Summary for August 6 - August 10, 2007:

Monday, August 6, 2007

Birds Eye Picks Pollock for Fish Fingers

LONDON – The humble fish finger - a staple of children's menus - is to receive a makeover in response to declining fish stocks.

Cod will be replaced in Birds Eye fish fingers by pollock, following experts' warnings that cod stocks are perilously low.

Pollock, a white fish found in seas round north Alaska, has a similar texture to cod but its stocks are more plentiful.

Birds Eye, which produces 80 per cent of the UK's fish fingers, is switching part of its range from cod to pollock fish fingers in September. The company, which was bought from Unilever by the private equity group Permira for £1bn last year, sold £80.5m worth of fish fingers in the UK in the year to July 14.

Pollock is already in the company's fish fingers sold in mainland Europe.

The company will test the waters by replacing 4,000 tons of cod with pollock, 17,000 tons of cod are used in British fish fingers every year. If sales are successful, pollock could become the main ingredient.

Martin Glenn, chief executive of Birds Eye, said the motivation behind the move was "enlightened self-interest." Stocks of cod are under so much pressure that big food companies no longer take their catch from the North Sea but from the Baltic, according to Glenn, but those fisheries were also under strain.

Pollock is cheaper than cod. Birds Eye conceded it will save money in the longer term by switching to pollock. However, in the short term the move would be "cost-neutral", Glenn said, because the company will have to change its fishing, sourcing and processing practices, change its packaging and change consumers' tastes from cod to pollock.

Scientists warned last year that all commercial fisheries would be exhausted by 2048 if the rate of plunder of the oceans continued.

The problem is compounded as consumers tend to have fixed buying patterns of fish and are reluctant to try new fish outside the popular staples of cod, tuna, salmon and prawns, which make up the bulk of the UK's fish sales.

Canadian stocks of cod off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in the north Atlantic collapsed in the early 1990s when they were fished out to serve the country's huge fish processing industry. The stocks have never recovered. Experts fear a similar near-extinction awaits cod in other parts of the Atlantic.

Glenn said it made sense to diversify the source of fish fingers to a more sustainable fish. He said: "We would be crazy not to try to do it. We think there will be a fish finger franchise for a long time to come."

Fish fingers were originally introduced in the UK as a convenience food in the 1950s.

Clarence Birdseye developed the plate froster, a device enabling food to be quickly frozen, in the 1920s. Fish cut into even-sized fillets were among the best foods preserved by freezing, and the first fish fingers were introduced in the UK by Birds Eye in 1955 and quickly became popular.

– Financial Times

In Depth: Tracking Down Contaminants in Catfish

Joseph Basile, an Alabama state scientist, drops a frozen catfish fillet into an industrial food processor and pulverizes it into a fluffy white powder.

The grinding in a laboratory in Montgomery is part of a test of imported seafood for drugs that U.S. regulators say can cause cancer or increase resistance to antibiotics. Alabama officials have reported finding banned medicines missed by the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration in seafood from China, Vietnam and other Asian countries.

"I'm sure that FDA would probably wish we'd go away,'' says Ron Sparks, commissioner of Alabama's Department of Agriculture and Industries, which conducts the seafood testing, in an interview. "My wish is that they'd come to the table and work with us.''

Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana also have found banned drugs in imported seafood, according to statements by regulators in those states. The tests, conducted after the products cleared U.S. ports and were sent on for sale in grocery stores or restaurants, show the FDA isn't adequately protecting consumers from tainted fish, food safety advocates said.

The FDA says it does a good job of keeping unsafe products out of the food supply. In June, the agency began blocking imports of some farm-raised seafood from China until importers provide test results showing shipments are free of banned drugs.

41 of 94 Samples

Yet, of 94 samples of Chinese catfish checked by Alabama since March, the state reports that 41 tested positive for fluoroquinolones, antibiotics banned in the U.S. for seafood. Of 13 more samples of species similar to catfish, including one called basa, five tested positive for the antibiotic. The exporting countries included Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia.

Eating seafood with fluoroquinolones can increase resistance to similar antibiotics used in humans to fight infections, according to the FDA.

Fish farmers in China and elsewhere use medications banned in the U.S. to prevent disease among animals raised in crowded and unsanitary conditions, according to a report in July by Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer group in Washington.

Alabama's farmers are threatened by increased competition from Asian producers whose costs are lower. There are more than 190 catfish farms in the state, generating $99 million in sales as of 2006, second in domestic production to Mississippi, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

China's Response

China has promised to improve the safety of seafood and other exports. The country executed its chief food and drug regulator last month, citing corruption.

"Some of the fish exported to the U.S. probably do have problems,'' said Liu Rui, deputy secretary general of the government-affiliated China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Association in Beijing, in an interview. "Not all the fish sold to the U.S. is tainted, but only that from one or two firms.''

At the Alabama lab in Montgomery last month, Basile, a state chemist, had a backlog of seafood to run through the food processor.

"It used to be a big deal,'' Basile said in an interview. "You'd say, 'Oh my God, I've got another positive.' Now, with the fluoroquinolones, almost half are coming back positive.''

U.S. Checking Less

As Americans eat more imported seafood, the FDA is checking a smaller share of it for contaminants. The regulators took samples for lab testing of 0.6 percent of 859,323 shipments of imported seafood last year, according to the agency. That's down from 0.9 percent in 2003, according to a Food & Water Watch report that was based on an analysis of FDA records.

