Saving Seafood

MAINE: In Acadia’s Shadow: Latest Flashpoint in Conflict Over Industrial Fish Farms

August 2, 2021 — A Norwegian investor wants to bring a new kind of fish farm to a stunning, island-studded bay at the base of Acadia’s famous Cadillac Mountain. The project is uniting broad opposition in and around tourist-dependent Mt. Desert Island.

The “American Aquafarms” project is the latest in a series of industrial-scale fish farms proposed for Maine, highlighting how the nation’s demand for seafood is putting pressure on local marine economies.

Frenchman Bay reaches from the eastern side of Mt. Desert Island to the Schoodic peninsula. Through the 20th century, sardine canneries dotted the bay. But the last of them, in Gouldsboro, shut down more than a decade ago.

“Sardines, and the herring fishery was the biggest fishery for 50 or 60 years and then that declined. But now the only thing left is small fisheries – scallops and all of that. Lobster’s the only viable industry,” says Dana Rice, Gouldbsoro’s selectman.

Here at Gouldbsoro’s town office, Rice is also the harbormaster and a lobster dealer. He says even the lobster processing company that took over the old harbor sardine plant has had a hard time making it, and waterfront jobs have dwindled. So when a Norwegian investor started sounding out local officials about converting it into a fish hatchery and processing facility for an at-sea salmon farm, Rice was interested.

“I would like to see some good paying jobs for the younger generation… this intrigued me. Hey, they’re talking somewhere between $150 million and $350 million investment, you can’t turn your back on that. You can not,” Rice says.

American Aquafarms optioned the property two years ago, and since has been laying groundwork for what its backers say will be a state-of-the-art “closed-pen” system: an array of enclosed, floating capsules, full of fish, that ostensibly would avoid most of the negative impacts of traditional open-pen salmon farms, such as escapes, disease and pollution.

Read the full story at Maine Public

New tool to improve ‘cleaner fish’ welfare in salmon farming

July 30, 2021 — Researchers at the University of Stirling have developed a new tool that fish farmers can use to improve the welfare of lumpfish—a species crucial to tackling the problem of sea lice in salmon.

Lumpfish are increasingly being used by the  industry as a ‘cleaner fish’ to remove parasitic sea lice, which cost the Scottish salmon industry alone an estimated £40m per year.

Because they are a relatively new fish to aquaculture, researchers are still establishing the optimum conditions for lumpfish .

In a new study, a team led by Dr. Sonia Rey Planellas at the University of Stirling’s Institute of Aquaculture has established the correlation between lumpfish growth weights and welfare, and turned it into a tool farmers can use to assess the health of the fish and take remedial action if required.

Dr. Rey Planellas says that “at the moment, in the UK we use Operational Welfare Indicators (OWIs) for fish welfare, but lumpfish are a different shape to many other fish, so it’s about identifying the best indicators for each species.”

“Fin damage is typically the indicator that is used, but in this study we found a more useful indicator was the correlation between growth weight relative to size and welfare.”

Read the full story at PHYS.org

MAINE: Selectmen to request environmental review of proposed salmon project

July 30, 2021 — Selectmen unanimously voted last week to request that American Aquafarms finance an independent environmental review to determine the impact on the town of its proposed $330 million venture to raise and process 66 million pounds of salmon annually in Frenchman Bay. The Norwegian-backed company’s operation would be based at the closed Maine Fair Trade complex in Prospect Harbor.

At their July 22 meeting, where Friends of Schoodic Peninsula had requested to speak, selectmen took the action after hearing from roughly 90 citizens in person and via Zoom. The initiative for an independent environmental assessment, which falls under the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act, came from the audience, who largely included seasonal and year-round Gouldsboro residents and local fishermen. Many of them had signed a 92-signature letter registering their opposition to American Aquafarms’ entire project in Gouldsboro and Frenchman Bay.

“It is our opinion that this would be a disaster for the environment (on land, sea and air), the vital, local lobstering business, other fishing and small aquaculture businesses, residents and the health of the tourist trade, which supports thousands of local workers,” the letter to the selectmen reads.

Gouldsboro interim Town Manager Eve Wilkinson offered to assist the project’s opponents in possibly putting a referendum question to voters about American Aquafarms’ project. Company officials say the project would create 60 full-time, salaried jobs ranging widely in skill sets from boat captains to electronic system technicians. Her offer to spell out the referendum process, requiring a written petition with signatures totaling at least 10 percent of votes cast in town in the last gubernatorial election, came in response to a citizen’s suggestion of a referendum vote to truly gauge local support for and opposition to the proposed project.

“Get off the sidelines and speak for us,” Thomas Mckeag told selectmen. “I am asking you guys if you are for or against it.”

