Squid boats dot Malibu coast: Roughly 40,157 tons of squid caught this season
Almost every night this winter, bright lights have appeared off the coast of Malibu.
It’s an eerie sight on a foggy evening, suggesting something unearthly or supernatural, but the only thing these ghostly lights portend is the presence of Doryteuthis opalescens, the common market squid.
It’s a good omen for California’s seafood industry. Market squid is one of California’s largest commercial fisheries, and tons of frozen California calamari are shipped all over the world each year. However, the species had almost entirely disappeared from Southern California waters last year. The absence of squid is being blamed on El Niño.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife environmental scientist Laura Ryley studies squid.
“Market squid was very limited in Southern California last year,” she told The Malibu Surfside News.
Ryley explained that the squid are thought to react to the warmer water generated by El Niño, migrating further north in search of the right water temperature and conditions for spawning.
“The commercial fishery was landing squid in Eureka and off the coast of Oregon last year,” Ryley said.
She added that the management plan for the species implemented in 2005 provides an opportunity for scientists to gather data on the size, sex and abundance of the species. That data show that market squid generally have the ability to recover swiftly after an El Niño event.
“The patterns in the past show the squid are still able to reproduce and that they bounce back quickly,” she said.
While concerns are being raised over the potential impact of prolonged ocean warming on the species, the return of more normal temperature conditions in the Pacific this winter appears to have signaled the return of the squid.
An abundance of cephalopods isn’t just an auspicious sign for the fishing industry. It may mean fewer problems for local sea lion and elephant seal populations, which have experienced mass stranding events blamed in part on the same warm water that impacted the squid and other key prey species like Pacific sardines and mackerel.
“I’ve heard that market squid isn’t the sea lion’s favorite, but they will eat it,” Ryley said. “It’s an important food for other species as well. Salmonids eat them. So do sea birds.”
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s management plan for the market squid fishery limits the seasonal catch to 118,000 tons per season. The season opens April 1 each year, and runs until the limit is met or until March 31, whichever comes first.
This season got off to a slow start but is accelerating. As of Dec. 30, 2016, the total landings of market squid were 40,157.6 tons.
That’s in sharp contrast to 2013, the last big year for squid, when the quota for the season was reached by early November, according to NOAA Fisheries data, but a major increase from 2014 and 2015, when the numbers plummeted in Southern California.
In the Malibu area, autumn and winter are the peak time for commercial squid fishing. The shallow waters along the Malibu coast are usually a prime location for squid, which migrate to the shallow, sandy, near-shore area in the fall to spawn.
Special light boats equipped with high wattage bulbs attract the squid, which are caught using either seine or scoop nets. The lights are supposed to be shielded to reduce the impact on migratory birds and coastal residents, but compliance isn’t 100 percent yet.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program rates market squid as a “good alternative” for sustainability, but most of the California catch is frozen and shipped to Asia.
“The American market prefers squid with a thicker mantle,” Ryley said.
Market squid rarely grow to be more than 10 inches in length. They are short-lived; 9-10 months is usually the maximum life span, and they spawn just once, at the end of their lives.
Squid can only be caught on weekdays from the U.S.-Mexico border to the California-Oregon border. From noon Friday to noon Sunday the squid are given a “break.”
“The thinking behind that is to give them a time for uninterrupted spawning,” Ryley explained.
Squid fishing is permitted all along the Malibu coast, even within the boundaries of the Point Dume State Marine Conservation Area, located off the coast of Zuma and Lechuza beaches. Only Point Dume State Marine Reserve (Paradise Cove to Westward Beach) is off limits.
With more than half the season’s limit still swimming around in the Pacific, it’s a safe bet that the unearthly green and pink glow of the squid boats will continue to light up Malibu’s coast, drawing the curiosity of more than just squid.