The FDA rejected 0.1 percent of seafood shipments last year because they contained banned drugs, were filthy or failed to meet other U.S. standards, according to data provided by the agency. Imports rejected by the FDA in June included shrimp from Vietnam contaminated with salmonella and eel from China containing banned drugs, according to the FDA's Web site.

The agency said yesterday that it has postponed plans to close seven of 13 field laboratories in the U.S. that test the safety of food and other products after opposition from members of Congress. The FDA has described the lab closings as an effort to make more efficient use of space and provide money to pay for more modern equipment.

The FDA should increase lab testing and inspect more seafood processing operations overseas, said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington group often critical of the agency. The FDA had the equivalent of 11 employees conducting overseas inspections of all types of food in the last fiscal year, according to the agency. The inspections can be done only if countries allow them.

FDA's Screening

The FDA screens imported seafood based on an assessment of the risk it poses, the country it comes from and the track record of the company exporting the products, said William Jones, the FDA's director of seafood safety.

In addition to blocking the imports from China, regulators have been working with their counterparts in Vietnam and elsewhere to reduce use of banned medications, he said. The FDA's system works, although some contaminated fish may slip through, Jones said.

– Bloomberg

Feature: Truly Containerized Dining Concepts

VICTORIA, B.C. - Step up to porthole number one to order one fish, two fish or even more fish at Victoria's newest downtown waterfront restaurant, Red Fish Blue Fish.

A steel shipping container which once carried cars is in the final stages of being converted into a seafood restaurant with the name that sounds like a Dr. Seuss book. The owners are working flat-out to have it ready, with needed permits, to be open by this weekend in time for Sunday's Symphony Splash.

"The man with the drill in his hand - he's our chef," says Simon Sobolewski, one of the owners, pointing to Kunal Ghose, another partner.

Just 2.5 x 6 meters, everything in the kitchen has its place. "It's plenty of room," Sobolewski said.

Inspired by Vancouver's popular Go Fish restaurant, Red Fish Blue Fish is offering a menu of fresh seafood. Fisherman and partner Steve Johansen will supply much of the fish, catching it by line as a way of supporting sustainable fisheries. Red Fish Blue Fish supports the goals of the 100-mile diet, which refers to food produced within that limit. The fourth partner is designer Barbara Houston.

Take-out meals will be about $10. Offerings include fish-and-chips, seafood sandwiches, and fish tacones, which are grilled tortilla hand-rolls, plus barbecued seafood.

Everything produced by the restaurant will be either composted or recycled so that neither the restaurant or customer creates garbage, Sobolewski said.

Red Fish Blue Fish will be open daily from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., unless harbor activities are on, in which case it will stay open later.

Locals are expected to be the mainstay of the restaurant, given a three-year lease as part of a plan to revitalize the Inner Harbour area.

– Victoria (B.C.) Times-Colonist

News: NOAA Offers Sustainability Index

Seafood consumers in the U.S., increasingly concerned about the sustainability and quality of seafood, can now turn to a NOAA Fisheries Service Web site, FishWatch, for the latest information.

The Web site has information on more than 30 of the most popular seafood species, with more species to be added in the near future. NOAA Fisheries Service is inviting the public to visit the site to express what they think of FishWatch through the Comments section on the Web site within the next 60 days.

"Consumers are increasingly concerned about the safety, quality, and sustainability of the seafood they eat," said Dr. Bill Hogarth, NOAA Fisheries Service director. "This guide brings accurate fish information available to your seafood market, and it allows consumers to make informed decisions about purchasing seafood."

FishWatch provides seafood consumers with timely information about seafood, such as red snapper. The Web site includes details on population strength and status, as well as consumer information such as on fat content and vitamins. FishWatch also provides economic information, such as where seafood comes from and how much money it brings to the economy.

The President's Ocean Commission charged NOAA Fisheries Service with informing the public about the status of the living marine resources managed by the agency, and FishWatch is an outgrowth of that initiative.

– NOAA press release

Scientist Invents New, Kinder Scallop Dredge

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Cliff Goudey's version of the better mousetrap is the better scallop dredge.

The director of MIT Sea Grant's Center for Fisheries Engineering Research wants to build a better dredge-even though he's the first to admit that current dredges do a fine job of catching the creatures.

What current dredges don't do, says Goudey, is take into consideration unintended consequences, such as damaging bottom habitat -- a concern since the 1986 reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act introduced the issue of essential fish habitat.

The standard dredge used to harvest scallops consists of a heavy steel towing frame and a chain bag that drags along the sea floor behind the frame. The dredge includes a cutting bar, which has little effect on a perfectly level bottom. However, on a more typical sea bottom with sand waves or humps and valleys, the cutting bar levels the bottom so that the chain bag can scoop up scallops in its path. But along with the scallops, says Goudey, other organisms living on and buried just below the surface can get caught or damaged.

Is there a way to catch scallops without leveling the bottom in front of the dredge?

Goudey figured that would require disturbing or lifting the scallops, in preparation for the chain bag, without physically contacting the ground. The best option for that, he decided, was to use jets of water. So Goudey experimented with devices of different shapes and sizes to see how they affected scallop shells placed on the bottom of MIT's towing tank. The most promising results were implemented in a prototype dredge.

"We built a small dredge fitted with four 11-inch hollow hemispheres positioned close to the seabed and mounted on pivots so that if they hit something they could deflect up out of the way," says Goudey. The hemispheres "produce a downward directed jet of water that seems to have a profound effect on scallops when they're hit by it," he explains. Goudey notes that most mobile creatures near the dredge can escape from its path. "While a conventional dredge impacts subsurface organisms, this one does not."

