[Fishlink] ~~>FISHLINK SUBLEGALS 9/20/02<~~
bit-bucket@straylight.primelogic.com
bit-bucket@straylight.primelogic.com
Sun, 29 Sep 2002 02:21:39 EDT
PLEASE HELP SUPPORT THE SUBLEGALS NEWSLETTER.
To donate go to: www.sublegals.net. Sublegals is published free
of charge and is dependent on your contributions. Back issues are
also archived at that site.
##########################################################
~~>FISHLINK SUBLEGALS 9/20/02<~~
##########################################################
A WEEKLY QUOTA OF FISHERY SHORTS CAUGHT AND
LANDED BY THE INSTITUTE FOR FISHERIES RESOURCES
AND THE PACIFIC COAST FEDERATION OF FISHERMEN'S
ASSOCIATIONS
VOL. 06, NO. 12 20 SEPTEMBER 2002
##########################################################
"Farmed Atlantic salmon bore as much resemblance to wild salmon as a
hard January tomato does to a homegrown
beefsteak."..........................................................Barry
Estabrook
##########################################################
IN THIS ISSUE...
Chefs Join Campaign Against Genetically Altered Fish. 6:12/01
U.S. Subsidies For Transgenics. 6:12/02
Four Chilean Fish Firms Guilty Of Salmon Dumping. 6:12/05
Massive Fish Kill In Lower Klamath River. 6:12/07
Federal Judge Declines To De-List Puget Sound And
Columbia River Salmon. 6:12/08
AND MORE...
##########################################################
6:12/01. CHEFS JOIN CAMPAIGN AGAINST GENETICALLY
ALTERED FISH: Two hundred chefs, grocers and seafood distributors
across 40 states announced on 18 September their pledge not to purchase
fish that has been genetically altered through biotechnology. These fish
are commonly referred to as genetically modified organism (GMO) or
"transgenic" fish. This campaign stems from the recent application to the
U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) by Aqua Bounty Farms to
approve the first genetically engineered animal for human consumption -
the Atlantic salmon (see Sublegals, 5:01/05; 4:16/03; 4:02/06; 3:19/03;
3:15/19; 3:12/09; 3:07/15; 3:05/15; 2:16/11). Concerns have been raised
that the genetically engineered fish could escape net pen farms and
compete with native salmon for habitat and food. Atlantic salmon that
have escaped from fish farms in the past have successfully spawned in
British Columbia streams where their feral offspring have been found.
There is also the potential that these fish, if the same species, can mate
with native populations. The boycott is being led by the Center for Food
Safety, Clean Water Action and Friends of the Earth and follows a
petition filed by many groups, including PCFFA, last year with the FDA
and other agencies, asking for a moratorium on the fish until the
government requires food-safety testing, environmental studies and
mandatory labeling.
A report issued last month by the National Research Council (NRC)
pointed out that genetically engineered salmon, bred in pens in the sea,
could escape, crossbreed with their wild cousins and edge them out for
food and mates, thus endangering the already dwindling wild salmon
fishery (see Sublegals, 6:10/03; 6:08/01). This new breed of salmon can
grow twice as fast as its conventional farmed counterpart because it has
genes inserted from chinook salmon and ocean pout that allow the fish to
produce growth hormones year-round, instead of only in warm weather
months as normal salmon do. The 13 September issue of Science
reiterates the concerns that many chefs, conservation groups, and
fishermen have been raising about the impact of farmed salmon,
including the fact that an estimated half-million farmed salmon escaped
from 1987 to 1997 and they have been found spawning in British
Columbia. For the Science article go to www.sciencemag.org.
Salmon is not the only "frankenfish" planned for the future. Currently
there is research to develop transgenic arctic char and trout. Around the
world there are at least 20 other fish species that have been genetically
engineered. China is raising transgenic carp, and Cuba is raising
transgenic tilapia. For more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/18/dining/18WELL.html?ex=1034141
632&ei=1&en=3757afd6e4bba59a, for the 9 September New York
Times article, and also see: www.gefish.org.
