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Wild sockeye in brilliant spawning colors in Bristol Bay. Photo: Jason Ching
Tales
What does it mean to collaborate? I've been thinking about this the past several weeks as I've been working with teams on several cool projects. I've been collaborating with several amazing people on an ad hoc team organizing public input that may help shape policy for the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. I'm learning so much in the process about the complexity of these issues and the tireless dedication necessary to hold federal and state governments accountable. I'm working with another team of dedicated, energetic folks to plan the Local Catch Local Seafood Summit on Oct. 2 -3 in Alaska. It's hard work, and requires a lot of coordination and mutual trust. But it's fun and rewarding to help shape the experience. I worked with a team to coordinate the Slow Fish/Slow Food webinar on the AQUAA Act, and with another team to consider ways to map some fisheries policy into the massive Farm Bill. And I've been working with several confederated folks on amplifying the message of why we need to protect Bristol Bay, Alaska. In this newsletter, you'll see links to a sign-on letter telling the EPA to ensure Clean Water Act protections for Bristol Bay and close the door on the Pebble Mine forever. You'll also read about a cool community event coming up, NOAA statistics on how both domestic seafood harvest and consumption dropped during the pandemic, a cool new seafood guide (NO SCORECARDS!!!), two different studies about climate-fueled oceanic impacts, and mismanagement of coastal herring fisheries. You'll also meet the handsome Strawberry Squid and get to try our Grilled Bluefish taco recipe. Enjoy!
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One Fish Foundation News
June 2022
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Bristol Bay Fishing Fleet Photo: Chris Miller
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Memo to EPA: Do your job!
The Environmental Protection Agency is now taking public comment on its draft ruling to protect Bristol Bay, Alaska from the Pebble Mine. This is a critical time for the entire watershed, the people who live there, and the salmon that return in the tens of millions every year. The draft ruling states that toxic waste from the Pebble Mine would represent an intolerable threat to the pristine watershed supporting the wild salmon every year, 15,000 jobs and over $2.2 billion of economic output. As such, the EPA would use Clean Water Act Section section 404 (c) protections to finally close the door forever. But EPA needs to hear from EVERYONE!
Follow this link to sign-on to a letter calling on EPA to use Clean Water Act Protections to safeguard the pristine Bristol Bay watershed.
Follow this link to a recent blog I wrote about what's at stake and why this matters.
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One Fish Foundation at Farm-A-Q June 19
After a two-year hiatus, Farm-A-Q, the wildly popular Seacoast N.H. local food event is back on. And we will be there ... with gumbo! The event is on Juneteenth, and will celebrate local cultural food traditions. This will be a collaboration celebration with the Business Alliance for People of Color, ICC - Indonesian Community Connect, Inc, and Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook Abenaki People, local community organizations, foraging walks, local chefs, farmers, and breweries, all while dancing to the sounds of Midnight BBQ. Here's a link to get your tickets. We hope to see you there!
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Calls for Action
Here are concrete action items and opportunities to make your voice heard
or learn more about crucial issues.
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Support permanent protections for Bristol Bay
Sign on letter calling for a stop to Canadian mining near salmon rivers
- Salmon Beyond Borders' sign on letter to the Biden Administration calling for outreach to Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau to ban toxic mining near critical, cross-boundary salmon watersheds such as the Taku, Stikine and Unuk rivers.
Take action to defend the Tongass National Forest
- Watch "UNDERSTORY", a compelling documentary about the magic, mystery, and immense importance of the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska. This documentary follows a young fisherwoman's stunning journey to protect the world's largest remaining coastal temperate rainforest.
- Take action by signing on to this letter to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack: www.salmonstate.org/tongass
Help #BlockCorporateSalmon
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Sustainable Seafood News
Here's what you need to be hearing about, thinking about, and why.
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New climate studies probe long-term oceanic impacts
- Rutgers: climate change could drastically alter how species adapt: Warming oceans will dramatically affect how individual species will adapt within their marine food webs, possibly affecting how different species feed, reproduce and survive, according to a new study by Rutgers University. These types of shifts could affect key factors like predator-prey relationships, which could have ecosystem-wide impacts and hamper species' ability to adapt in a timely manner.
- Princeton: Oceans face dinosaur-like extinction, unless we act now: Yet another study sounds the alarm bell: If we don't act now, our oceans are going to start cooking sea creatures in their habits at staggering rates. The study suggests the planet could lose over a third of all marine animals in 300 years if we allow carbon release to continue as it is. However, we could reduce that overall impact by 70% ... again, if we act NOW!
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Plan to spread tiny glass on Alaska ice to reduce global warming draws ire
Tribal communities, Indigenous groups and conservationists across Alaska are speaking out against a proposed project to spread tiny bits of silica across ice fields to reflect sunlight back into the atmosphere and reduce ice melt. They worry about the health impacts the silica could have on both animals (like seals that rear their young on the ice) and humans. While attempts to minimize climate impacts are often founded in good intention, the overall ecological impacts should be paramount to determining feasibility. Once again we would do well to listen to those who have coexisted with natural resources since time immemorial.
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NAMA unveils its new seafood guide
The North American Marine Alliance just released a new seafood guide that offers something other popular pocket guides do not: a values-based, holistic approach to buying seafood, rather than a static scorecard that often overlooks critical ecological or socio-economic impacts of some sourcing. You can download the guide here, or help spread the word by using this Digital ToolKit! You'll note the reference to One Fish Foundation's 7 C's of Sustainable Seafood.