"Essentially the scallops...start spinning up in the water high enough so that they're still suspended in the water when the chain bag comes by."

In field tests on Stellwagen Bank off the Massachusetts coastline, the newfangled scallop dredge caught 50- to 60 percent of a normal catch. "We believe that with a little adjusting...that catch rate could become competitive," says Goudey.

A talk Goudey gave prompted an invitation from the University of Wales in Ireland to try the dredge out off the Isle of Man.

So in April, Goudey shipped the dredge across the Atlantic, then followed along for field tests.

In those trials, the researchers used the dredge aboard a research vessel and a commercial scallop trawler, both with the participation of local fishermen. The dredge was particularly successful in catching queen scallops. A lower than expected catch of larger types of scallops suggested that some simple modifications may make the dredge more effective. Additionally, the dredge caused far less damage to scallops than conventional gear. As a result, Ireland may employ a version of the gear as part of a developing management strategy for scallop fisheries.

– MIT press release

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Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Feature: Chesapeake Must Import Blue Crabs

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. – Nothing tastes quite like summer in Virginia as the sweet white meat of the Chesapeake Bay blue crab.

But finding those tasty Bay-caught "beautiful swimmers" at a crab house, a restaurant or in the grocery store is getting increasingly difficult.

Not only have crab harvests declined over the years, but demand - especially for larger, heavier crabs - has increased, said Tim Bauckman, owner of Tim's Rivershore Restaurant & Crabhouse in Dumfries and Tim's II at Fairview Beach.

He keeps hungry customers coming back for more by buying from two area families with long ties to the crabbing industry - the Decaturs in Widewater and the Dents on the Northern Neck, as well as from suppliers as far away as Florida.

Much of the meat served at restaurants or sold in grocery stores these days comes from either blue crabs harvested along the Atlantic Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico or from a different species of swimming crab found in China, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

"It's simply an issue of supply and demand," said Vicki Clark of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at Gloucester Point.

"We don't have enough crabs, enough watermen and enough processing plants in the U.S. to meet demand."

Commercial fishermen pulled nearly 98 million pounds of blue crabs from the Chesapeake and the Potomac River in 1985, but yearly harvests had dropped to 55 to 60 million pounds by the turn of this century, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report.

"In the late 1990s and early 2000s, crabs were being overfished," said Derek Orner, research fishery biologist for NOAA's Chesapeake Bay office.

Commercial harvests of blue crab, Virginia's most valuable seafood, have since stabilized, he said, thanks largely to a number of new regulations such as a limit on the number of days per week fishermen can harvest crabs.

Still, restaurants and grocery-store suppliers are having to going outside the Chesapeake Bay area to find crab in sufficient quantities. Not surprisingly, the amount of cheaper canned or frozen crab meat imported into the United States has climbed from 23.4 million pounds in 2000 to 47.3 million pounds in 2006, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

At Claiborne's Restaurant in downtown Fredericksburg, diners can feast on locally caught soft-shelled crabs - when they are in season. But its chef locks in the price of the crab used in his Chesapeake crab cakes, a menu staple, by signing a contract with Sysco for meat imported from Indonesia.

Even the venerable Phillips Seafood, which supplies much of the frozen crab products available in area grocery stores, has its own seafood processing plants abroad.

– The Free Lance-Star

Feature: Eat Eels, Be Healthy

KOTA BAHARU, Malaysia - At the recently held Nasi 100 carnival at Kota Baharu stadium field here, stall number 22 drew a rather large crowd. Upon seeing this, other visitors began making a beeline to the stall, eager to know what was happening there.

At the stall, a huge boiling pot of soup emitted the kind of aroma that stimulates the taste buds. On the table, there was an array of eel and Omega 3 catfish dishes.

The stall displayed a menu that contains exotic names like eel fried rice, paprik eel, eel soup, eel herbal rice, sweet and sour eel as well as crispy-fried eel.

No wonder that the stall, operated by Tumpat-born Rosli Hassan, drew a large crowd.

At the carnival, which showcased 160 types of rice dishes, the 42-year-old Rosli came out with his rather unique eel delicacies.

According to Rosli, who has a restaurant at Pantai Seri Tujuh in Tumpat, initially not many knew about the eel dishes.

One of the carnival's visitors, Hanisah Shahdan, 37, said the eel dishes were appetizing. According to Hanisah, the eel's flesh was soft and tasted good, just like that of the catfish.

Visitor Khairol Amri Usman, 39, picked the eel soup for lunch. He had no qualms eating an eel dish for the first time.

"Eel-based dishes should be promoted to the public. More people should know the deliciousness and nutritional benefits that an eel dish can offer," he said.

The eel, scientifically known as Monopterus Albus, is included in the fish genus. The body is long and its head is rounded, with the presence of gills.

The eel's nutritional values are said to be on par with that of the tenggiri (Spanish mackerel) and selar (crevalle) which have 18.6 per cent protein and 15 per cent fat.

The eel is also rich in calcium and iron as well as vitamins B and D.

Hence, it is no surprise that the eel's flesh is believed by many people to be the cure for kidney disease, asthma, heart palpitations and impotency as well as hastening healing of surgical wounds.

According to traditional medicine practitioners, regular consuming of eels helps to boost the body's immune system, stabilizes the blood pressure, smoothens the skin texture, prevents hepatitis and enhances the memory power.

Despite there is no commercial breeding of eels, those who rear this fish can reap handsome returns due to its high market value.

According to Rosli, his restaurant used some 15 to 20 kg of eels a day and he never had problems obtaining the supply.