Read the original post: http://www.malibusurfsidenews.com/
Scientists: Global Ocean Circulation Could Be More Vulnerable to Shutdown Than We Thought
— Posted with permission of SEAFOODNEWS.COM. Please do not republish without their permission. —
Copyright © 2017 Seafoodnews.com
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [The Washington Post] by Chelsea Harvey – January 5, 2017Intense future climate change could have a far different impact on the world than current models predict, suggests a thought-provoking new study just out in the journal Science Advances. If atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were to double in the future, it finds, a major ocean current — one that helps regulate climate and weather patterns all over the world — could collapse. And that could paint a very different picture of the future than what we’ve assumed so far.The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, or AMOC, is often described as a large oceanic conveyor belt. It’s a system of water currents that transports warm water northward from the Atlantic toward the Arctic, contributing to the mild climate conditions found in places like Western Europe. In the Northern Atlantic, the northward flowing surface water eventually cools and sinks down toward the bottom of the ocean, and another current brings that cooler water back down south again. The whole process is part of a much larger system of overturning currents that circulates all over the world, from pole to pole.But some scientists have begun to worry that the AMOC isn’t accurately represented in current climate models. They say that many models portray the current as being more stable than real-life observations suggest it actually is. Recent studies have suggested that the AMOC is weakening, although there’s some scientific debate about how much of this has been caused by human activities and how much by natural variations.Nevertheless, the authors of the new study point out, many climate models assume a fairly stable AMOC — and that could be affecting the predictions they make for how the ocean will change under future climate change. And because overturning circulation patterns have such a significant effect on climate and weather all over the world, this could have big implications for all kinds of other climate-related projections as well.“This is a very common and well-known issue in climate models,” said the new study’s lead author, Wei Liu, a postdoctoral associate at Yale University, who conducted the work while at the University of California at San Diego. “I wanted to see, if I use a corrected model, how this will affect the future climate change.”Liu and colleagues from the UC-San Diego and the University of Wisconsin at Madison took a commonly used climate model and corrected for what they considered to be the AMOC stability bias. Then they ran an experiment to see how the correction would affect the model’s projections under future climate change. They instantaneously doubled the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration from present-day levels in both the corrected and uncorrected models, and then they let both models run for hundreds of simulated years.The differences were striking. In the uncorrected climate model, the AMOC weakens for a while, but eventually recovers. In the corrected model, however, the AMOC continues to weaken and after 300 years, it collapses altogether.In a commentary also published today in RealClimate, Stefan Rahmstorf, an oceans physics expert at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, explained how such a collapse could occur when the AMOC gets too weak.“Freshwater continually flows into the northern Atlantic through precipitation, rivers and ice-melting,” he wrote. “But supply of salty waters from the south, through the Gulf Stream System, balances this. If however the current slows, there is less salt supply, and the surface ocean gets less salty.”Because freshwater is less dense than salty water, this process can lead to a kind of stratification, in which the lighter freshwater gets stuck on the surface of the ocean and can’t sink to the bottom when it reaches the cooler north. When this happens, the overturning process that drives the current back down south again can’t occur.“There is a critical point when this becomes an unstoppable vicious circle,” Rahmstorf wrote. “This is one of the classic tipping points in the climate system.”The resulting climate consequences, compared to the uncorrected model, are also dramatic. Without the usual transport of warm water into the north, the corrected model predicts a marked cooling over the northern Atlantic, including in the United Kingdom, Iceland and northwestern Europe, as well as in the Arctic, where sea ice begins to expand.Because the AMOC is part of a larger global conveyor system, which ferries warm and cold currents between the equator and both poles, the model predicts disruptions in other parts of the world as well. Without cold water moving back down south again, the corrected model indicates a stronger warming pattern south of the equator than what’s predicted by the uncorrected model, causing a polarization in precipitation patterns