Saving Seafood

Alabama Senator Shelby Seeks Solutions For Gulf Fisheries To Flourish

February 8, 2016 — At 6’3” Richard Craig Shelby, the senior Senator from Alabama, casts a long shadow on the Halls of Congress, welding influence felt in banking, energy, commerce, defense, science and fisheries, especially Gulf of Mexico fisheries.

“I like fresh seafood,” said the Senator relaxing back in his leather chair at the head of his Capitol Hill office conference table. “I especially like Gulf Scamp (a highly prized game and commercial fish in the grouper family). I could live on scamp, my wife and I never throw a piece of that away.”

The Alabama Senator has a single purpose when it comes to the Gulf of Mexico. “I want to make sure the Gulf remains healthy, and that the fish are abundant as they can be, and that all three fishing sectors; commercial, charter-for-hire and recreational, as well as all Americans, continue to benefit from them,” he said.

Born in Birmingham on the sixth of May in 1932, Shelby received a law degree from the Birmingham School of Law. First elected to the Senate in 1986 after winning a tight race as a Democrat, he was among a group of conservative Democrats. In 1994, midway through his second term, he switched allegiance to the Republican Party.

Currently he chairs the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and the Senate Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Subcommittee, and sits on the Committee on Rules and Administration.

Constant Gulf Seafood Supporter

During his term on Capitol Hill, Shelby has been a constant supporter of Alabama and Gulf Seafood, as well as the thousands of people working hard to deliver it to the American people everyday.

“I like to fish, it’s is a great sport,” he told Gulf Seafood News in an exclusive interview. “I enjoy the outdoors.”

In his soft Southern drawl, the Senator said he wants the Gulf seafood industry to flourish because everyone benefits from seafood. “It’s nutritious and provides jobs for thousands upon thousands along the Gulf coast, as well as across the country,” he said. “Be it commercial, charter-for-hire or recreational, I am interested in maintaining abundant, healthy seafood in the Gulf of Mexico that is available to all.”

Read the full story at Gulf Seafood Institute

 

 

ALABAMA: Gulf’s First Oyster Farmer Continues to Grow

September 25, 2015 — POINT AUX PINS, Alabama — Starting as a volunteer oyster gardener way back at the turn of the century – that’s the year 2000 for those with short memory – Steve Crockett planted the first off-bottom oysters in the Gulf as a reef restoration project for the Mobile Bay National Estuary program. Fifteen years later Point Aux Pins Alabama farm is one of the largest Gulf off-bottom oyster operations supplying restaurants and grocery chains across the South.

Gathering figures on the success rate of the restoration project, a grad student informed Crockett that data confirmed he had the best oyster growth rate of any sites on the eastern or western shores of the Bay, Dauphin Island, or Coden. That was enough to convince him to try growing oysters, at least for his own use and for friends.

“We started production the following year,” said Crockett. “We adopted the Australian Adjustable Longline Method for growing our oysters. We fiddled around with that for a couple of years but ended up losing our shirts, as well as our camp house, when Katrina stuck the Alabama coast in 2005.”

Three years later, and with a new house, Crockett was determined to try once more to farm caged grown oysters.

“This was about the same time Bill Walton appeared at the Auburn University Shellfish Lab,” he told Gulf Seafood News. “He was instrumental in our decision to get back into off-bottom caged oysters.”

Getting seed from Walton’s Auburn shellfish lab, in 2009 the East Grand Bay oysterman put his first crop of oysters in the water, while at the same time testing four different kinds of grow out gear.

Read the full story at Gulf Seafood Institute

 

Double Disasters Leave An Alabama Fishing Village Struggling

August 19, 2015 — The people of Bayou la Batre, Ala., say you know their town by the four seasons.

“Shrimp, fish, crab and oyster,” says Stephanie Nelson Bosarge. “That’s your four seasons.”

Bosarge grew up here in a house less than a thousand feet from the water — one of nine kids, the fourth generation to work in the seafood industry.

Today all that’s left of the house is a concrete slab. Grass and weeds are creeping up over what’s left of the oyster run, where a conveyor belt once carried shells between the shuckers.

“This is living proof right here,” says Paul Nelson, Bosarge’s brother, “that the grass grows over and people forget about what was here, what was raised here, what was done here.”

The Impact Of Katrina

Hurricane Katrina sent nearly 14 feet of water into Bayou la Batre, inundating homes and businesses. Rebuilding was out of reach. Insurance paid off debt, but there wasn’t enough left to start again.

“Before Katrina, everything was a struggle. After Katrina, everything was impossible,” Bosarge says.

Read the full story at New York NOW