Eels caught in the wild are more expensive than those reared. This is due to the fact that the former has more nutritional values due to feeding in their own natural habitat.

– Malaysian National News Agency

News: Alaskan Fish Processing Company Sells Self

This article also appears in today's Fish Wrap.

SEATTLE – Executives with one of Alaska's largest seafood processing companies announced Sunday they intend to sell the operation to a California private equity firm.

Icicle Seafoods Inc., based in Seattle, is one of the top processors of Alaska salmon, halibut, pollock, crab and other seafood.

Executives said they have agreed to sell the company to Fox Paine Management III, an investment firm based near San Francisco.

The sale price was not disclosed.

Until last year, when it sold its shares, Fox Paine was a major owner of Alaska Communications Systems, an Anchorage telecom company.

The Icicle sale comes during the busiest time of year for the company, which is now cleaning, freezing and canning millions of migrating salmon caught by commercial fishermen around the state.

Icicle has seasonal peak employment of about 2,200 people and has annual revenue of about $300 million. The company operates packing plants in Bristol Bay, Seward, Kodiak's Larsen Bay and Petersburg. It also operates a fleet of processing ships including the Northern Victor, which handles Bering Sea pollock and cod.

Outside, Icicle has a processing plant in Bellingham, Wash., and recently announced it had begun farming salmon and trout in Chile.

The Icicle sale is subject to stockholder and regulatory approval. Executives with Icicle and Fox Paine said they hoped to close the deal in 90 days.

This the second major Alaska seafood processor to change hands this year. In April, Seattle-based Ocean Beauty Seafoods Inc. announced it was selling a 50 percent stake in the company to Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp. of Dillingham.

Icicle's president, Don Giles, said Sunday he and other top managers would be staying on to run the company. Fox Paine brings extra financial muscle to the firm, he said.

"It's a good opportunity for the company to grow a lot faster than it otherwise would have, and it's also a way to liquidate some of our long-term shareholders," Giles said. "We've got a lot of things we want to do in Alaska and other places."

Icicle's rise is the stuff of commercial fishing lore in Alaska.

The company began in Petersburg in 1965 after a group of fishermen and employees purchased the local Pacific American Fisheries cannery. Since then, the company has become one of the highest-volume fish packers in Alaska, a state that accounts for more than half of all U.S. seafood production.

The bulk of Icicle's owners today are employees who run the processing plants, Giles said.

Fox Paine invests in a wide range of companies, according to its Web site, from perfume and agricultural seed producers to insurance and high-tech firms. Now it aims to land a big fish company.

"Icicle Seafoods has long been a leading operator in the Alaska and Pacific Northwest seafood industry," said W. Dexter Paine III, president of Fox Paine III.

– Anchorage Daily News

News: Global Fish Prices to Rise

LONDON – Rising demand for seafood and more stringent fisheries management regimes are pushing up the price of fish.

Jim Cane, commercial director at Young's Seafood, says: “Overall, we're predicting average inflation of around 5%."

Young's said rapid inflation in ingredients is beginning to overtake price rises in raw materials.

“Dramatic increases in ingredient and packaging costs have been fuelled by strong economic growth in countries like China, and by environmental factors affecting yields of seed, grain and root crops.

“The changing edible oil market is another issue - palm and rapeseed oil prices are up by +80% compared with this time last year, due both to increased demand and the increasing switch of oil from food to energy use,” said Young's.

“Overall, we believe that in terms of inflation seafood is starting to behave more like other proteins, with wider global factors starting to have a bigger influence on price than specific industry pressures.”

Young's Seafood has a turnover of £540m and supplies 40% of the seafood consumed in the UK each year – both as retail own label and under its own Young's brand.

– Talking Retail, U.K.

News: New Quota System for Grouper Catches

NAPLES, Fla. - The way grouper gets from the Gulf of Mexico depths to commercial fishermen’s docks could change under a proposal just unveiled by fisheries managers.

The proposal, called an Individual Fishing Quota, or IFQ, would divvy up the total allowable grouper catch to commercial fishermen based on their past annual grouper catches. Right now, commercial fishermen race to catch as much grouper as they can before the industry reaches its total annual allowable catch and the fishery is shut down until the next year.

Quota backers say it would create a more reliable supply of grouper for consumers, make it more profitable for fishermen and cut down on wasteful fishing practices.

Some fear, though, that IFQs privatize a public resource and risk concentrating too much of the catch in the hands of a few companies, cutting out smaller operations.

A grouper quota would be the second such program in the Gulf of Mexico. Red snapper fishermen have been working under an IFQ system since January.

The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, meeting in San Antonio this past week, included the IFQ proposal in a set of five options for making the grouper fishery more efficient. The review process will take months and must include a referendum by eligible commercial fishermen. Any new system might not be in place until 2009.

“It will be a good thing for the fishery,” said Phil Steele, assistant regional fisheries administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in St. Petersburg.

Other options include revoking underused reef fish permits, buying back federal permits on a voluntary basis and requiring fishermen to meet certain criteria to catch grouper.

“I have mixed feelings about the whole shebang,” Naples-based commercial fisherman Tom Marvel said.

Even after getting a share of the grouper catch in an IFQ system, the smaller fishermen would be unable to increase their share unless they have the money to buy or lease another fisherman’s shares, he said.

“We’re putting fishermen in a scheme where capital wins,” Marvel said. “Maybe it’s the way of the future, but that’s a big change.”

Florida commercial fisherman and seafood dealer Martin Fisher said IFQs are a “good idea” as long as the program includes strict limits to guard against corporations snapping up the grouper quota.