6:12/02. U.S. SUBSIDIES FOR TRANSGENICS - SEA GRANT
PUSHES FRANKENFISH: The 16 September Sea Grant News &
Notes reports that federal agency as supporting research to develop
transgenic fish for industrial aquaculture operations. The newsletter
reported, "Synthethic growth hormones could shorten the growth time
needed for farm-raised fish to reach market size. In research led by
Connecticut Sea Grant scientist Thomas Chen, transgenics, or the
technique of transferring DNA from one species to another, has shown
promise as a method for stimulating growth hormone production. Using
rainbow trout and tilapia, Chen is testing a synthetic protein to determine
whether it can stimulate growth hormone production the same way a
natural protein would." The Sea Grant newsletter went on to say when
"Chen and his team transferred the rainbow trout growth hormone gene
into common seafood species like carp, catfish and tilapia, the altered
fish grew 60 to 600 percent larger. Chen also found that the application
of a synthetic growth hormone-releasing peptide was successful,
suggesting that the peptide, as well as the hormone itself, can stimulate
growth. More studies are underway to confirm the hypothesis. The
researchers are further working to find a peptide that will protect
farm-raised rainbow trout and other seafood from disease, which often
plagues aquaculture operations. If successful, transgenic fish may one
day reach commercial aquaculture facilities and reduce both the amount
of time and feed needed to grow fish to market size." For more
information, contact Dr. Thomas Chen at: tchen@uconnvm.uconn.edu.
To see the Sea Grant newsletter, go to: seagrant@nationalpress.com.
6:12/03. FOOD AND HEALTH MAGAZINES PUSH WILD
SALMON: Two recent articles in Organic Style and Gourmet magazines
have highlighted the benefits of wild salmon versus farmed salmon.
Americans eat four times as much salmon as they did ten years ago -
although more than half of the salmon is farmed. The articles emphasize
the environmental and health impacts of farmed salmon such as: the
higher pesticide levels found in the farmed fish; the net pens where the
salmon are farmed being a source of pollution; the issue of salmon
escaping from net pens to compete with fragile wild populations; the
spread of disease from the farmed to the wild salmon, and; the issue of
net protein loss where it can take up to 4 pounds of small wild fish to
produce 1 pound of farmed salmon. In addition, the farmed salmon are
artificially "pigmented" with synthetic carotenoids, and if they didn't
have this additive in their feed the flesh would be whitish-gray. The
Gourmet article, "The Wild and the Farmed," appeared in its September
issue (pp.91-93); the Organic Style article, "Swimming Upstream,"
appeared in the September/October issue (pp. 92-99). For more
information, go to: www.organicstyle.com.
6:12/04. SAN FRANCISCIO CHRONICLE BEGINS SERIES ON
FRESH, LOCAL SEAFOOD: The San Francisco Chronicle started on
18 September with the first of what is to be a regular feature in its food
section on fresh, locally caught seafood. Prepared by food writer Olivia
Wu, the inaugural article was titled, "Seafood by the season. Buying
fresh, local and at the right time benefits fish and consumer," and
featured interviews with chefs and fish wholesaler Paul Johnson, as well
as a list of available locally caught fish and recipes. To see the
Chronicle article, go to:
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/18/
FD136491.DTL. Writer Olivia Wu can be contacted at:
owu@sfchronicle.com.
6:12/05. U.S. COMMERCE DEPARTMENT FINDS FOUR
CHILEAN FISH FIRMS GUILTY OF SALMON DUMPING;
CHILEAN GOVERNMENT SEEKS TO SILENCE FISH FARM
CRITIC: Pacific Fishing magazine reports in its October 2002 issue
(p.16) that the U.S. Department of Commerce made a preliminary
finding earlier this summer against four major Chilean farm fish
producers of systematic "dumping" on U.S. markets of farmed Atlantic
salmon. "Dumping" is the intentional flooding of a foreign market with
below-cost products with the intent to destroy another country's
production, and ultimately to monopolize markets. The practice is
prohibited under international trade agreements, but many Chilean
companies have been accused by fishermen of dumping farmed salmon
on U.S. and international markets in an effort to depress the prices paid
for U.S. commercially harvested salmon. This ruling follows up on prior
findings as the dispute enters the enforcement stage (see Sublegals
4:22/05; 4:14/10; 3:23/16; 3:12/08; 2:06/17). The ruling, still
preliminary, is expected to be finalized in November 2002.
Anti-dumping duties were imposed on Cultivadora de Salmones,
Salmones Tecmar S.A., Los Fiordos Ltda., and Pesca Chile S.A.