over the Americas — more rain for places like northeastern Brazil and less rain for Central America. The model also predicts a greater reduction in sea ice for the Antarctic.All this doesn’t necessarily mean that everything we thought we knew about the future climate is wrong. For one thing, most modern climate projections focus on the next few decades or so, noted Thomas Haine, an expert on ocean circulation at Johns Hopkins University. And within 50 years or so, both the uncorrected and corrected models in the new study produce similar results. It is only after that, under extreme warming, that the current shifts.Liu also cautioned that certain aspects of the experiment can’t exactly be considered realistic — for instance, instantaneously doubling the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Current climate efforts are aimed at keeping us from ever getting to such a point — but even if we did, the process would happen gradually, not overnight. So the model’s outcome might have been different if the researchers had adopted a more realistic scenario.Haine also suggested that the correction in the new study may have actually been a bit too strong, compared to actual observations — in other words, the modeled AMOC is “probably more unstable than the real system,” he said.Rahmstorf also pointed out this issue in his commentary — but he added that the climate model used also did not account for an influx of meltwater from Greenland under future climate change, an event that recent research suggests could substantially speed the AMOC’s weakening.“With unmitigated emissions . . . the Gulf Stream System weakens on average by 37 percent by the year 2300 without Greenland melt,” he notes. “With Greenland meltwater this doubles to 74 percent. And a few months ago, a study with a high-resolution ocean model appeared, suggesting that the meltwater from Greenland is likely to weaken the AMOC considerably within a few decades.”The fact that current models don’t take this melting into account is further support for the idea that scientists have been underestimating the risk of a future AMOC collapse, he suggested.According to Liu, the new study serves to make a point about the dramatic effects that can occur when corrections are made in climate models, as well as the AMOC’s major role in the global climate. By tweaking a climate model to make it more consistent with real-life observations, very different outcomes may be observed, Liu noted.“I would say that it is reasonably well-accepted that a current generation of climate models [is] missing the essential physics in representing the AMOC,” said Haine. And he added that the new study “points to the need to fix these biases in the climate models.”
Peggy Parker, Science and Sustainability EditorSeafoodNews.com 1-781-861-1441Editorial Email: Editor@seafood.comReporter’s Email: peggyparker@seafood.comCopyright © 2017 Seafoodnews.com
Download/Watch: NASA ThermohalineConveyor.mp4 | 81MB
Monterey harbormaster to retire after 21 years
Monterey >> Harbormaster Steve Scheiblauer’s days walking the docks down at the waterfront are numbered.That’s because after 21 years, Scheiblauer is retiring. His last day will be Feb. 21.“I’ve been doing this for 41 years – I’ll be 68 by the time I retire,” said Scheiblauer. “I’m ready to do some other things – travel a bit, do a little bit of writing.”Scheiblauer has been serving in the role since January 1995 when then-City Manager Fred Meurer brought him on board.That was after Scheiblauer worked as Santa Cruz’s harbormaster for some 20 years, from 1975 to 1995.
Since that time, he’s seen the city’s marina replaced and took a central role in nurturing Monterey’s commercial fisheries.
“We had to get money, permits and the design together to replace it,” said Scheiblauer, about the rebuilding of the old marina back in 1995 soon after he became harbormaster. “It was one of the largest capital projects that the city has ever done.”
Meurer remembers it well.“There was continual arguing over the slips in the marina and a waiting list 100 years long,” said Meurer. “Steve brought order to it all in a very calm way and did a great job managing the total refurbishment of the marina with little impact on the users.”
Scheiblauer said it’s the development of good relationships that’s key to getting things done with the boating community.“A lot of changes were needed at the city’s waterfront and I’ve had the support for that and couldn’t have done it without the city council and city management both past and present,” he said.But in doing so, Monterey Community Services Director Kim Bui-Burton said he’s represented the city and its marine and ocean life interests to a very high standard.“He’s succeeded in managing a lot of the harbor operations and really responding to the boating community,” said Bui-Burton.While Scheiblauer said he’s especially proud of that constructive relationship that Monterey has with its commercial fishermen and sailors, Bui-Burton also noted his role in developing the city’s Fishing Community Sustainability Plan.“It’s really the blueprint for retaining our community’s fishing heritage and making it viable into the 21st century,” said Bui-Burton.