Congress has authorized up to $35 million for the buyout. The money would be paid back with a tax on future grouper catches.

Grouper fishing fleet and seafood processing house co-owner Bob Spaeth, the St. Petersburg-area chairman of the industry committee that drafted the proposal, said the license buyout is on hold while the IFQ works its way through the review process.

– Naples (Fla.) Daily News

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Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Columnist: Carp May Harm Great Lakes Fisheries

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Asian carp have slipped into the Great Lakes as federal officials dawdle in clamping down on the destructive fish and as the Bush administration plans to veto legislation to protect the ailing inland sea from invasive species.

While ballast water legislation designed to stop the flood of invasive species into Lake Erie and the Great Lakes slowly moves through Congress, the government's answer to the problem is ludicrous.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to establish new ballast rules going far beyond the ocean freighters that have introduced more than 180 foreign species. The EPA action would include a costly ballast water permit system not only for ocean and lake freighters, but for America's 18 million recreational boats - even though recreational boats do not have ballast water tanks or introduce invasive species.

Boating groups around the country are sounding an alert. The EPA deadline for public comments is Monday. The Recreational Boating Act of 2007, now in Congress, would nullify the recreational boat permit system.

Invasive species are a critical issue for the Great Lakes. Some of the most destructive fish that are poised to arrive are the silver, bighead and black species of Asian carp, which did not arrive in the ballast of an ocean freighter. With government approval, the carp were imported by southern fish farmers to keep ponds clean. Vegetation-eating grass carp were sold to pond owners and even state agencies looking for a cheap solution to weedy waters.

Most Asian carp can be controlled in a small water system. Once they escape after floods or high water and make it to a wild river or lake, they quickly overwhelm native species. The silver, bighead and black carp now dominate the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. An electric fence has been constructed on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to prevent them from swimming into Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes.

A grass carp was caught in late July by a southern Lake Huron commercial fisherman off Sarnia, Ontario, and it isn't a first for the Great Lakes. The first grass carp was documented in Lake Erie in 1985, with three more captured in southern Lake Huron between 1989 and 1998. In 2003, a grass carp was caught at the mouth of the Don River in Lake Ontario.

Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources officials don't believe there is a breeding population of grass carp in the Great Lakes, but no one is sure. Grass carp sold to pond owners are supposed to be sterilized before they can be sold, but reproduction has been documented.

The silver, bighead and black carp infesting the Mississippi and Illinois rivers are much more dangerous, a reason for the electric fence and the need for a permanent, federally funded fence. No one doubts if the carp make it to the Great Lakes, the billion-dollar sportfishing industry and Great Lakes commercial fishing would be in peril. The carp have a proven ability to rapidly reproduce and push out native species.

Silver carp are easy to find. Run a boat down the Illinois or Mississippi rivers and - annoyed by the noise - silver carp will jump out of the water. Boaters have been injured by the acrobatic fish. Mike Carney, a former Fairview Park sportsman, hosted a Bowhunter Magazine television show recently that included an archery shoot on the Illinois River, taking silver carp as they vaulted out of the water.

- D'Arcy Egan, writing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer

News: Rock Lobster Harvest Same as Last Year

MIAMI – The regular 2007-08 lobster season, which opens at 12:01 a.m. Monday and runs through March 31, is expected to be about the same as last year - neither feast nor famine.

''Our best guess is, this fishing season will be very similar to [last season],'' said John Hunt, a lobster biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in Marathon. "No information we have says it will be a really high or really low harvest this year.''

Hunt said commercial trappers and divers caught about 4.8 million pounds during the 2006-07 season and recreational divers caught about 1.5 million pounds, which "is getting close to the long-term average in terms of harvest.''

A virus that affects juvenile lobsters was discovered several years ago, but it hasn't devastated Florida's lobster population.

Hunt said the proportion of young crustaceans with the virus has been a constant 5 to 7 percent over the past five years.

Researchers are trying to figure out if the use of short lobsters to bait traps is spreading it.

About 480,000 traps are estimated to be deployed in Keys waters.

Recreational divers and bully-netters will be allowed to take six lobsters per person per day throughout the regular season.

The state's lobster advisory board is reviewing rules and might recommend some changes to the FWC, including a special mini-season license that might involve a tag for each lobster taken. The goal is to prevent divers from making multiple trips on the same day to illegally boost their catch.

– Miami Herald

Another Sustainable Fisheries Consumer Guide

LONDON – The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has teamed up with Marks & Spencer to produce the Fish and Seafood Bible – from the Ocean to the Table, now available in Marks & Spencer stores across the UK.

The Seafood Bible is the first recipe book that features only those fish that can be sourced from sustainable or healthy stocks, as described at the MCS sustainable seafood website www.fishonline.org. It includes essential information and guidance on choosing sustainable seafood, together with a wide range of recipes for sustainable species of fish and shellfish.

MCS Fisheries Policy Officer, Dr. Bryce Beukers-Stewart said: "Marks & Spencer has been recognized by MCS as the top UK sustainable seafood retailer in the MCS Supermarket Seafood League table in 2006 and 2007."

Andrew Mallison from M&S said "consumers can play a significant role in driving change and ensuring that the seafood dishes we enjoy today will be available to our children to enjoy in the future. Marks & Spencer has been working with the Marine Conservation Society towards this aim for several years and continues to lead the way to make that happen.”

More information about the Sustainable Seafood Program can be found at the website.

