Today's Main Story: Pacific Council Works Out West Coast 
Salmon Seasons Except in Puget Sound During Contentious Meeting
The Pacific Fishery Management Council and its advisory bodies finalized ocean quotas and season structures for most West Coast salmon fisheries on Thursday. Generally, commercial fishermen across the West Coast are faced with overall reductions of less than half of what they could catch in 2015. The balance between protecting stocks and allowing sport and commercial fishing opportunity made negotiations between managers and stakeholders especially difficult writes Susan Chambers. In Puget Sound, negotations between state and tribal officials actually broke down with no resolution. If an agreement can’t be reached by month’s end, both parties will have to seek their own permits from NOAA to open fisheries this year.
Executives with the Quinlan Brothers are already requesting design specifications for shrimp and snow crab processing equipment to replace what was lost in this week's fire at the company's Bay de Verde facility. “Our focus is on trying to maintain our processing activities as we prepare for a re-build hopefully next season,” said Kristinn Skulason, Quinlan’s shrimp plant manager. “We are hoping to get some quick international coverage on it as we need to move forward fairly aggressively."
Prices for Alaska's Bering Sea bairdi and snow crab catches are expected to be higher compared to last season. Industry observers credit the 40 percent cut to the snow crab catch for the higher prices. Meanwhile, it appears a hike in demand for bairdi is bumping up prices in that market.
Finally, Ghana's largest tuna producer Pioneer Food Cannery said it will pull its operations out of the country if a trade deal with the EU is not signed. Ghana has until October 1 of this year to sign the Economic Partnership Agreement or face at least a 15 percent hike in tariffs on its products exported to EU markets. “Ghana is becoming less competitive in terms of futility than some other countries close to Ghana. A lot of countries that are not in the tuna business are now going in to do tuna business”, Elizabeth Florio, CEO of Thai Union EUC Foods, the parent company to Pioneer.
Have a great weekend.
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