Tag Archives: Covid-19 pandemic
Some in seafood industry see Trump as fishermen’s friend, but tariffs could make for pricier fish
The incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump is likely to bring big changes for one of the oldest sectors of the U.S. economy, seafood, and some in the industry believe the returning president will be more responsive to its needs. Economic analysts paint a more complicated picture, as they fear Trump’s pending trade hostilities with major trading partners Canada and China could make an already pricy kind of protein more expensive to consumers. Conservationists also fear Trump’s emphasis on government deregulation could jeopardize fish stocks that are already in peril. But many in the commercial fishing and seafood processing industries said they are excited for Trump’s second presidency. They said they expect he’ll allow fishing in protected areas as he did in his first presidency, crack down on offshore wind expansion and cut back regulations they describe as burdensome. And they expect a marked shift from the administration of President Joe Biden, who prioritized ocean conservation and championed wind power from the start. Video, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 10:26
Report portrays mixed picture of Alaska’s huge seafood industry
The report from the McKinley Research Group, titled The Economic Value of Alaska’s Seafood Industry, is the latest in a periodic series commissioned by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. The total economic value of the Alaska seafood industry in 2021 and 2022 was $6 billion, slightly more than the $5.6 billion tallied in 2019, the last full year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the new report and the previous version published in 2022. Along with that good news, the McKinley Research Group’s report contains a warning about the industry’s economic future. The seafood industry, between harvesters, processors and managers, accounted for 48,000 jobs on average in 2021 and 2022, equivalent to 29,100 full-time positions, the report said. That is a reduction from the 62,200 total jobs in 2019, the equivalent of 37,400 full-time positions. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 11:21
‘Wicked Tuna’ star meets Kaua‘i fishermen, scientist eager to resume local ahi research
Reality television star Dave Marciano, captain of the fishing vessel Hard Merchandise on the long-running National Geographic series “Wicked Tuna”, has spent the last two weeks on a whirlwind tour of Kaua. The famous fisherman, who visited with his family, was on vacation. However, he was also excited to reignite a long-running initiative between local commercial fishermen and marine biologists – which has all but stopped in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and a lack of funding. The local fishermen are more than Marciano’s colleagues: They’re also some of his biggest fans. When not discussing their shared profession, some could not resist taking a selfie or getting an autograph from the avuncular East Coast captain. Photos, more, >>click to read<< 08:46
Get to know your local western rock lobster fisher and their produce
It’s a warm summer’s day in December with a light breeze blowing in from the ocean. You’ve dragged your mum, boyfriend, sister, cousin or friend along to join the locals and tourists down at the port to get your hands on the freshest and best crustacean in the world, right in time for the Christmas festivities that are around the corner. The rock lobster you purchased has just been caught by the commercial fishermen, kept in a live tank until the point of landing at port and then weighed and put on ice in your esky. Thanks to Western Rock Lobster’s Back of Boat (BoB) initiative, this is a reality for seafood lovers and fishers across the state. more, >>click to read<< 08:30
The Fish Shop brings Oregon fish to Corvallis
Prior to the store’s opening, Harrison’s brand, Oregon’s Choice was solely online, selling primarily albacore tuna and Chinook salmon, all caught and canned in Oregon. Harrison purchased Oregon’s Choice from her parents in 2020, and in doing so happened upon the perfect market. “The two best businesses to be in 2020 were toilet paper and canned food,” Harrison said, alluding to the COVID-19 pandemic. The business started in 1977 with Harrison’s father, Herb Goblirsch selling his catch on the docks of Newport. >>click to read<< 08:37
Alaska seafood harvesting jobs decline as fish crashes, pandemic and other factors take toll
Alaska fish-harvesting employment declined in 2022, a continuing yearslong slide caused by a variety of factors, according to an analysis by the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Employment for people harvesting seafood dropped by about a quarter from 2015 to 2022, according to the analysis, published in the November issue of Alaska Economic Trends, the department’s monthly research magazine. The industry lost ground compared to other sectors of the Alaska economy, the analysis found. Seafood harvesting accounted for 7.3% of Alaska jobs in July of 2021, but only 5.7% of Alaska jobs were in seafood harvesting in the following July. Fishery work is highly seasonal, and July is the peak month for it. >>click to read<< 16:15
Data shows Florida seafood landings rank below historic trends, Hurricane losses, high diesel prices likely to blame