The first UK Good Fish Guide book was published in 2002, followed by development of the website www.fishonline.org. To provide up-to-date and easily accessible consumer advice about the sustainability of over 150 fish stocks the website is updated annually, together with a Pocket Good Fish Guide which provides lists of "Fish to Eat" and "Fish to Avoid."

– People & the Planet

Research: Seafood Safer than Most Think

When it comes to consumer perception of seafood safety, all is not going swimmingly.

In recent survey conducted by the University of Maryland's Center for Food Nutrition and Agriculture Policy and presented here at the Institute of Food Technologists Annual Meeting & Food Expo, consumers listed tuna, salmon and shrimp as the fish with the highest levels of mercury. But when the question was reversed - which fish had the lowest levels of mercury? - the responses were identical: tuna, salmon and shrimp.

"On one hand, we want pregnant women to eat fish, as there are plenty of benefits to the fetus in terms of cognitive development and other factors," said university researcher Maureen Storey, "But on the other hand, there is confusion about the risks, so there are a lot of conflicting messages that have been misunderstood."

For the record, the fish containing highest levels of mercury are large predatory fish, the most popularly eaten being shark, swordfish, and tilefish.

Storey was among various experts describing the escalating communication dilemma surrounding seafood that is posing a risk of its own-turning people away from one of the most nutritious foods.

That scenario is playing out in Indiana, where seafood intake is already lower than on the East and West Coasts, according to Charles Santerre, a food toxicology expert with IFT and professor at Purdue University.

"We're starting to realize in Indiana that the risk of not getting enough fish - and their benefits such as omega-3 fatty acids - is greater than any risks that fish may pose," he said. "Many physicians are not well versed in the true risks. They're telling their pregnant patients to simply not eat fish and that's just very bad advice."

In the United States annual per capita consumption of poultry is 86 pounds, beef is 66 pounds, and fish consumption is a mere 16 pounds, reported Barbara Blackistone, of the National Fisheries Institute.

"Fish is really the poster child of food safety, but we simply don't eat that much compared to other meats, and confusion about safety plays a big role in that," Blackistone said.

Maryland's CFNAP Web site, helps people sort through seafood safety facts.

"The safety information coming from the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the EPA can be so complex…but this helps to sort it all out," Storey said.

– Medical News Today

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Thursday, August 9, 2007

News: Seafood From China Wasn't Screened

At least 1 million pounds of suspect Chinese seafood landed on American store shelves and dinner plates despite a Food and Drug Administration order that the shipments first be screened for banned drugs or chemicals, an Associated Press investigation found.

The frozen shrimp, catfish and eel arrived at U.S. ports under an "import alert," which meant the FDA was supposed to hold every shipment until it had passed a laboratory test.

But that was not what happened, according to an AP check of shipments since last fall. One of every four shipments the AP reviewed got through without being stopped and tested. The seafood, valued at $2.5 million, was equal to the amount 66,000 Americans eat in a year.

FDA officials stuck the pond-raised seafood on their watch list because of worries it contained suspected carcinogens or antibiotics not approved for seafood.

No illnesses have been reported, but the episode raises serious questions about the FDA's ability to police the safety of America's food imports.

"The system is outdated and it doesn't work well. They pretend it does, but it doesn't," said Carl R. Nielsen, who oversaw import inspections at the agency until he left in 2005 to start a consulting firm, FDAImports.com. "You can't make the assumption that these would be isolated instances."

If the system cannot stop known risks, Nielsen said, how can it protect against hidden dangers, such as the ingredients from China that made toothpaste potentially poisonous and killed dozens of pets earlier this year?

"The FDA itself admits that this seafood needs inspection, but then doesn't have the capability to inspect it," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a critic of the FDA's food safety record, said in reaction to the AP's findings. "This is an example of government failure at its worst."

China is America's biggest foreign source of seafood, the 1.06 billion pounds it supplied in 2006 accounting for 16 percent of all seafood Americans buy.

FDA officials acknowledged that some shipments slip through import alerts, but said overall they work.

"Any time you introduce a human element into something, I don't think you can necessarily guarantee 100 percent," said Michael Chappell, the official responsible for field inspections and labs.

The agency has about 450 budgeted positions for screening approximately 20 million shipments annually of such things as fish, fruit and medical devices. At a congressional hearing last month, FDA employees doubted whether they have the resources to do the job.

Last summer, FDA labs began accumulating evidence that 15 percent of farm-raised shrimp, eel and catfish contained dangerous or unapproved substances. The agency started throwing individual companies on its watch list, and ultimately issued a sweeping mandate that all shrimp, eel and catfish raised on Chinese farms be stopped and tested.

Federal food safety officials said that while the seafood poses no immediate danger, long-term exposure could increase the risk of cancer or undermine the effectiveness of drugs used to fight outbreaks of disease.

Seafood that clears the ports enters a vast distribution system that includes restaurants, wholesalers and brand-name packagers.

The AP reviewed 4,300 manifests of seafood shipments from China compiled by Piers Reports, a company that tracks import-export data, and found 211 shipments that arrived under import alert since last fall.

FDA officials refused to identify exactly which shipments were tested, saying they were too busy to do so.

So the AP contacted importers directly, talking to 15 companies responsible for 112 of the 211 shipments. Eleven said their products were tested; four said the FDA did not bother to stop a total of 28 shipments weighing 1.1 million pounds. Virtually all the shipments entered through ports in the Southeast, including Tampa, Fla., Miami and Savannah, Ga.

The importer with the most cases was Florida-based Tampa Bay Fisheries, which was on the FDA watch list.

Three other companies said a total of five shipments of catfish, eel or shrimp were not stopped and tested.