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Eel poachers facing federal charges
The US Justice Department announced federal indictments against a major imported eel meat operation based in New Jersey and China last month. After “a crackdown on the poaching and smuggling of American eels” traffickers, including the defendants in the case, “shifted their focus to European eels, a species facing an even greater threat of extinction.” Both American and European eels are protected in the U.S. under the Endangered Species Act. The indictment alleges that the defendants smuggled “large quantities of live baby European eels out of Europe” to a factory in China, where they were raised to maturity and then slaughtered, processed, and shipped to the U.S “to be sold as sushi products.” Another reminder for us all: Ask questions about the products you’re buying and eating.
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Image: NOAA
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Pandemic domestic seafood harvest dropped 10% in 2020
NOAA staff blamed the decrease on a variety of factors, including fishery closures, boats not fishing due to Covid, supply chain disruption, and transboundary shipping issues during the pandemic. The newly released domestic fisheries report states that domestic fishermen landed 8.4 billion pounds valued at $4.7 billion in 2020. While Dutch Harbor, AK continues to lead the nation in volume of landings, New Bedford, MA remains the port with the highest valued catch (for the 21st year!), with a value of $376.6 million in 2020, with 83.6% of the value coming from sea scallops. What the report really shows us though is that fishermen and seafood harvesters across the country continued to show up in the face of the pandemic. The report also indicates that domestic seafood consumption dropped during the pandemic from 19.3 pounds in 2019 to 19 pounds in 2020.
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Dirty Aquaculture Updates
- 300,000 Atlantic salmon have died recently in unfit aquaculture conditions - Salmones Multiexport - marketed as Multi X - reported the mass mortality event and cited low dissolved oxygen as the reason (an excuse we’ve heard many times before).
- Just a few days later, Iceland-based Ice Fish announced an outbreak of Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) at two of its farms. Roughly 2 million fish are housed between the two sites and the company anticipates a “reduced harvest” as a result.
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A manufactured "disaster" and the results
The federal government announced last month that the New England herring fishery would receive $11 million as a result of a federally declared “fishery disaster” in 2019. The problem? It’s questionable, at best, to call it a “ ‘disaster’ [...] because it suggests it was something out of our control” said Niaz Dorry, NAMA’s Coordinating Director. Herring is profitable only when caught in massive amounts, so large industrial fleet fishing occurs throughout New England waters “without any adequate protections or regulations in place.” So, how do we fix it? We fish at a scale that matches local and regional needs, not the globally scaled market, and adopt ecosystem-based management strategies.
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Fascinating Fish of the Month
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Strawberry Squid (Histioteuthis heteropsis)
Size: 8” mantle
Habitat: Atlantic ocean, 1,000 meters below the surface
Good at: Making fruit salad
Meet the Strawberry Squid, also known as the Jewel Squid! It has two very uniquely adapted eyes. One eye is large, tubular, and yellow, which is used to look up through the water column and spot shadows of prey. Meanwhile, its other, much smaller, blue eye faces down, looking for any signs of bioluminescence from other potential meals.
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Sustainable Seafood Recipes
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This month's recipe features an often underutilized and underappreciated fish, the not-so humble Atlantic bluefish. If you see one whole, they have very sharp teeth. Large schools herd bait into balls and then blitz through them, leaping high in the air and churning up the water. They are highly migratory species that swim up and down the Atlantic coast. Their populations vary by location from Florida to Maine, but their stock health is generally good. They are more on the oily side, grill well and pair well with a sauce. We see them in New England in the summer months, beginning in Rhode Island about now and lasting into August. I took this photo of bluefish from Rhode Island earlier this week.
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Grilled Bluefish tacos with yogurt cilantro dressing
Yogurt and dill dressing
ingedients
- 1/2 cup Greek-style, whole-milk yogurt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon Dijon Mustard
- juice of half a lemon
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Grilled Bluefish
ingredients
- 1-1.5 lbs bluefish fillets, skin on
- 1 minced garlic clove
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- salt (smoked salt if you have it)
- fresh ground pepper
- extra virgin olive oil
- juice from half a lemon
Directions
- Mix yogurt dressing ingredients and refrigerate
- Mix bluefish spices and rub onto fillets with garlic
- drizzle olive oil on fillets
- sprinkle lemon juice on fillets
- Set in refrigerator for 10 minutes
- Preheat grill
- Gently lay fillets, skin side down on hot grill or fish grate
- Grill for 5-6 minutes. Thicker fillets may take longer.
- Gently flip fillet and grill under closed lid for 1-2 minutes.
- Warm your favorite tortillas
- Lay fish in warmed tortillas and top with yogurt dressing
- Serve with grated cabbage or fresh greens and cilantro garnish
- Grilled bluefish tacos are also great with mango salsa and/or quacamole.
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Donate to One Fish Foundation
We are a small non-profit with big impact. Every dollar goes toward classroom and community education, engagement, and participation as we change our eating habits and the domestic seafood supply chain, one conversation at a time. Your donation helps us grow the community of those who care about where their seafood comes from, the people who harvest it, and protecting the resource we all depend on. One Fish Foundation is a 501(3) non-profit organization, and all donations are tax deductible.
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