quota

Last Wednesday marked a turning point for the New England fishing community when the New England Fishery Management Council approved deep cuts to the cod quota that are expected to put many fishermen out of business. “That’s it. I’m all done. The boat’s going up for sale,” said Gloucester fisherman Paul Vitale in response to the news. There’s no escaping the fact that tough times are ahead for this historic fishing community.

New England was built on cod. They even named a cape after it. “People settled this area because of the bountiful fish stocks that they found here,” says GMRI’s Jen Levin. From Portland to Gloucester, Cape Cod to New Bedford, waterfront communities prospered thanks to abundant fish populations. In those early days, fish seemed endless, and fishing wasn’t regulated. As fishing technology developed, we put increasing pressure on our fish stocks. In the mid-20th century, huge factory trawlers from as far away as Russia fished the seas for all they were worth. It wasn’t until the 1980’s, when faced with a near collapse of the fishery, did we wise up to the real impact of human greed. Strict fishery management began, and New England finally adopted a catch share management program in 2010. Soon after, cod seemed to be rebounding to healthy levels.

Last year, long suffering New England fishermen were dealt a cruel blow. Cod populations that just one year before had been rapidly growing, suddenly fell. No one could explain it, but management was required to severely reduce quota. Although not their fault, fishermen would suffer. The fact is, this week’s news has been a long time coming. Just as fishermen began managing the resource in a sustainable way, another culprit - climate change - wreaked havoc on fish stocks as cod swam north in response to warming ocean temperatures.

As the New England fishing community faces a grim reality, it’s important that we stick by our fishermen. Now is the time to get acquainted with cod’s close cousins, haddock and pollock, and create a market for what these fishermen are still able to catch. “It will be tough for the next few years,” said Michael Castigliego of Somerset, MA. “But we’ll get through it. It should be better three or four years from now. At least, that’s what we hope.” If we want our traditional working waterfronts to endure, let’s remember on the long road ahead that our independent fishermen are a vital part of our food system.

As a heat wave baked most of America, some fishermen found cool breezes in the Northeast where both recreational and commercial anglers wait patiently for their favorite time of the year, striped bass season. While recreational guys have been able to live line bunker since April, the commercial season for striped bass finally opened in July.

There is no mistaking the feeling of hooking up with a striper. They slam into bait with such force and abandon your line whirls away in a fury until you’re able to set the hook and the fight can begin. The power that awes fishermen is the same reason striped bass is prized for its firm meaty flesh where it’s diet of bunker, eels and clams gives it a sweet delicate flavor. Open a box of these fresh line-caught stripers and smell the ocean. It’s taken a little time for everyone to get over their initial excitement, and dock prices have come back down to earth. They are landing both in Montauk and Cape Cod, and are a highlight of every summer season.

Small boats are running out south of Martha’s Vineyard with hopes of landing local yellowfin tuna. The steam to Hudson Canyon is not short, but the reward is usually well worth the time and effort. In the style of our friends in Tobago, Massachusetts fishermen are dropping metal jigs on hand lines with hopes of hooking up with yellowfin. The sustainability of a hand-lining is unmatched - one man, one hook, one fish - almost a zero by-catch fishery.

In NY and PA the controversy surrounding fracking of the Marcellus shale for natural gas is heating up. A new study is concerned with chemicals seeping into Pennsylvania drinking water, while chef and goodfood advocate Mary Cleaver discusses Fracking and Its Dangerous Effects On Local Farms. If you are in Brooklyn this week you can enjoy some delicious food from Mary, Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern, Peter Hoffman of Back Forty, Zak Pelaccio of Fatty 'Cue, and a host of others at a benefit called Taste of the Marcellus to raise fracking awareness.

As the Bristol Bay sockeye season winds down, awareness of the Pebble Mine threat increases. This week the Huffington Post asked people to share Sea to Table’s videos, as the EPA comment period ends. Remember, the best way to save a salmon is to eat a salmon.

With over 70% of the earth’s surface covered by water, we think the term Earth Day is a bit too terrestrial. Wild fishing is man’s last true hunting for food, and chefs need to step forward to help ensure that our children enjoy this wonder.

The threat to the world’s greatest salmon nursery in Bristol Bay, Alaska remains virulent. The approval process for the world’s largest open pit mine in the headwaters of the bay reaches a critical point this spring when the EPA submits their report to Congress. None of us want to jeopardize the 40 million sockeye returning to Bristol Bay each year to spawn. In a culture where food is ever growing in importance, chefs are gatekeepers. We are sending chefs a Stop Pebble Mine hat, and asking them to shoot a smart phone video imploring Congress to do just that. These videos will be used in a concerted effort by people who think wild salmon are worth saving. Please don your cap.

While 20% of the world’s protein is derived from the sea, an estimated 20% of the world’s catch is landed illegally, reports Dr. Ray Hilborn, a fisheries scientist at the University of Washington. While management has become much better in the United States in much of the world rule-breaking “is an accepted way of business”. It was reported last week that 55% of seafood samples tested in Los Angeles were fraudulently labeled. Don’t buy fish from strangers.

Captain John of the F/V New Wave is again landing side-striped shrimp via otter trawl in Prince William Sound, AK. His is the only boat targeting them in Whittier; after landing he drives them 90 minutes to ship just hours out of the water. These sugar sweet shrimp the Japanese call ebi should land every Tuesday and Friday through August, and can be combined with halibut, cod or salmon.

