Personnel file

• Trident Seafoods today announced the retirement of Jim McManus from the company's board of directors.

• Frank O'Hara III has been elected president of the Wild Alaska Sole Association.

• Keyport LLC, a crab and frozen seafood processor and supplier, has named Craig Morris as president. He joins Keyport after seven years as CEO of the Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers.

The Wild Alaska Sole Association

Alaska flatfish producers have formed a new nonprofit marketing organization.

MSC certifies Alaska flatfish as sustainable

Last month we noted the Marine Stewardship Council was close to certifying Alaska's flatfish harvest as sustainable and well-managed.

Well, today comes this announcement that Alaska flatfish has indeed achieved the MSC eco-label.

Flatfish trawlers target a variety of soles, flounder and plaice.

The MSC announcement asserts the flatfish harvesters have
"significantly reduced bycatch" and cut the bottom contact of their trawl gear by 90 percent.

Oceana: 'Sustainable' argument falls flat for flatfish

Do the huge trawl fisheries for flounder and sole in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands merit the Marine Stewardship Council's label as sustainable seafood harvests?

The conservation group Oceana doesn't think so, as it explains in this press release.

"Last year these flatfish draggers killed and wasted almost 8 million pounds of halibut and tens of millions of pounds of other species," writes Oceana biologist Jon Warrenchuk.

He adds: "How can that waste be construed as sustainable?"