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes and increased fuel costs have reduced the catch of Florida’s seafood industry. Florida’s Gulf Coast is the largest fishery for the state and is still dealing with the effects of Hurricane Ian in late 2022. The storm made landfall at Fort Myers and devastated Florida’s shrimping industry, sinking boats and destroying infrastructure crucial to the industry. According to preliminary data compiled by The Southern Shrimp Alliance from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fishery Monitoring Branch, Florida’s March 2023 landings off the West Coast were 72.7% below the historical average. In total, 2023 landings for the West Coast are 42.1% below historical trends. >click to read< 10:06
Rhode Island’s commercial fishing industry, by the numbers
The calamari comeback is going strong, while lobsters lag and flounders flounder. That’s according to a new Department of Environmental Management report on the fishing industry last year. In 2022, the overall value of commercial fishing landings in Rhode Island was $100.6 million. That’s about 10 percent lower than 2021 when you account for inflation. The drop is discouraging, but there’s a lot that plays into seafood landings annually, including biological, fisheries management, and economic factors, according to Conor McManus, chief of DEM’s Division of Marine Fisheries. The full DEM report also takes a look at recreational fishing, but for today, we’ll stick with a seafood sampler of data about the commercial fishing industry. >click to read< 08:23
Effort to save Gloucester’s oldest gillnetter sinks
During Gloucester’s celebration of its 400+ anniversary this year, America’s oldest seaport will say farewell to its oldest fishing vessel, the Phyllis A., a 59-foot gillnetter built in 1925. The 98-year-old vessel will not see its centennial. Efforts to raise enough money for its restoration and preservation were sunk in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and a slow trickle of money to support the educational nonprofit doing the work, the Phyllis A. Marine Association. “She fished out of Gloucester for 75 years, never anywhere else, and she was owned by the same family — the Arnold family,” said Gloria Parsons, a long-time member of the association. 12 photos, >click to read< 08:52
Why A Deadliest Catch Deckhand Is Suing Sig Hansen’s Company
A deckhand working on the fishing vessel Northwestern, which frequently appears on the Discovery hit “Deadliest Catch,” has filed a personal injury lawsuit against the ship’s owners. Alaska Public Media reports that deckhand Nick Mavar Jr. filed a civil suit against Hansen Enterprises, Inc. in December 2022 in Washington State’s King County Superior Court. In the brief, as quoted by Alaska Public Media, Mavar Jr. explains that during a December 2020 voyage with the show’s crew aboard the boat, Mavar Jr. began to experience worsening abdominal pain while working. He claims that he was not given adequate medical treatment in time, resulting in his appendix bursting before he was airlifted to a local hospital for treatment. It was later discovered that there was a cancerous tumor within the ruptured organ. Hansen Enterprise’s legal issues don’t end there. In the wake of Nick Mavar Jr.’s suit, Hansen Enterprises Inc. filed a civil lawsuit against Original Productions Inc and Trifecta Solutions LLC >click to read< 19:40
New use for A.I.: correctly estimating fish stocks
For the first time, a newly published artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm is allowing researchers to quickly and accurately estimate coastal fish stocks without ever entering the water. This breakthrough could save millions of dollars in annual research and monitoring costs while bringing data access to least-developed countries about the sustainability of their fish stocks. Understanding “fish stocks” – the amount of living fish found in an area’s waters – is critical to understanding the health of our oceans. This is especially true in coastal areas where 90 percent of people working in the fisheries industry live and work. In the wealthiest countries, millions of dollars are spent each year on “stock assessments” – expensive and labor-intensive efforts to get people and boats out into the water to count fish and calculate stocks. >click to read< 09:10
Fishing jobs declined in Alaska in 2021
Last year brought another series of job losses for the Alaskan fishing industry, even after the massive declines in 2020. Thet’ Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s analysis of fishing jobs, which it releases annually, shows that 2021 did not bring a full recovery back to the industry the way it did to others after the low during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Overall, the industry lost another 134 jobs, on top of the approximately 1,000 it lost in 2020. “While some harvests were notably large in 2021, no fishery significantly boosted its employment,” wrote Joshua Warren, an economist for the Alaska Department of Labor, in the report. “Larger harvests don’t necessarily translate to job growth.” Though there are commercial fisheries operating all over Alaska year-round, employment usually spikes from May through September for salmon harvesting. >click to read< 08:55
Boom-bust commercial salmon season doubles 2020 value