The expanded testing mandate has rattled China. U.S. importers said they are being told that the government is holding back shipments until tests show they will pass U.S. muster. The disruption has yet to result in any substantial price increases in the United States.

– Associated Press

Feature: Floridian Experiences Commercial Fishing in Alaska

Perhaps you’ve thought of cruising in the far north. One Alaska fisherman notes some striking crew similarities and differences for the curious.

KODIAK, Alaska – After crewing to the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, perhaps you have wondered about deckhand jobs in the far Northern Hemisphere, especially in summer. I assure you, a summer spent aboard an Alaskan commercial fishing boat can be a pleasant summer cruise, a different sort of working vacation. Yes, a typical Alaska deckhand works long and hard, but the summer salmon season resembles nothing you’ve seen on "Deadliest Catch."

In Alaska, a prospective crewman would head for the harbormaster’s office or "pound the docks," asking skippers/owners for work. In what has to be the shortest job interview in America, a skipper/owner would ask: What experience do you have?

What skills do you have? What kind of work have you done recently? Can you work long hours under difficult conditions? Have you ever been on a boat? Ever get seasick?

I have worked in Kodiak, on the Emerald Island, aboard some of the top fishing boats there. The work is long and hard but richly rewarding in many ways. Of course, the work is also tedious, tiring, monotonous, dangerous, frustrating and scary. And sometimes – not often – a crewman can earn a lot of money in an unforgettable summer while savoring the satisfaction of accomplishment in a difficult and dangerous field.

Could a bluewater yachtsman do it? Most certainly. The same work ethic, the same pride in doing a good job, the same diligence toward the safety of the boat, passengers and crew are desirable everywhere.

A day in the life

In June, on a typical day of fishing, we arise at 0230 and hoist the anchor. Leaving a sheltered cove or protected bay along the sparsely settled west side of Kodiak Island, we motor to the nearby fishing grounds.

While the skipper checks the radar, fathometer and tide book (on Kodiak Island the tides typically rise and fall 10-15 feet), the deck crew tends the towline, net and gear.

A towline is tied to the skiffman’s boat and each boat will pull one end of the seine (the quarter mile-long net) into a slow circle. After 30 minutes, a pair of deckhands begins stacking the net. A hydraulic powerblock makes stacking the seine easy.

Within 20 minutes, a bag of fish thrashes alongside the boat and the skipper dumps the salmon on deck to count the catch.

If, by chance, hundreds of salmon swing aboard, a skipper may dump them directly into the fishhold accompanied by whoops and hollers of delight.

Most Alaska boats carry a crew of four, including the skipper. While a yacht may feel crowded at times with crewmen and passengers coming and going, the cabin of a fishing boat resembles a party of four in orbit around the wheel and the deck.

As in yachting, pay depends upon experience. Rather than a monthly wage, however, Alaska crewmen collect a percentage of the net profits from the boat, ranging from 7 to 12 percent. An average boat will gross well over $100,000 while the top boats gross close to a quarter of a million dollars. An average Kodiak crewman can earn $10,000-15,000 for three months work aboard a salmon seiner. A few lucky crewmen have earned more than $20,000 for a summer aboard a top boat.

Tenders

These tenders are usually crab-fishing boats, those same steel 100-foot boats – Maverick, Time Bandit, Lucky Lady – seen on "Deadliest Catch." During the summer, when crab fishing in the Bering Sea is closed, the tenders collect salmon and deliver millions of pounds to the Kodiak city canneries.

In the summer of 2006, I worked aboard a Kodiak tender. The Katrina Em is a 101-foot, steel crabber/tender that can pack 250,000 pounds of fish.

Typically, a tender carries a skipper, engineer, cook and deckhand. The pecking order resembles that of any workboat or yacht. The captain, the engineer, the first mate, the cook and the deckhand. I was mate, cook and deckhand.

The work is often dirty and boring but not strenuous. As if to illustrate, the first 50 days aboard the Katrina Em were spent chipping, sanding and painting the entire exterior steel surface of the boat, and not a single chrome rail or brass fitting.

Tender crews are usually paid $100-$200 a day, but only during their contracted days of labor, called a charter.

Unfortunately, payment to crewmen does not include the prep work done on any boat, which can amount to many days, even weeks of free labor. This free labor on Alaska fishing boats is euphemistically called "paying your dues."

Dangers

The U.S. Congress determined that Alaska commercial fishing is the most dangerous job in the world.

Every year in Kodiak, the bell rings a memorial chime for lost fishermen. Worsening weather and rough seas overtake a boat, and suddenly a following sea overturns a boat and the crew scrambles to survive.

We are all our brother’s keeper on the wild Alaskan waterway. Indeed, I have been both rescuer and rescued as a deckhand.

With life rafts required by the U.S. Coast Guard and those cumbersome, insulated, survival suits aboard, crew can survive a sinking boat. Additionally, all boats are required to carry EPIRB, radios (both CB and single side band) and flares.

Exhilarations

The headlands and snow-capped peaks, the eroded spires and stacks at the edge of the shore, the seabird rookeries and glacial valleys all become a kaleidoscope of panoramas.

Alaska rainbows often bloom in pairs. The puffins resemble floating parrots. The sleek sea otters glide as if each fishing boat were passing exhibits in their private preserve. The porpoises frolic at our bow like hyper-active bathtub toys. The distant grizzly bear moves with a deliberate, unhurried grace. The bald eagle is a lonely yet majestic scavenger. Ravens may be wise, but magpies are more clever.