However, thirteen other Chilean companies also under investigation
were cleared of any wrongdoing, even though Chilean fish farms
externalize much of their costs. There is little regulation and the
pollution from the farms has destroyed local fishing grounds, displacing
that nation's artesenal fishermen. The anti-dumping duties are also still
quite low, in each case duties of less than 1.5 percent. Farmed salmon
production in Chile has soared in recent years, and there is now a
substantial world oversupply, which has also severely depressed the
market for U.S. commercially-caught wild salmon. To see the Pacific
Fishing report, go to: www.pacificfishing.com.
The Chilean Government, meanwhile, tried to silence a critic of that
nation's farmed salmon operations. The Chilean Ambassador called the
World Affairs Council of Northern California demanding that they
cancel a talk scheduled for 18 September by Marcel Claude, Executive
Director of Chile's TERRAM Foundation (see Sublegals, 6:09/08).
Failing that, the Chilean Ambassador sent an agent to the San Francisco
evening event demanding from Claude his sources of information. For
more information regarding TERRAM's findings on Chilean salmon
farm operations, go to: www.terram.cl.
6:12/06. WORLD SUMMIT ON SALMON SCHEDULED FOR
JUNE 2003 IN BRITISH COLUMBIA: British Columbia's Simon
Fraser University will host an international summit in June 2003 to
consider the problems faced by wild salmon populations throughout the
world. The summit is meant to be a special forum for the globe's leading
salmon scientists, conservationists and managers. The four main themes
of the summit will be: (1) to review the prognosis and prospects of the
world's wild salmon; (2) to identify knowledge gaps and directions for
future research; (3) to advance full-cost assessment of wild salmon, and;
(4) to provide a framework for action. Exact dates in June 2003 have not
yet been determined. For more information contact: The World Summit
on Salmon Secretariat, c/o Centre for Coastal Studies, Simon Fraser
University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, BC, V6A 1S6, Canada, or
email: penikett@sfu.ca.
6:12/07. MASSIVE FISH KILL IN LOWER KLAMATH RIVER:
In-migrating adult fall chinook salmon, as well as coho salmon listed as
threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), are in the
midst of a massive fish kill in the Klamath River that runs through
southeast Oregon draining into the Pacific north of Eureka, California.
The kill has been traced to elevated water temperatures and poor water
quality in the lower river, according to California Department of Fish &
Game (CDFG) and Tribal biologists. Called by CDFG officials the
largest salmon die-off in memory, as many as 30,000 adult fish have
already died from stress and temperature-caused diseases, with the
die-offs continuing daily. "At every eddy, you see dozens and dozens
and tons and tons of dead fish," said Yurok Tribe Natural Resources
Director Troy Fletcher. The returning adults cannot reach spawning areas
without passing through long stretches of river fatal to them. The die-off
is likely to result in major losses of eggs from this year-class of 60,000
spawners when what is left of the new generation matures in 3 to 4
years.
Water temperatures throughout the lower river system are now well
into the fatal zone for salmon, with temperature spikes during hot days
even higher. High temperatures come from very low water flows left in
the river, and particularly low flows released from the federal Klamath
Irrigation Project run by the Bureau of Reclamation (see Sublegals,
6:09/06). Much of the water that would ordinarily be in the river below
Iron Gate dam has instead been held back this year to fully meet water
demands of the Klamath Irrigation Project farmers. These farms often
use wasteful watering techniques such as flood irrigation, or raise
low-valued but high water-use crops, a process which is all heavily
subsidized by the federal government. Highly polluted and heated
agricultural wastewater return flows from the Klamath Project coming
down through Iron Gate Dam (river mile 180) can account for as much
as 60 percent of total flows at Orleans (river mile 59) near the river's
mouth, and an even greater percentage during drier years such as this
one.
As a direct result of U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) water
policies favoring upper basin irrigators over lower river fisheries and
fishing-dependent communities, the lower Klamath River actually has
less water in it this year than during last year's record-breaking drought.