While Scheiblauer works to finish the current project of replacing the wooden parking deck down at Wharf 1, he said once he’s retired he’ll be forming his own consultant business. Marine Alliances Consulting will specialize in harbor management, fisheries, economics and ocean environmental issues.
“I wanted to make use of some of the things I’ve learned over the years,” he said.
Meurer said it’s Scheiblauer’s knowledge and people skills that will leave a huge void in the city’s organization once he’s done.
“He’s a huge advocate for the protection of the marine environment while protecting the fishing heritage of the port of Monterey.” said Meurer. “He knew the rules of the sanctuary and the coastal act and he used his knowledge of rules and regulations to do his best for the city of Monterey and the Monterey harbor. He’s the epitome of what a public servant should be.”
NOAA: 'Arctic Is Warming at Least Twice as Fast as the Rest of the Planet'
The Arctic broke multiple climate records and saw its highest temperatures ever recorded this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) annual Arctic Report Card released Tuesday.Map: Temperatures across the Arctic from October 2015-September 2016 compared to the 1981-2010 average. Graph: Yearly temperatures since 1900 compared to the 1981-2010 average for the Arctic (orange line) and the globe (gray).NOAAThe report shows surface air temperature in September at the highest level since 1900 "by far" and the region set new monthly record highs in January, February, October and November. "The Arctic as a whole is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the planet," report author and NOAA climate scientist Jeremy Mathis told NPR.Watch the video from NOAA on the annual Arctic Report Card below:Report Card Highlights
- The average surface air temperature for the year ending September 2016 is by far the highest since 1900 and new monthly record highs were recorded for January, February, October and November 2016.
- After only modest changes from 2013-2015, minimum sea ice extent at the end of summer 2016 tied with 2007 for the second lowest in the satellite record, which started in 1979.
- Spring snow cover extent in the North American Arctic was the lowest in the satellite record, which started in 1967.
- In 37 years of Greenland ice sheet observations, only one year had earlier onset of spring melting than 2016.
- The Arctic Ocean is especially prone to ocean acidification, due to water temperatures that are colder than those further south. The short Arctic food chain leaves Arctic marine ecosystems vulnerable to ocean acidification events.
- Thawing permafrost releases carbon into the atmosphere, whereas greening tundra absorbs atmospheric carbon. Overall, tundra is presently releasing net carbon into the atmosphere.
- Small Arctic mammals, such as shrews, and their parasites, serve as indicators for present and historical environmental variability. Newly acquired parasites indicate northward sifts of sub-Arctic species and increases in Arctic biodiversity.
