North America

United States exports of premium fishery products to the European Union rose again in 2006 as previous sales value records were topped in the region and worldwide. US fishery product exports to the EU totalled 308,198 metric tons valued at over $1.05 billion in 2006.

Salmon

The United Kingdom is the biggest market for US canned salmon with sales of $68.7 million in 2006 and has become a growth market for other salmon products, mainly frozen items ($12.5 million). A number of major supermarket chains have stocked and promoted wild Alaska salmon, which ranked as the second largest US seafood export to the United Kingdom.

Alaska’s 2007 forecast catch of all species of salmon is projected to be 179 million fish. That is broken down into 789,000 Chinook, 40.9 million sockeye, 4.8 million coho, 108 million pinks and 24.8 million chum salmon.

A total of 34.4 million sockeye salmon are expected to return to Bristol By in 2007. This prediction is 14 percent higher than the previous 10-year mean of total runs (30.2 million ranges of 17.8 million to 43.4 million). The 80 percent confidence bounds for the 2007 forecasted run range from 26.0 million to 43.0 million. All systems are expected to exceed their minimum spawning escapement goals.

A run of 34.4 million sockeye salmon can potentially produce a total harvest of 26.3 million fish if escapement goals are met for managed stocks and industry is capable of taking the surplus fish.

The 2006 ex-vessel value of the commercial salmon harvest in Alaska came to $308 million, below the $334 million earned in 2005.

Market reports indicate that the outlook for the sockeye market is not rosy despite consumption growth and strong demand for wild salmon in the domestic and European Union markets.

The canned sockeye market appears to be oversupplied after the 2006 season and another large canned pack from the 2007 could create a multi-year surplus situation.

Pollock

The Alaska pollock fishery is the largest in the world, and the fishery in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands makes up more than 90 per cent of the total Alaska catch.

The North Pacific Fishery Management council decided in early December last year to cut the Bering Sea pollock catch limit to 1.394 million metric tons, compared to the 2006 catch limit of 1.504 million metric tons.

According to industry research, the total Alaska pollock supply, from the US and Russia, will fall by nearly 300,000 metric tons in 2007.

The reduction in supply suggests that export prices should remain firm going into the year.

In The Netherlands, Alaska pollock makes up almost half of US seafood imports by volume.

The Alaska sablefish harvest is anticipated to show a slight increase for 2007, up from 19,900 metric tons to 20,100 metric tons in 2007.

Halibut

The International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) reduced the overall halibut catch limits in commission waters to 66.56 million pounds in 2007, down from 69.86 million pounds in 2006, and recommended catch limits on the recreational charter fleet, a move aimed to control the rapidly expanding charter catch.

The total catch limit for 2007 is 65.17 million pounds, a decrease from a comparable value of 69.86 million pounds in 2006.

California

In California, commercial fishermen are struggling against a rising tide of legislative, academic and NGO supported anti-commercial fishing sentiment.

"We are calling it the fishery holocaust down here," fisherman Chris Hoeflinger says. "What we are seeing is a management structure that is eliminating fisheries and access to fishery habitat by appeasing environmental organisations and through redundant regulations and the blatant abuse of the precautionary principle. They are allocating large sections of very productive ocean to non-use with no intention of integrating these closures into our existing management systems. It certainly is not science based management."

When rockfish fishing was banned in a huge area to protect cow cod, Hoeflinger says fishermen approached the Pacific Fisheries Management Council with an adaptive management proposal to permit fishing in depths where cow cod do not exist and had never been caught.

The Council approved the proposal and NMFS, under the objection of environmental organisations, overruled the decision.

Also in California, $60.4 million in disaster relief approved by the US Congress will be distributed through the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission this summer.

On the North American West Coast with the Canada/US albacore tuna treaty fleet limitation provisions expiring without renewal in 2006 the size of each nation’s albacore tuna fleet permitted to fish in the other’s waters will be held to a default number stipulated in the treaty of 94 vessels, or 376 vessel months.

The United States and Canada agreed in 2002 to amend the treaty to implement a phased-in reduction of the fleet.

US Gulf

The Gulf coast states in the US Southeast are regaining fisheries infrastructure lost in the devastating 2005 hurricane season.

