Oceana Overstates Mislabeled Fish Problem
By now, we all know that the fish we buy has about a one in three chance of being something other than what's on the label.Just how much should we care?We can all agree that, in a perfect world, fish would be labeled accurately, but Oceana, an advocacy organization devoted to "protecting the world's oceans," and the latest to test fish samples, would have us believe the mislabeling problem is dire, dire, dire:"As our results demonstrate, a high level of mislabeling nationwide indicates that seafood fraud harms not only the consumer's pocket book, but also every honest vendor or fisherman along the supply chain. These fraudulent practices also carry potentially serious concerns for the health of consumers, and for the health of our oceans and vulnerable fish populations."But dig into the report, and it's hard to find evidence for most of those claims.Read the complete story from Huffington Post here.
Does catch reflect abundance?
http://youtu.be/AG-7k2XJVe4
Researchers are divided over the wisdom of using estimates of the amount offish hauled in each year to assess the health of fisheries.
Read the full story here.
Sublime spots for sardines
Be the envy of every dolphin, get yourself a beautiful plate of sardines.
Typically used for bait, these little treats take to Mediterranean flavors so well. And if you’re not up for rowing out to buy direct from a bait barge in the bay (umm, that's illegal), you can paddle over to a few San Diego restaurants making headway on the sardine trend:
What’s the big appeal of sardines? “They taste like fish,” said Trey Foshee, who has served the tiny, oily fish a trillion ways at George's at the Cove/George’s California Modern. “A lot of fish that’s found in restaurants—the halibuts, the soles, a lot of white fish—they’re geared for people who think eating fish is healthy but they don’t like the taste of fish.” His La Jolla kitchen is currently grilling sardines, plating the filets atop fennel cream, marinated mussels, Japanese squid and wild fennel, and presenting the dish underneath a glass filled with cedar smoke. 1250 Prospect St. La Jolla. (858) 454-4244 orgeorgesatthecove.com.
One of the top “boat-to-throat” sustainable-seafood advocates in town is Sea Rocket Bistro, a two-roomed, low-key neighborhood spot. The kitchen leaders have changed since it opened in 2008—Tommy Fraioli is the captain now, and he recently won the San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival’s Chef of the Fest title. But the San Diego-caught sardines stay on the menu: Find them with a bit of heat-coloring and smoke from their time on the grill. They're served with their head-on, and festooned with a cucumber and tomato salad with vinegar, lemon, paprika and pickled shallots. 3382 30th St. North Park. (619) 255-7049 or searocketbistro.com.Read the whole story here
Major climate changes looming
Washington -- In his inaugural address last Monday, President Obama made climate change a priority of his second term. It might be too late.Within the lifetimes of today's children, scientists say, the climate could reach a state unknown in civilization.In that time, global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels are on track to exceed the limits that scientists believe could prevent catastrophic warming. CO{-2} levels are higher than they have been in 15 million years.The Arctic, melting rapidly and probably irreversibly, has reached a state that the Vikings would not recognize."We are poised right at the edge of some very major changes on Earth," said Anthony Barnosky, a UC Berkeley professor of biology who studies the interaction of climate change with population growth and land use. "We really are a geological force that's changing the planet." Read more here
Rebuilding Crescent City Harbor
http://vimeo.com/53470108Crescent City is rebuilding its harbor following the devastating 2011 tsunami. RCAC’s short-term $3.7 million gap loan and $8.1 million revolving line of credit keep the project afloat between federal and state disaster funding disbursements.Repairing the harbor, a major commercial fishing port for both Del Norte County and Northern California, is urgent in a county with 13.5 percent unemployment and a median household income of $20,133. Two hundred jobs depend directly on harbor facilities, and another 100 jobs indirectly. RCAC financing is critical to restoring the local fishing and tourism industries.--Produced and Edited by Jeremy RaffMusic by Zacharias Flynn
‘JUMBO’ SQUID APPEARING OFF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COAST
Fishermen catching Humboldt variety, which can be up to 5 feet long, in large quantities off S.D.
Oceanside — Gary Robbins • U-THumboldt squid — feisty, ink-squirting creatures that periodically appear along the Southern California coast — have surged into the waters of San Diego and Orange counties, where sport fishermen are catching them by the hundreds.Sunday night, the sportfishing boat Electra out of Oceanside Harbor caught more than 200 “jumbo” squid in an hour, leading the captain to return to port early.“I have enough for a whole year,” said John Plaziak of Carlsbad, one of the fishermen.Five anglers on the Sea Trek out of Helgren’s Sportfishing in Oceanside pulled in 143 squid Saturday night, and 13 people aboard the Fishermen 3 out of H&M Landing in San Diego snagged 144.“We saw a few of them last year, but nothing in fishable quantities,” said Rick Marin, who works in the office at H&M. “It has probably been two or three years since we’ve seen a lot of them.”Greg Obymato, captain of the Sea Trek, said, “We caught the squid off San Onofre. But it looks like there’s squid from the Mexican border to Dana Point. It’s just a matter of getting on them.”Travis Reese of Carlsbad was on board the Electra in a driving rain Sunday about 7:30 p.m. “They’re a lot harder to pull up than I thought. It’s really tough, but it’s a lot of fun,” he said.Fishermen use poles and hooks with no bait. And the squid put up a whale of a fight.The squid — which can grow to about five feet in length — have long been something of a mystery. They appear unexpectedly and leave the same way. Usually, they stay offshore. But sometimes they wash up on local beaches, as they did in July 2009 in La Jolla Shores. Fishermen love going after them because the squid put up quite a fight, and they often squirt ink when they’re pulled aboard.“The squirting is like having a fire hose trained on you,” Plaziak said.Fishermen usually catch these cephalopods at night. Jumbo squid are vertical migrators; they generally move up and down in the ocean, and they’re typically at or near the surface when it’s dark.And, yes, you can eat Humboldt squid.Full story here
Giant Squid Invade Off Dana Point Coast
DANA POINT, Calif. (KTLA) — Giant squid have been appearing along the Dana Point coastline in recent weeks.Most of the squid, known as Humboldt squid, weigh between 3 and 5 pounds.However, local fishermen have been known to catch squid weighing as much as 25-pounds in the past.The last giant squid run was in Sept. 2011, according to Donna Kalez, general manager of Dana Wharf Sportfishing.Most of the squid have been found 3 to 4 miles from the harbor and about 2 miles off the beach.Watch video here
El Niños Are Highly Unpredictable
El Niño events are not as predictable as scientists thought. The frequency and strength of the ocean-warming climate phenomenon
were more variable during the 20th century than, on average, during the preceding 7000 years, according to new analyses of climate records locked within ancient corals. The finding largely discounts the idea that certain long-term variations in Earth's orbit strongly influence the climate-maker, scientists say."This will be a shock for many paleoclimatologists," says Axel Timmermann, a climate scientist at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, in Honolulu who wasn't involved in the new research. "[These findings] are a stark contrast to their ideas."El Niños are marked by substantially warmer-than-normal sea-surface temperatures along the equatorial Pacific. These events—along with their alter egos La Niñas, which are defined by cooler-than-average sea-surface temperatures in the same region—steer weather patterns across large swaths of the globe, baking some areas while drowning others. Together, these phenomena are called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In modern times, El Niños occur once every 2 to 7 years; sometimes they're strong and long-lasting, and other times they're brief and mild.Read the full article here.