Read the original post: http://www.ecowatch.com/
D.B. Pleschner: Extremists manufacture anchovy ‘crisis’ where none exists
By D.B. PleschnerGuest commentaryWhen the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) recently reapproved the 2017 annual catch limit for the central stock of anchovy at 25,000 metric tons (mt), environmental extremists immediately cried foul.Press releases with doomsday headlines claimed that the anchovy catch limit is now higher than the total population of fish in the sea. Environmentalists claim the anchovy resource has “collapsed” and the current catch limit is dangerously high.But is the anchovy population really decimated, or are these alarmists simply manufacturing another anti-fishing crisis?Their claims are based on a paper by Alec MacCall, pegging the central anchovy stock at about 18,000 mt. However, the paper analyzed egg and larval data collected over time in California Cooperative Fishery Investigations (CalCOFI) surveys, conducted in the Southern California Bight — and the conclusion is fundamentally flawed. Other scientists now acknowledge that the CalCOFI cruises do not cover the full range of anchovy, missing both Mexico and areas north of the CalCOFI survey track, as well as the nearshore, where a super-abundance of anchovy now reside, say fishermen.The CalCOFI survey was designed to track sardine, not anchovy. It misses the nearshore biomass where age 0-1 anchovy live and huge schools of anchovy have been observed since 2013. But the MacCall analysis deliberately omitted nearshore egg-larval data. In addition, peak spawning for anchovy is February-March, but CalCOFI surveys run in January and April, as did the MacCall analysis, thus both captured only the tails of spawning.Clearly, current data are inadequate to develop an accurate anchovy population estimate. At the November 2016 Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting, scientists, the management team and most council members agreed.In reality, anchovies are now amazingly abundant from San Diego to Northern California. Scientific data as well as fishermen’s observation bear this out:• Recent NOAA field surveys documented increased anchovy recruitment and multiple year classes, although data from the 2016 summer survey are still undergoing analysis.• A 2015 NOAA juvenile rockfish cruise report found evidence of record numbers of anchovy larvae and pelagic juveniles, and saw an abundance of anchovy again in 2016.And consider reports from fishermen like Neil Guglielmo, who fished anchovy from Half Moon Bay to Monterey in the summer of 2016. He saw thousands of tons of anchovy — school after school running from San Francisco to the Farallon Islands, and down the coast to Monterey and beyond. Similar comments come from many fishermen who fish nearshore waters the length of the California coast.The big increase in anchovy abundance in nearshore waters in recent years has precipitated a record whale-watching spectacle, recounted in media reports from San Francisco to San Diego. And while doomsday press releases and news stories regurgitate environmentalist claims that the anchovy resource has “collapsed,” Monterey Bay Whale Watch posted a video on Facebook of dozens of sea lions and a humpback whale feasting on thousands of anchovies — only two miles from Monterey Harbor!The bottom line is that anchovy management employs an extremely precautionary approach, capping the allowed harvest at 25 percent of the average overfishing limit estimated to be harvested sustainably over the long term.So why are ENGOs lobbying to cut the harvest limit to 7,000 mt, drastically lower than the federal limit, even though the draconian reduction would inflict serious harm to California’s historic fishing industry, especially in Monterey?Scientists acknowledge that anchovy abundance is highly variable, and that variability occurs even without a fishery. Given multiple lines of evidence of anchovy recruitment, clearly there is no biological crisis, but there could be a serious socioeconomic problem if the small anchovy harvest limit is further restricted.As the Pacific Fishery Management Council deliberates anchovy management, we hope a credible and thorough scientific assessment process and best available common sense will prevail. Evidence of recent anchovy recruitment must be factored into future management decisions; politics should not drive the outcome.D.B. Pleschner is executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association, a nonprofit dedicated to research and to promote sustainable wetfish resources.
Originally published: http://www.montereyherald.com/opinion/
Local harbor seal population appears down, but should rebound
Harbor seals haul out of the water at the beach at Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove on Wednesday. (David Royal - Monterey Herald)
