Gulf Snow Crab May Not be Underway Until Week of April 23rd due to Ice After a cold March, ice is thick in the harbor at Caraquet in New Brunswick writes John Sackton. The first icebreaker to try and open the harbor to prepare for the start of the crab season encountered ice 4 feet thick, and was unable to do the job, reported some of the people at the crab and lobster meetings held in Shippagan, NB yesterday. A larger icebreaker will have to be scheduled. Some participants thought this would push back the opening of the Gulf crab season to the week of April 23rd, the last week in April. The industry is looking at a doubling of crab quota in this area and is anxious to start the season. A report released last week by the Ecology Action Centre said Canada's seafood labeling standards are the vaguest compared to the EU and US. Basics such as the species' scientific names, along with how and where the fish was caught and processed, should be on the labels the Centre said. "It's shocking that our products from Canada are being sold with more detail in the United States and the European Union than they are in Canada," said Colleen Turlo, a spokeswoman for the Centre. In other news, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council will open up a process next week to redesign the Cook Inlet salmon fishery management plan. The Council is tentatively scheduled to hear the first discussion paper prepared by the National Marine Fisheries Service on what the plan could look like and how they should proceed during the council’s meeting April 6 in Anchorage. The federal rulemaking process can take multiple years, so the council will have to reach a working plan to allow the fisheries to operate for the 2017 season before moving forward with a finalized fishery management plan. Meanwhile, due to budget cuts to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, biologists used an average of the last 37-years to estimate 2017 biomass for Togiak herring. Normally, the spawning biomass would have been estimated in 2016 by aerial surveys. But no estimates of age composition in the 2016 harvest were made. “Because that data is no longer available to us, we forecast the 2017 biomass as the average spawning biomass for all years for which we have data (1978-2015) less 10% in order to be conservative,” wrote Tim Sands, Area Management Biologist in Dillingham. Finally, the Olive Garden posted an increase in same stores last quarter that was far above analysts expectations and its shrimp scampi is getting a lot of credit for the turnaround. The Darden-owned Italian chain revamped its menu to adapt to shifting consumer tastes, including a greater focus on cutting calories. Olive Garden's low-calorie shrimp scampi was the best selling option in January, beating out the restaurant's popular chicken alfredo entree. Analysts said Olive Garden's sales rebound was a key factor in Darden's largest stock market rally in the last three years.