This summer was significantly better for commercial salmon fishermen in Alaska than 2020, though that success was far from evenly spread. Commercial salmon fishermen hauled in salmon valued at $643.9 million this season, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. That’s more than double the 2020 value of $295.2 million, but still a little behind the estimated 2019 value of $657.6 million. Overall, 2021 ranks fairly well in the historical averages for numbers of salmon harvested and poundage as well as in value, according to Fish and Game data. >click to read< 16:37
Britain’s fishing industry: Jim Portus exposes the government’s betrayal of the fishing industry
The UK’s fishing industry was almost universally ecstatic about the referendum vote to leave the European Union in June 2016. Meanwhile, United Kingdom Independence Party leader Nigel Farage stated at the time that the way the UK would deal with its fisheries would be the acid test for the whole of Brexit. The industry was under no illusion that the vote to leave the EU would be the start, not the end, of a process that could take a decade to complete. Many feared that the UK’s fisheries would yet again be used as a bargaining chip by the government,,, >click to read< 09:42
Louisiana shrimpers ‘try and survive’ after Ida sinks boats, destroys homes
Some 20%-30% of the fleet of shrimp boats in the Golden Meadow region of was wiped out by the powerful winds from the Category 4 Hurricane Ida that made landfall on Sunday, shrimpers said. The industry had already suffered lower seafood demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then the storm struck fishing communities southwest of New Orleans that had largely been spared when Hurricane Katrina pummeled the state 16 years ago. “We’ve never seen anything this powerful around here before,” said shrimper Russell Plaisance. Plaisance said local shrimpers lost 65%-70% of their revenue in 2020 as the pandemic shut restaurants. This year had been looking up for the top shrimp harvesting state, until the storm. >click to read< 19:04
New Trawler Delivered From Karstensens Shipyard
In March of 2019 a contract was signed between Mats Johansson, Vingaskär Fiskeri AB and Karstensens Shipyard A/S for the construction of a new 34.00 m Trawler. The finished ship was taken over by the Shipping Company on 15 June 2021 after some delay, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The new vessel is a state-of-the-art combi trawler, designed for fishing for both fish for human consumption and shrimp, with everything within the latest of machinery, equipment and equipment. The project as a whole has been carried out in a very close and intense collaboration between Shipping company and Shipyard. To review the specification, and 31 photos, >click to read< 12:30
Profit and turnover down as UK fishing fleet weathers a challenging year.
Our first economic performance estimates for 2020 show impact of pandemic on fishing industry. Fishing fleet performance in 2020 The total operating profit of the UK fishing fleet fell by almost a fifth in 2020 as the sector dealt with the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. The data we’re publishing today shows that: Operating profit fell by 19% from £264 million in 2019 to £214 million in 2020. Turnover, which had been above the £1 billion mark for the previous three years, fell to £843 million. This is a 17% reduction. These totals,,, photos, >click to read<22:26
Moscow orders return to motherland of fish and fishermen
Trawlers will lose quotas unless they are customs declared in Russia, catch is to be processed in domestic plants and foreign investors might be kicked out of the industry. – Russian federal authorities are ready to take strong measures to strengthen national control over the fisheries. In a decree signed late December 2020, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin ordered all trawlers built abroad to undergo customs declaration in Russia. If not, they will lose their catch quotas,,, Russian companies today own and operate about 70 undeclared trawlers acquired abroad. They are landing their catch and shifting crews in foreign ports.,,, The Russian government is also pushing for more domestic fish processing, and several incentives are introduced to bring catch back home. >click to read< 16:21
Fools and Other People’s Money: Offshore Wind Industry Bamboozles Boris With ‘Wind Power’s Cheap’ Myth
If 2020 demonstrates anything, it’s the herd-like behavior of governments. Italy responds to the Covid-19 pandemic with a lockdown, so the rest of Europe follows its lead, but for Sweden. Britain decides to go for net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050 without a clue as to how much it will cost, and much of the West, including Joe Biden, follows suit. Only New Zealand had the gumption to ask how much it might cost. Earlier this month, British prime minister Boris Johnson pledged that offshore wind, cheaper than goal and gas, he claimed, would power every home in Britain by 2030. Cheaper than gas? Boris got suckered. >click to read< 14:44
Coronavirus: Fish processor closes as markets collapse
One of the country’s largest fish processing companies is shutting down because the EU’s fish markets have collapsed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Processors are now calling on the Government to set up a task force to save the industry. All 64 of the boats managed by the Castletownbere Fishermen’s Co-Operative have been asked to come back into port. “The world has collapsed a little bit and we can’t do anything in the European market. There are loads of fish but there is not sufficient enough market. >click to read< 07:37