Pacific Grove >> The stretch of coastline from Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey along the rocky shores of Pacific Grove to Pebble Beach is home to a shrinking population of Pacific harbor seals, local experts said.According to a population census taken on Nov. 25 by husband and wife Thom and Kim Akeman, volunteers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s shoreline program Bay Net, the Pacific Grove Harbor seal population has declined by one-third. Numbers have plunged from about 700 individuals, based on preliminary counts taken by Monterey Bay Aquarium researcher Teri Nicholson in the 1990s, to fewer than 500 in the last couple of years, the Akemans reported. Uncharacteristically warm waters, which depleted the marine environment of oxygen and food, are to blame, they added.But the bad news may not be as critical as it seems, said Dr. Andrew DeVogelaere, research director at the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.“A lot of ocean species have evolved to have a few bad years,” he said. “The population will dip down, and then with more food, go up again.”The normally cool water off the Central Coast is an oxygen-filled, nutrient-rich haven for all local marine life, from tiny anchovies to magnanimous humpback whales. But 2014’s mild winter made for uncharacteristically warm waters. Because of El Niño, the sea is still above its normal temperature today. The National Marine Fisheries Service, whose scientists have 35 years of oceanic climate data from California, have never seen years like the last few, DeVogelaere said.The Monterey Bay’s lack of resources can be hard to take note of. Whale-watching companies are celebrating a heyday. Last year, naturalists and tourists watched cetaceans swarm like never before. But whales form large congregations because of the scarcity of food, DeVogelaere said, and they’re forced to converge in the few nutrient-rich locations where they can find a meal.The changing conditions offshore undoubtedly affect harbor seals, he added.The harbor seal may be a distant cousin to the adventurous California sea lion and elephant seal, but it’s an entirely different animal. Harbor seals are incredibly loyal to their rocky homes, straying a mere mile or two to swim and feed. If warming coastal waters kill off their food supply, they’ll likely starve.Mother harbor seals are taking an additional hit. During the pupping season last spring, “lots of the moms didn’t have enough milk and had to abandon pups on the beach,” said Thom Akeman, who has been watching his flippered neighbors sleep and romp along the Pacific Grove shores for 13 years.Two years ago, female seals weaned 90 healthy pups at Hopkins Marine Station, the largest harbor seal rookery in Pacific Grove. This year, the colony had only 30 pups, many of which were born to mothers too malnourished to rear them.During Bay Net’s Pacific Grove harbor seal census on Nov. 25, Akeman saw only nine baby seals at Hopkins. He suspects these are the last remaining pups in the colony.The Pacific Grove harbor seal population is expected to recover, but scientists are unsure how long it will take. Their comeback depends on ocean temperatures cooling, and staying cool for a prolonged time, allowing the food web to prosper once again. But no one can say when, or if, the temperatures will stay low enough for this to happen, said Akeman and DeVogelaere.The unpredictable effects of global climate change make it a guessing game.“We’re in an uncontrolled experiment. We’re changing the atmosphere of the world and the chemistry of the oceans. No one has done this experiment before, so we’re really rolling the dice,” DeVogelaere said.Fortunately for Pacific harbor seals, the local population decline is an isolated oddity. Throughout California, Oregon and Washington, the population is steadily rising. California is home to about 31,000 harbor seals, and many colonies in the Monterey Bay are stable or thriving.The next Pacific Grove harbor seal count, conducted by the Akemans, is scheduled for late March, when the pupping season begins. The couple, who just began tallying the seals this year, now plan to count them three times a year — in the early spring, summer and fall. They’ll report their findings to NOAA and fellow Bay Net docents through emails and the general public with Facebook.Teaching others about the environment and the ways to respect wildlife, which Bay Net docents aim to do, is important, DeVogelaere said. And environmental issues and awareness should be given the prominence and attention they deserve, he added.“I wish people would care about them more,” DeVogelaere said. “They might be affecting the world for their children and their children’s children … But I think in general, people want to do the right thing, if they know what the right thing is. Education is the way to go.”
Read the original post: http://www.montereyherald.com/
Millions of Sardines Cloud San Diego Coast
A large sardine shoal showed up off the coast of California.
