Brian Hagenbuch

Contributing Editor reporting from Seattle, USA

Brian Hagenbuch spent a decade in South America, where he was a journalist for Reuters and Time Out in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. He now lives in Seattle and works as a freelance writer and translator, as well as a commercial fisherman in Bristol Bay. 

Published on
December 19, 2017

Managers are considering lowering U.S. and Canadian West Coast halibut quotas on reports that current fishing levels in the Pacific Ocean could lead to declining stocks in the coming years. 

Scientists monitoring the bottom fish for the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) found fewer younger halibut in Pacific waters from Alaska to California this year, meaning current fishing levels could deplete stocks. 

According to new

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Published on
December 6, 2017

Tests on wastewater effluent from a farmed Atlantic salmon processing facility on British Colombia’s Vancouver Island have come up positive for a virus that can cause heart and skeletal disease in wild salmon. 

Samples of the wastewater from the Brown’s Bay Packing Co. processing facility were tested at the Atlantic Veterinary College, where they were shown to contain piscine reovirus, or PRV, which has been linked to disease in

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Published on
December 3, 2017

Activists are calling for the Canadian government to impose stricter controls on the pumping of wastewater from farmed salmon processing facilities after video surfaced of a processing plant on Vancouver Island pumping potentially harmful “blood water” into wild salmon migratory routes. 

Canada’s CTV News published underwater footage of bloody effluent flowing from a pipe about 100 feet beneath the surface Brown’s

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Published on
November 22, 2017

Early forecast numbers released by the Alaska Department of Fish Game predict another colossal sockeye salmon run in Bristol Bay, Alaska in 2018.

The department is estimating a run of more 51 million sockeye salmon, yielding a harvest of 39 million fish. If the prediction holds, it would overshoot the 10-year average of around 43 million by 18 percent and mark the fourth straight year of runs well above the long-term mean of just under 34

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Published on
November 21, 2017

The first time was the charm for Alaskan Leader Seafoods at the Symphony of Seafood competition, an annual contest put on by The Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation (AFDF) to honor product innovation in Alaska's seafood industry. 

Alaskan Leader Seafoods entered the contest for the first time and won two prizes, taking first place in the Retail category for the company’s “Premium Wild-Caught Alaska Cod with Lemon-Herb

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Published on
November 6, 2017

U.K. nonprofit OceanMind thinks its unique analysis of “at-sea” data can add up to the most detailed information available on fishing activities around the world.

Established in 2015, OceanMind was born out of an earlier partnership between The Pew Charitable Trusts and Satellite Applications Catapult Ltd., part of a network of U.K. technology companies designed to spur economic growth through commercializing research. 

Nick

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Published on
October 17, 2017

Pacific cod numbers in the Gulf of Alaska are at all-time lows, according to early looks at data collected from the 2017 summer survey.

Steve Barbeaux, a fisheries biologist for the Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, said scientists believe that the warm water mass known as the blob may be responsible for the low numbers.

“It seems that this warm water that occurred that we’re calling the blob may have increased natural

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Published on
June 19, 2017

A new report published by Alaska Sea Grant says China’s growing middle class represents a large potential for growth in sales of wild Alaska salmon fillets that could include a head-and-bone market. 

Researchers from the University of Alaska partnered with colleagues from the University of Purdue to carry out the study, which surveyed more than 1,000 shoppers at grocery stores in three major cities in China – already

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Published on
June 14, 2017

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI) and a group of U.S. marketing organizations are gearing up for a second trade export mission to Southeast Asia in as many years, hoping to crack a large, untapped market of seafood consumers.

Hannah Lindoff, international program director for ASMI, said industry members who council ASMI committees urged the marketing agency to pursue markets in Southeast Asia, leading to a government grant and a

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Published on
June 12, 2017

Speaking at the SeaWeb Seafood Summit on Wednesday, 7 June in Seattle, Washington, U.S.A., University of Washington fisheries researcher Ray Hilborn said the perception that the world’s fish stocks are declining is incorrect, and that fishing could sustainably be stepped up in areas with good management.

Hilborn pointed to figures from the RAM Legacy Stock Assessment Database that indicate that fish stocks dipped through the last part of

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