For instance, minimum water flows below Iron Gate Dam were fixed
at 1,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) for all of September 2001 during the
drought, but are now being held by the Bureau at about 750 cfs, or 75
percent of what was deemed the rock bottom minimum to prevent
extinction just last year, in spite of the fact that there was considerably
more rainfall this year than last. "Its terrible," said Dave Hillemeier,
Yurok Tribe fisheries biologist and fisheries program Manager. "It's a
real tragedy, but its indicative of what fish are facing all year around now
due to the flow regime that's now in place up the river." Fisheries
biologists and hydrologists say that releasing more water from the
federal Klamath Irrigation Project to go downriver would help bring high
water temperatures down, provide more access to shaded edge habitat
and refuge areas, and reduce the impact of daily temperature "spikes."
Adult ESA-listed and federally protected coho salmon will be
returning in large numbers within the next few weeks as well, and unless
the water regime changes they will also be facing the same devastating
conditions. A similar die-off occurred among the juvenile salmon during
the spring of this year, again linked to poor flows as well as rapid river
level fluctuations. For more information on the Klamath crisis including
pictures see: www.earthjustice.org/backgrounder/display.html?ID=42 .
6:12/08. FEDERAL JUDGE DECLINES TO DE-LIST PUGET
SOUND AND COLUMBIA RIVER SALMON, GRANTS
FISHERMEN INTERVENOR STATUS: On 22 August, U.S. Federal
District Court Judge Paul Friedman ruled against a coalition of
Washington State builders, farmers and cattlemen in their bid to
eliminate protections under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA)
for Puget Sound and Columbia River chinook salmon, and granted
PCFFA and other groups the right to formally intervene in the case in
support of salmon protections. The three year old de-listing case will
now go to trial, possibly as early as November, but with all ESA
protections remaining in place in the meantime. The main claim of the
plaintiff's is the same one as in the Alsea Valley decision (see Sublegals
4:18/03) and similar anti-listing cases, i.e., that abundant hatchery fish
are so indistinguishable from ESA-protected wild fish that none should
be protected. However, the plaintiffs in this case are also asking the
Court to order the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to first
close down or severely curtail most commercial fishing before requiring
any additional protections or restoration efforts for damaged inland
salmon habitat under the ESA. In all the listings, decades of systematic
destruction and blockage of spawning and rearing habitat, including the
dewatering of rivers, overbuilding and overgrazing in riparian areas, and
other actions typical of many of these same industries, has been
identified as a primary factor in the declines.
The coalition of groups working to remove ESA protections,
euphemistically calling itself "Common Sense Salmon Recovery,"
includes the Washington Farm Bureau, the Washington Cattlemen's
Association, the Washington Association of Realtors and the Building
Association of Washington, among other inland industry groups (see
Sublegals 2:13/12). It is now one of many industry and
agribusiness-based groups seeking to de-list various salmon populations
or to nullify legal requirements for industry contributions toward their
recovery. For more information on Common Sense Salmon Recovery,
see: www.saveourdams.com/common_sense.htm. For more about the
PCFFA and other group's intervention contact: Kristen Boyles,
Earthjustice Legal Defense, Seattle Office, at: kboyles@earthjustice.org.
NEWS, COMMENTS, CORRECTIONS: Submit your news items,
comments or any corrections to Editor at: ifrfish@pacbell.net or call the
IFR/PCFFA office with the news and a source at either: (415) 561-FISH
(Southwest Office) or (541) 689-2000 (Northwest Office).
##########################################################
"Sublegals" are a weekly fisheries news bulletin service of Fishlink. To
find out more about Fishlink, list information can be viewed and you can
subscribe yourself automatically at:
http://straylight.primelogic.com/mailman/listinfo/fishlink
If you have any trouble subscribing or unsubscribing, contact
PCFFA/IFR directly at: <fish1ifr@aol.com>.
##########################################################
"Fishlink" and "Sublegals" are registered trademarks of the Institute for
Fisheries Resources. All rights to the use of these trademarks are
reserved to IFR. This publication, however, may be freely reproduced
and circulated without copyright restriction. If you are receiving this
as a subscriber, please feel free to pass this on to your colleagues.
Subscribers who wish to post or circulate hard copy of Sublegals or
have no access to the Internet may receive fax subscriptions by faxing
their request, with their fax number to: (415) 561-5464. Thanks!
##########################################################
MADE YOUR PLEDGE? GOT YOUR SARCASTIC FRINGEHEAD
SHIRT? GO TO: www.sublegals.net and donate to these efforts.
##########################################################