Of all the jobs in the world, fishing may be one of the oldest. And simplest. And most satisfying, and most frustrating. And easiest, and most difficult. You can blend all those qualities into a single day of fishing. You can awake with a sense of rugged independence, catch $10,000 worth of fish in a single day, exalt in the beauty of nature, and suddenly find yourself towed back to town, powerless and humiliated, with a burnt engine.

Many young crewman resemble that fictional character, Red, in the movie, Shawshank Redemption: "I find I am so excited I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it is the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain."

– Douglas Herman for The Triton, Fort Lauderdale

In Depth: Another View of Icicle Sale

This article also appeared in Fish Wrap.

KODIAK, Alaska – Icicle Seafoods Inc., the growing seafood firm that purchased Kodiak Salmon Packers in Larsen Bay in 2006, is about to be sold to a California-based investment firm that has had holdings in everything from wire rope manufacturing to the Alaska telecommunication company ACS.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The deal is between the privately held processor Icicle Seafoods Inc. and Fox Paine III, a 10-year-old investment firm with offices in San Francisco and New York. If the processor’s shareholders approve, Icicle will change hands within 90 days.

Icicle has peak seasonal employment of about 2,200 people and annual revenue of about $300 million, according to Associated Press reports. It is one of the top processors of Alaska salmon, halibut, pollock and crab.

“We have lots of plans to grow and we are excited about the seafood business. We are excited about Alaska,” Icicle president and CEO Don Giles said today from his office in Seattle.

The company’s management will remain the same under the new ownership.

Icicle management supports the deal because they want the company to continue to grow.

Giles said the deal means new capital for growth at Icicle, but would not say what properties the Icicle team wants to invest in.

Technically, the Icicle buyout is a merger with a newly formed holding company created by combining Icicle’s assets — fish plants in Alaska and Chile and a small fleet of at-sea processing vessels — with cash from Fox Paine III.

The holding company formed by the deal is to be called FP Icicle Holdings Inc.

Icicle purchased the Kodiak Salmon Packers plant in Larsen Bay in 2006. Giles said investments have already taken place to spruce up the facility, but he had no comments about the future of the plant.

Icicle operates plants in Petersburg, Seward, Homer and Egegik. The company has seasonal support sites at Ninilchik, Dillingham, Dutch Harbor, Naknek and St. Paul Island, according to the company’s Web site.

Icicle also operates four floating processors in Alaska waters, according to the Web site.

The company has roots in salmon, herring and crab, but now processes an array of Pacific seafood products, including surimi.

Icicle is the second major Alaska seafood processor to change hands this year, according to the Associated Press. Seattle-based Ocean Beauty Seafoods Inc. announced in April it was selling a 50 percent stake to Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp. of Dillingham.

– Kodiak Daily Mirror

Feature: A Last Supper Before Giving Up Fish

No meal could have been more perfect than a seafood feast I enjoyed on the beach last week in the San Juan Islands, off the coast of Washington state. A friend and I fired up a grill using twigs gathered from nearby driftwood (yes, it’s legal). Our stockpile included a dozen oysters fresh from a nearby farm, plus a slab of tender Alaskan salmon that we marinated in Teriyaki sauce and grilled to a scrumptious pinky-brown. It was definitively the best moment of the summer.

Gather your oysters while ye may—because, come September, fish will be banned from my diet.

I became a vegetarian at the age of 10, and initially included fish in my food ban. But as a concession to my parents — two meat-eaters worried about raising a waif — I decided after a few months to reinstate seafood. The occasional grilled swordfish or blackened tuna was a welcome break from fried tofu, my profoundly bland protein alternative.

In the past few years I have been worrying about the dramatic decline of fisheries around the world. Everybody wants to eat fish because it is healthy (mercury issues aside). So consumption is growing — as is the world population. In a report last year to Congress, the National Marine Fisheries Service stated that 25% of fish stocks appearing in American waters were overfished

If even America cannot keep its fisheries in robust health, imagine the problems offshore of India or Africa.

The bad news is that there may be very few fish in the sea left within a few decades. The North Sea cod, once a staple of English fish & chips, is now largely gone.

So why not eat seafood selectively — the “smart seafood diet”, as I call it? Many organizations, such as the Monterey Bay Aquarium in America, publish wallet-cards that categorize fish species according to whether they can be eaten sustainably or should be avoided.

But there are problems even when using these lists. They do not cover all local species. And how can anyone know whether a tuna is caught with a pole or a troll (acceptable), or longline caught (bad)? What does that mean anyway? The selective eater needs better labeling of seafood.

Besides, it is tiresome to explain the distinction between good fish and bad fish to people who are kind enough to feed me.

Perhaps I should seize the opportunity to educate them; but I am not boorish enough to inflict the minutiae of my dietary preferences on those who invite me to their homes. There are already enough people in this world who seem to be on wheat-free, dairy-free, no-peanuts, only-local-foods diets.

Broad, simple categories are best: fish or no fish. (Mocking my fish consumption, my brother once called himself a "meat-eating vegetarian.")

Finally, by eating fish but not meat for two decades, I have ensured that fish has been constantly on my menu. Last month one of my relatives fed me a lobster while everyone else ate steak. It was very considerate, but I was sorry that it had been boiled alive for my sake—and idly wondered how well Maine’s lobster fisheries were managed.

So after a summer of indulgence, I will ban fish. No sushi, not even if it is made with troll-caught tuna. Worse, no oysters. I have, at least, learned how to cook tofu creatively.

– The Economist, U.K.

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Friday, August 10, 2007