NOAA Approves Foreign Crab Imports

WBOC, NOAA lifts crab import bans from key countries following Eastern Shore seafood industry pushback

A federal seafood dispute that Eastern Shore seafood companies warned could devastate crab supply chains has now taken a new turn Monday, with federal regulators officially allowing imports from certain countries to continue.

As WBOC previously reported, local seafood companies including Salisbury-based Handy Seafood, Cebu Pacific LLC, and Byrd International joined a federal lawsuit late last year challenging new restrictions tied to the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. The companies argued the rules threatened jobs, production, and the nation’s crab supply because much of the pasteurized crab meat sold in the United States comes from Southeast Asia.

Asian Swimming Crabs

 

Now, NOAA Fisheries says it has completed a new review of several swimming crab fisheries after a federal court temporarily paused the import restrictions.

According to NOAA, the agency has now granted “comparability findings” to swimming crab fisheries in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam, allowing crab and crab products from those fisheries to continue entering the United States. NOAA upheld its denial of comparability findings for swimming crab fisheries in the Philippines, however, with a ban going into effect in June.

The decision stems from the Marine Mammal Protection Act’s seafood import provisions, which require foreign fisheries exporting seafood to the U.S. to meet marine mammal protection standards comparable to those required of American fisheries. Fisheries denied those findings faced import bans at the beginning of the year.

The original lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade, argued NOAA’s earlier determinations could eliminate nearly 90% of the blue swimming crab available to the U.S. market and severely impact seafood processors on the Eastern Shore and beyond.

So remember, when you buy packaged crabs, in all likelihood, it's foreign.