| [an error occurred while processing this directive] |
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
Web posted
To get an MSC nod, fisheries undergo intense scrutiny by an independent three-person assessment team. Each fishery must pass every single one of the dozens of performance indicators in order to garner a passing grade.
Certification is usually completed in a year or less. For pollock, it's been a longer haul than usual, because, among other things, the fishery has been broken out into three separate regions -- the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska.
The delay is also due in large part to "unprecedented consultations with environmental groups -- far beyond the MSC's usual standards," said Jim Gilmore, spokesman for the At-Sea Processors Association, the group that applied for the pollock certification. While he expressed frustration over the delay, Gilmore credited the MSC evaluators with "balancing the need for progress with the need to listen to all voices."
"It's a tough fishery to get your arms around," said Chet Chaffee, leader of the MSC evaluation team. Alaska's pollock fisheries account for nearly 30 percent of all fish harvested in the U.S. "It is so huge and there are different fisheries at different times and places, lots of regulations and many interested stakeholders," he said.
Chaffee said the MSC certifiers have gone back to industry, fishery managers and environmental groups several times to make sure they have all the information they need. "For any fishery, whether it's yay or nay, our decision will be based on facts," he said.
So if one pollock fishery gets the MSC nod ( say in the Bering Sea), how will it be differentiated from fisheries in other regions? Chaffee credited the pollock industry and federal managers for the coding and tracking systems in place that allow fish catches to be easily followed from the point of harvest to retail counters.
Chaffee said in a mid-January interview that the MSC certifiers were ready to move forward with a draft report on the Bering Sea pollock fishery. He estimated that will take about a month; then, the report and any final recommendations must undergo a series of public comment and peer review periods.
So, it will still be a few months more before Alaska's pollock fisheries are deemed green enough to garner an eco-label.
Lovers choose lobsters
A national survey by Harris Interactive showed that lobster is the most popular choice for a romantic Valentine's Day dinner. Seafood.com reported the survey also revealed that more than two in five Americans (42 percent) consider lobster to be the most romantic food.
Next in line was steak (24 percent), followed by pasta (10 percent), shrimp (9 percent), crab legs (5 percent), chicken (5 percent) and pork (1 percent).
"Lobster is the perfect dish for a romantic, special occasion," said chef Keith Keogh of Red Lobster, the world's largest casual dining seafood company. "It is an exotic delicacy that results in an intimate moment with a loved one, because lobster is hand-held and shareable. Shellfish, especially lobster, is a catalyst for connection like no other food."
Ninety three percent of the 1,015 Americans (ages 18 or older) surveyed said they plan to dine out at a restaurant this Valentine's Day.
Jellyfish attack fish farms
Fish farmers in Scotland are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to determine if a curtain of air bubbles rising from the seafloor can protect fish farms from attacks by millions of tiny jellyfish from the Pacific Ocean.
The Glasgow Herald reported that four million fish were lost to jellyfish attacks over the past two years. The main species appears to be solmaris, transparent and less than a half-inch long. The huge masses of jellyfish form a murky soup that drifts with the tide, enveloping salmon cages and poisoning and suffocating the fish.
Farmers have found no reliable defense against the attacks. "'There are millions of them. The fish swallow them and they go through their gills actually suffocating the fish. Solmaris feed on plankton, but can't swim against the current. So if the cages are protected by this curtain of air bubbles, the current should no longer sweep them into the fish. That is what we are going to try," explained a fish farmer.
Full-scale tests are expected to get under way by May. If the results are favorable, the defensive air shields will be in place by late summer. The project will be monitored over 12 months by the Institute of Aquaculture at Stirling University.
One of the project's sponsors is Western Isles Enterprise, which two years ago backed research on the use of a type of fish called goldsinny wrasse to act as a biological control against sea lice infestation on salmon farms. This was successful and the system is now in use in Scotland.
Kodiak-based free-lance writer Laine Welch can be reached via e-mail at msfish@ptialaska.net.
|
