Today's Main Story: New Brunswick's Westmorland Fisheries Invests $10 Million for Lobster Processing
Major New Brunswick lobster processor and distributor Westmorland Fisheries announced a $10 million investment plan to expand its operations. The Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency will provide Westmoreland with a $4.3 million loan with another $410,000 investment coming from New Brunswick's provincial government. Westmorland will invest the remaining $5.78 million. It is the largest investment in the company's history so it can create new retail products and modernize its lobster processing and distribution facilities. "The expansion, plant enhancements and new equipment will result in a stronger, more efficient and more innovative Westmorland, better positioned to capitalize on growing demand for lobster products all around the world,” said Russel Jacob, President of Westmorland.
Extended periods of drought and salty conditions in Vietnam's Mekong Delta have damaged at least 81,000 hectares of shrimp ponds in the region. Vietnamese shrimp processors continue to report raw material shortages and financial losses from the lack of production out of the Mekong. “It’s the environmental conditions and bad weather that have caused freshwater shortages and an increase of salinity, unfavorable conditions for shrimp breeding. They have had a negative impact on the region’s shrimp breeding industry,” said Vietnam's Aqua-Culture Department.
In other news, Alaskan king salmon are returning to the Yukon river system early this year according to the Alaska Ocean Observing System's annual timing report. “The earliest scenario would see increasing numbers of Chinook entering the lower river during the last week of this month (May) with the first significant jump in abundance around the end of the first week in June,” the announcement said.
Meanwhile, as of the second week of May this year, 13.7 million pounds of Dungeness have made it to Oregon ports. The average price is $3.59 per pound, for a total value of $49.3 million, surpassing the 2014-15 season's value. The volume is also up about 70 percent from last season's landings. The bulk of the landings came in the first two months of the fishery's opening in January and February.
Finally, Canada raised the minimum carapace size for lobsters in LFA 25 by five millimeters over the next three seasons. The size will increase by a millimeter this fall and by two millimeters a year in 2017 and 2018. That means fishermen who were permitted to land 72 mm lobster in 2015 will not be able to land lobsters with a carapace length of less than 77 mm by 2018.
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