View original article/video: http://abcnews.go.com/
In California, Squid Is Big Business. But Good Luck Eating Local Calamari
A squid salad in Los Angeles. In California, squid is an economic driver of the seafood industry. Bit most of this squid is frozen and exported overseas to China to be processed and distributed across the globe. (Rick Loomis/LA Times via Getty Images)
More than 80 percent of U.S. squid landings are exported — most of it to China. The rare percentage of that catch that stays domestically goes to Asian fresh fish markets or is used as bait.Ironically, the lion’s share of the squid consumed in the United States is imported.“Squid is a labor-intensive product,” says Emily Tripp, founder of Marine Science Today, a website on the latest ocean-based research. “It’s cheaper in some situations to ship it to China to be processed and ship it back.”Tripp, who recently graduated with a masters from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, did her thesis project on California market squid, which, during non-El Niño years, is California’s most valuable fishery.In California, squid is an economic driver of the seafood industry – it’s the fifth-largest fishery in the United States by weight. Yet most of this squid is frozen and exported overseas to China to be processed and distributed to over 42 countries across the globe. It’s an export market that, according to 2011 figures, is valued at $107 million. Only 1.4 percent of it, on average, makes it back to the U.S. In 2015, that figure was 0.46 percent.“It has to do with the American desire for a larger squid,” explains Diane Pleschner-Steele, executive director of the California Wetfish Producers Association. “A lot of squid that is shipped overseas stays overseas because they prefer it. They eat it over there. Our consumers typically prefer a larger squid, and so there’s just a ton of squid imported into this country that comes in at a far lower price.”In the U.S., the squid that ends up on our dinner table is typically Patagonian squid from the Falkland Islands or Humboldt squid — a jumbo cephalopod fished predominantly in Mexico and Peru.California market squid isn’t usually desired because of its smaller size.“Our squid is a learning curve,” Pleschner-Steele says. “If you overcook it, it can taste like a rubber band. But in my opinion, if you do it right, it tastes more like abalone than any other squid. It’s nutty, sweet and delicate.”The cost of labor is another, perhaps more significant, factor. Squid cleaning and processing is an extremely time-consuming practice. The eyes, cartilage, skin and guts need to be removed ahead of time, and it’s cheaper to have this done overseas than domestically.A round-trip freight cost to China is $0.10 per pound and labor is just $7 a day there. By contrast, California wages — with tax and health insurance — amount to $12 an hour, according to Pleschner-Steele.Also, supply chains and markets are incredibly opaque. Pleschner-Steele suspects that as the Chinese middle-class economy has blossomed, a lot of the squid processing facilities are now based in Thailand.Tripp says during her research, it was nearly impossible to track down where exactly the squid was being processed abroad.“The biggest challenge was trying to find out where the squid goes when it leaves to the United States,” she says. “No one wants to say where they partner. It’s a bit of a challenge. In the United States we keep such good records of all of our fish and seafood. There’s no comparable system in China. I couldn’t follow the chain backwards.”Regardless, the narrative is the same: Californians aren’t eating Californian squid. And if they are, it likely wasn’t processed in California.At Mitch’s Seafood, a restaurant in San Diego committed to local fish, the owners spent three years looking for a California-based squid processor for their calamari. They eventually found a company in San Pedro called Tri-Marine.“We have to pay twice as much for it, but it’s worth it so that we can say we offer California-caught and processed squid,” owner Mitch Conniff says. “Squid that’s caught two to three miles away takes a 10,000-mile round-trip journey before I can get it back into my restaurant.”All Californian fish processors are capable of dealing with squid, Pleschner-Steele says. However, it’s not a money-making operation because people aren’t willing to pay for it.“It has to be on request,” she says. “We simply can’t compete with the cost of other imported squid. ”Supporting the local squid industry is much more than just helping the local economy – it’s helpful from a sustainability angle as well.Even with squid being sent on a round-trip journey across the world, the California market squid fishery has one of the lowest carbon footprints in the industry.“California squid fishing fleets are one of the most energy efficient in the world because [they’re] so close to port,” Pleschner-Steele says. “Our boats can produce a ton of proteins for about six gallons of diesel fuel. … Efficiency is key.”Further efficiency, she says, could be achieved if consumers would be keen to fork over $1.50 a pound more for California-caught and processed squid.But the “truth is that Americans aren’t willing to pay for it,” she says. “If people were willing to pay the price, we can definitely feed the demand.”
Clarissa Wei is a freelance journalist based in Los Angeles and Taipei. She writes about sustainability and food.Copyright 2016 NPR.
Clarissa Wei is a freelance journalist based in Los Angeles and Taipei. She writes about sustainability and food.Copyright 2016 NPR.