Jes Hathaway is the editor in chief of National Fisherman magazine and NationalFisherman.com.
Thursday, 06 December 2012
It sounds like the spawning grounds for Frankenfish are expected to dry up in January.
Massachusetts-based Aquabounty is crying foul over Food and Drug Administration delays in the company's approval process for genetically modified salmon.
Welcome to the world of fishery management, Aquabounty!
OK, OK, so they're dealing with the FDA. But it's the same deal, isn't it?
You want to make a change in your business, but it has to go through the long process of government approval. In the meantime, you may have to shut down completely.
Fishermen on every coast have faced the same fate. Just because you've poured money into manipulating nature rather than harvesting her bounty doesn't make you a special case. Well, it does, but probably not in the way you'd hoped.
In the meantime, all of this delay has some scientists worried that an Aquabounty failure would discourage investments in animal biotechnology.
Again, this is par for the course when it comes to introducing potentially hazardous food sources to the mainstream. Also, I'm not seeing the downside.
We've recently seen reversals on Canadian recommendations for salmon net pens. That technology was once heralded as a great scientific advancement. But it turned out to be infectious. Again, not in the way it was intended.
Maybe in this case the blessing of slow-grinding government wheels is that we get a window for hindsight before making a potentially disastrous first step.
Callifornia crabbing: Here's a fun video shot on the decks of the Majestik while catching Dungeness crab off the coast of northern California.
Over 500 lots of seafood processing equipment formerly owned by Adak Seafood will be sold at auction on Tuesday, June 18, starting at 10 a.m. Hawaiian-Aleutian Daylight Time at the Hilton Garden Inn in Anchorage Alaska.
The equipment is located in a recently updated 250,000 square foot state-of-the-art processing facility in Adak, Alaska. Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Hilco Industrial, which conducts 75 machinery and equipment auctions in a wide range of industries annually, will conduct the auction.
Adak Seafood opened originally as Ada Fisheries in Anchorage in 1986. The facility, updated in 2005, is located on the island of Adak, the southernmost city in Alaska near the western end of the Aleutian Islands. The facility processed cod primarily, as well as halibut, blackcod, crab and pollock, Hilco says.
Alaska fisherman and commercial fisheries activist Kevin Adams was elected chairman at the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute board of directors meeting on May 9 in Anchorage.
The governor-appointed board consists of seven members: five seafood processors and two industry representatives actively engaged in commercial fishing. Adams was appointed to fill a harvester seat by Gov. Frank Murkowski in 2004.
With 38 years of fishing experience in Bristol Bay, Adams has long been an active member in the Alaska fishing industry, ASMI says. He has worked for both the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation and the Bering Sea Fisherman's Association, and represents Alaska fishermen on numerous boards.
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