United States Gulf of Mexico federal waters closed to grouper fishing on 2 June when the commercial quota of 1.02 million pounds was estimated to have been reached. The season re-opens on 1 January 2008.

The Mississippi Department of Marine Resources reported a strong start to the shrimp season on 7 May with about 300 commercial and recreational shrimp boats taking advantage of the opening day.

The Louisiana inshore shrimp season also opened in May. Last year, Louisiana shrimp landings totalled 135 million pounds (all species combined/heads-off weight) and were valued at $144.8 million dockside.

In Texas, the Gulf of Mexico commercial shrimp season for both state and federal waters closed on Tuesday 15 May, until an unspecified time in July. The closure is designed to allow small shrimp to grow to a larger, more valuable size before they are vulnerable to harvest.

Red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico are under a rebuilding plan as the red snapper stock has been overfished and undergoing overfishing since the late 1980s.

The most recent red snapper stock assessment indicates continued overfishing is compromising the objectives of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council’s red snapper rebuilding plan.

All fisheries that harvest red snapper as catch and/or bycatch contribute to overfishing, including the commercial red snapper fishery, recreational red snapper fishery, and the shrimp fishery.

The recreational red snapper fishery is allocated 49 per cent of the red snapper TAC and must adhere to a minimum size limit, daily bag limit and a seasonal closure.

The commercial red snapper fishery gets 51 per cent of the TAC, and also has a minimum size limit and an Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) programme, which allocates the commercial quota among individual fishers and corporations.

The commercial shrimp fishery must adhere to a bycatch reduction device requirement and a Seasonal-area closure.

On the East Coast of the United States, annual lobster landings were stable at approximately 20 million pounds through the mid-1900s. Over the past 20 years, lobster landings have increased dramatically and landings in the US have recently reached record highs.

The lobster fishery is the most valuable fishery on the Atlantic coast of both the United States and Canada. In the US, landings in recent years have been approximately 80 million pounds, with a dockside value of approximately $250 million.

France has been a growth market for high-value scallops and lobster with 2006 exports at $46 million and $42.3 million, respectively.

The increased landings are the result of increased effort in the lobster fishery which has led to considerable concern about whether the lobster resource can sustain the extraordinarily high catches of recent years.

In Massachusetts the State Division of Marine Fisheries is implementing an emergency rule on fin fishermen aimed at reducing lobster landings this year.

In Rhode Island about 150 fishermen who were locked out of the lobster industry by new regulations to limit the size of the fleet formed a group called the Rhode Island Fishermen’s Alliance in an attempt to fight the regulations.

Canada

West Coast herring

In the 2007 British Columbia herring fishery, the coast-wide roe herring quota was cut to 15,000 tons, compared to 23,472 tons in the 2006 season.

Fraser River sockeye

The forecast of sockeye at the 50 per cent probability level for all 19 stocks combined is 6.3 million fish. This 50 per cent level forecast is greater than the average for this cycle of 5.3 million fish.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans anticipates a possible commercial catch of 905,000 Fraser River sockeye by the commercial fleet, but that could be hampered by closures to protect co-migrating weak stocks.

On the US side of the border, according to provisions of the Canada US Salmon treaty, the US is entitled to 16.5 per cent of the Fraser River sockeye TAC after escapement goals, test fishing and Canadian treaty obligations with First Nations are met.

BC pink salmon catches could reach five million fish.

East Coast Canada

Nearly 15 years since the Canadian government outlawed cod harvesting off Newfoundland's northeast coast, federal fisheries scientists say cod stocks show no sign of recovery.

The stock is so low that Department of Fisheries and Oceans cannot provide a valid numerical estimate on the stock size.

"It's just a shadow of what it used to be," John Brattey, a research scientist in St. John's, told CBC News.

The biomass, including offshore stocks, is estimated at four per cent of what was once one million tonnes in the 1980s.

Also in Newfoundland and Labrador, where crab and shrimp fishing have effectively replaced the cod fishery, pack ice was hampering the kick-off of the fishing season right into late May.

In a contract negotiated by the Fish, Food and Allied Workers’ Union the price for crab is now $1.50 per pound, but up to 5,000 fishermen were being affected by the pack ice conditions.

An estimated 79 million pounds of crab was caught in Newfoundland and Labrador last year, worth an estimated $36 million, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.