The “Give Swordfish a Break” effort championed by chefs in the 90’s did so well that swordfish populations are thriving. "The swordfish is a success story," said Ellen Peel, president of The Billfish Foundation, “it has recovered.'' The U.S. has reduced fishing so much it is catching only 70 percent of its swordfish quota under the current international fishing treaty. If it doesn't catch more fish, the U.S. risks losing its quota to countries that allow fishing without measures to prevent the accidental catch of sea turtles, marlin, sharks and juvenile swordfish. Now the best way to protect swordfish is to eat them.

People in Destin, FL refer to their town as the "World's Luckiest Fishing Village".

Destin traces its history to a fisherman, Leonard Destin, who settled in Northwest Florida about 1845. For decades, he and his descendants fished and navigated the only channel passage to the Gulf of Mexico between Panama City and Pensacola, known as Destin’s East Pass. In 1879 Leonard hired a 13-year-old boy named William Marler. Captain “Billy” sailed the mail in and out of East Pass and created an informal post office. In 1904, an inquiry from Washington requested the name of the official new post office and Captain Billy responded with “Destin” in honor of his first employer. Destin remained undiscovered and pretty much an island unto itself until the mid-1930’s when the Marler Bridge was built and the world began trickling in, with Destin becoming officially incorporated in 1985.

Luck was none too good in 2000, when declining fish populations and a state ban on net fishing effectively put Destin’s 11 commercial fishing boats out of business. But due to new management practices fish populations have begun to rebound. In 2007, the National Marine Fisheries Service instituted a “catch share” program in which commercial fishermen are pre-assigned a quantity of snapper they can land, ending the free-for-all frenzy of the past. Now, red snapper numbers have more than doubled. This year’s red grouper quota was increased, and yellowfin tuna populations are up. Chatham Morgan is landing the F/V Toni Lynn each week with snapper and grouper, as is Captain Gary Jarvis and the F/V Miss Shannon with line caught yellowfin tuna. Striped mullet, an under utilized and under appreciated species, is almost always on the dock. Not only can we support the rebound of this traditional fishing community, but it is our good luck to enjoy some of the best fish anywhere.

Just down the road in sleepy Port St. Joe, the Wood family has been shrimping for five generations. Two years ago Ed Wood invested in state-of-the-art high-speed blast freezing equipment that allows Wild Florida White Shrimp IQF (individually quick frozen), both head-on and tails-only. Using the efficiencies of FedEx, we are shipping these shrimp from cold storage, using Next Day Ground within about 300 miles of either New York or Chicago at a significantly reduced carbon footprint and cost. When you taste the difference and compare the price of these crustaceans with the Asian farmed product that has flooded the market, you will be shocked- in a good way.

Although we haven’t yet won the battle against overfishing, we have turned a corner and are beginning to see many of our important stocks rebound. A remarkable milestone has been achieved with all federal fisheries having catch limits in place in time for the 2012 fishing season. “It’s something that’s arguably first in the world,” said Eric Schwaab, NOAA administrator for fisheries. “It’s a huge accomplishment for the country, and we recognize the tremendous amount of effort and sacrifice on the part of our nation’s fishermen and fishing communities to get us here”.

This week Michael will attend the TEDx conference “Changing The Way We Eat”. Our friend Michel Nischan, whose talk was the highlight of last year’s event, is honored in Food and Wine as one of 10 superstar chefs who are helping to make the world a better place. We love seeing special people get the recognition they deserve.

Last year’s epic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico left everyone angry, with lasting TV images of millions of gallons of crude oil despoiling our national treasure. For the past 18 months, scientists have been exhaustively studying the event and have made some very surprising discoveries.

Firstly, they can not find the oil. The Gulf of Mexico ecosystem was ready and waiting for something like the Deepwater Horizon blowout and seems to have made the most of it, a new scientific study suggests. Petroleum-eating bacteria has dined for eons on oil seeping naturally through the seafloor, and they ramped up their own internal metabolic machinery to digest the oil as efficiently as possible. The result was a nature-made cleanup crew capable of reducing the amount of oil in the undersea plume by half about every three days, according to the research.

Secondly, scientists have not been able to find any contaminated seafood. The FDA has tested thousands of samples, and in the 1% that any oil or dispersant was detected, the levels were 100 to 1000 times lower than the levels of concern. “The rigorous testing we have done from the very beginning gives us confidence in the safety of seafood being brought to market from the Gulf,” said NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco. Michael sat in on a panel at the Chef’s Collaborative event in New Orleans earlier this month that reported the same.

Thirdly, and possibly the most counter-intuitive, is that fish populations in the Gulf of Mexico have sharply rebounded. So much so that NOAA increased Red Grouper catch limits by more than one million pounds, or 21%. Our fishermen partners in Destin, FL report that they have never seen Red Snapper more plentiful. Working under a strict Catch Share Management Plan, they are landing abundant species weekly. Gulf fishermen have had a mighty hard go of it these last years, and deserve our support. And we deserve to enjoy their beautiful harvest.

From the Gulf of Maine comes new research that has resulted in a dramatic increase in quota for Skate. “We recognize that these are difficult economic times for many fishermen and are working hard to increase fishing opportunity wherever possible,” said NOAA’s Eric Schwaab, “The quota increase will boost revenues for many fishermen and related fishing businesses, while maintaining our responsibility to important conservation objectives.” Researchers found that by-catch mortality of four of the species in the Gulf of Maine (winter, smooth, little, and thorny skates), was considerably lower than previously assumed. The impact of this discovery will benefit skate fishermen up and down the coast. Dr. James Sulikowski of The University of New England said, “This research shows how scientists can work with fishermen in a cooperative way to inform management policy. Better science can really help improve conditions for the fishery.”

Good news is a good thing.