next to impossible.
The Ranger's ill-fated journey stands as a reminder of how dangerous commercial fishing can be, especially in Alaska, where deaths of fishermen accounted for a third of the state's workplace fatalities in the past 15 years.
Since Sunday's incident, investigators have been trying to determine what caused the Ranger to take on water as it made its way to remote and rich mackerel fishing grounds. The Ranger's owner, Seattle-based Fishing Company of Alaska, has instructed survivors not to speak to the media, but Freitag and two former Ranger fishermen who have spoken with other survivors tell tales of bravery in the darkness that morning, with crew leaders staying aboard, trying to keep the ship from sinking, until some jumped.
The facts seem to back up that anecdote: Four of the five men who died were among the ship's highest-ranked sailors.
As sobering as a case like this, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reports that commercial fishing in Alaska has actually gotten safer in recent decades, with a 51 percent drop in fatalities from 1990 to 2006. Experts assign such improvements to better training, newer technology like GPS and faster Coast Guard responses. Still, commercial fishing's fatality rate is nearly 30 times that of the average for American workers.
Brothers Will and Doug Sterner know how dangerous the work can be: the two Colorado residents had worked on the Ranger recently, and both suffered injuries on the ship.
Will Sterner, 28, said that skipper Eric "Capt. Pete" Jacobsen, 65, was a seasoned sailor who cared enough to calm Sterner's nerves about seasickness before his first voyage.
"He told me he gets seasick every time he goes out too," he said. "I don't know if that was true, because he was a worthy seaman, but he made me feel better." Freitag said the last time he saw Jacobsen, the skipper was still working the radio, bravely trying to get help to his men. Freitag doesn't know when Jacobsen eventually abandoned ship.
One thing he does know is that he'll never do commercial fishing again.
"I'll never come back. I don't want to ever go through this," he said, adding that he'll return to his native Oregon and begin logging — not the safest job either.
"Hell," he said, heading off the question. "At least it's on land." – Chicago Tribune
Business Toolbox: Sustainability
Commercial fishing killed to protect shorebird
To save a declining shorebird, a small New Jersey industry will be rendered extinct, all sides acknowledge, under a bill that Gov. Jon Corzine signed yesterday to ban the harvesting of horseshoe crabs.
Praised by biologists and environmentalists, the moratorium is expected to help red knots, which feed solely on horseshoe crab eggs left on Delaware Bay shores during a crucial spring migration to the birds' Arctic breeding grounds. Last year, biologists estimated the Western Hemisphere population of red knots to be between 18,000 and 33,000, down from 100,000 to 150,000 about 20 years ago.
"The effects of human behavior often have widespread, unintended consequences that reverberate across the animal kingdom for generations," Corzine said in a prepared statement. "It is with that in mind that we are here today to extend the moratorium on horseshoe crab harvesting, so as to reverse the endangerment and prevent the extinction of the red knot species and other shorebirds."
Biologist contend that overhar vesting of crabs in the early 1990s caused the crab population to drop until various state and federal harvest restrictions were imposed in 1996. Delaware Bay hosts the world's largest population of breed ing horseshoe crabs, and although they have rebounded, biologists contend the number of eggs they leave on the bay beaches each spring remains low.
Commercial fishermen, 39 of whom collect and sell the crabs in New Jersey for use as bait in the lucrative eel and conch fishing industry, wanted the state to instead adopt a federal harvest limit recognized in Delaware -- 100,000 crabs annually, and only male crabs. New Jersey, they said, will have the only ban along the Atlantic coast.
"The worst thing about this is that we're all supposed to believe that the 39 fishermen hand-picking crabs off the beaches here are somehow having more of an impact on the environment than all of the driving, flushing and pollution going on in this state," said Greg DiDomenico of the Garden State Seafood Association, which represents local fishermen.
Environmentalists contend the fishermen forced the issue.
"It's a result of bad fisheries management in the early 1990s. Too many crabs were taken back then ... and that later caused the red knot to crash," said Tim Dil lingham, executive director of the American Littoral Society.
The ban signed yesterday was introduced in the Legislature after commercial fishermen on the state Marine Fisheries Council vetoed the state Department of Environmental Protection's plan to extend a 2-year-old moratorium that both agencies approved in 2006.
"I feel it's a shame to take management of the crabs out of the hands of the council. But the commercial fishermen wanted to gamble with the Legislature and they lost," said council chairman Gilbert Ewing, who tried to persuade the council to readopt the DEP moratorium.
"It cost them, and it's disheartening because it will be impossible now to lift a moratorium imposed through legislation. We'll never see horseshoe crab harvesting in New Jersey again in our lifetime," he added. – The Star-Ledger, N.J.
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