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

‘We want our fish to be wild’: Alaska congressman floats new bill to block offshore aquaculture

July 30, 2021 — Alaska’s longtime Republican Congressman Don Young has yet again introduced the Keep Fin Fish Free Act, legislation prohibiting the Secretary of Interior and the Secretary of Commerce from authorizing commercial finfish aquaculture operations in the Federal Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) unless specifically authorized by Congress.

Young said the state’s residents are opposed to what he described as “hatchery fisheries” in the state.

“We don’t want that. We want our fish to be wild,” he said Thursday during a hearing held by the US House Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife.

Young said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be focusing on issues with Alaska’s ocean, and why fishermen are seeing fewer kings and other salmon during summer fishing seasons.

Read the full story at IntraFish

Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation Aims To Expand Mariculture In The Aleutians

July 27, 2021 — Representatives from the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation visited Unalaska last week as part of its push to expand the state’s mariculture industry.

Gov. Bill Walker created the Alaska Mariculture Task Force in 2016. Since then, the organization has been focused on developing the state’s mariculture industry to meet its long-term goal of $100 million by 2038.

Mariculture refers specifically to farming and enhancing shellfish and seaweeds, and does not include farming finfish like salmon, which is illegal in Alaska. The state’s mariculture industry was valued at approximately $1 million in 2018.

Julie Decker, executive director of the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation, sees opportunities in the shorelines and beaches of the Aleutian coast.

“You have lots of water, so you have lots of space. Relatively little population which means relatively little conflict,” Decker said. “The people that do live here are used to working on the water. There’s North America’s largest processing port. These are some pretty significant assets.”

Read the full story at KUCB

Your love for fresh oysters can help the planet

July 27, 2021 — We drop anchor and I learn the trick to the perfect shuck—gently work the knife into the back hinge—and slurp the freshest oyster I’ve ever tasted. The mollusk was harvested minutes earlier from the lineup of floating cages beside our boat in this secluded section of Maine’s Casco Bay.

“There’s a freshwater spring off Upper Goose Island that drains out right into the farm and cuts the salinity, so our oyster is much more bright and balanced, with a light cucumber finish,” says Cameron Barner, an oyster farm owner with an advanced degree in aquaculture, and my tour guide for the afternoon. “If you go upriver or eat bottom-planted oysters, you get a more minerally umami flavor.”

Oyster farm tours, like this one led by Love Point Oysters, and self-guided bi-valve trails are cropping up throughout the United States. COVID-19 stalled the trend but with travel restrictions loosening, oyster enthusiasts are once again back on track. Along the Maine Oyster Trail, which re-launched in June, tasting tourists can earn swag by “checking in” at various experiences and sites along the trail, including Love Point. Other trails can be found in Louisiana, Virginia, North Carolina, and Washington, the country’s largest producer of aquaculture.

Read the full story at National Geographic

Are sprawling fish farms coming to swallow Maine?

July 23, 2021 — On a chilly Sunday in June, Sarah Redmond steers her pickup outside of an old sardine cannery here in Gouldsboro, Maine, leaps out, and pulls from the truck bed what looks like lobster traps oozing with slimy, withered vegetable matter. “I’m doing research on dulse,” she says, about the tough, purplish seaweed that is higher in protein and lower in iodine than other varieties. Seaweed is popular in Japan, she says, but Americans find it too intense. “We sell it mostly as an ingredient and as seasoning,” she says. “It’s a flavor enhancer, in chips, bread, cereal — you can sprinkle it on as a barbecue rub. It’s got vitamins, minerals, fiber.”

Wearing thick rubber muck boots, jeans, and a camouflage baseball cap pulled low over a loose ponytail, Redmond looks every inch the farmer she is. But unlike most farmers, her crop is seeded on ropes strung through 55 acres of saltwater. Redmond, 40, owns Springtide Seaweed, the nation’s largest organic seaweed farm, based in this onetime cannery on the shores of Frenchman Bay. In addition to dulse, she grows sugar kelp, skinny kelp, and alaria kelp.

Redmond’s farm is part of a state-supported effort to build an edible-seaweed farming industry. Maine is home to the bulk of the country’s kelp farms; the state’s seaweed harvest is expected to grow from 54,000 pounds in 2018 to 3 million pounds in 2035. It’s an audacious experiment in a country that does not traditionally eat much seaweed, but it is seen as essential to bolstering Maine’s fragile economy.

Driving this investment is fear: Last summer, the Gulf of Maine recorded its all-time hottest temperature — 69.85 degrees. The Gulf is one of the fastest-warming bodies of saltwater on the planet, and the locals know full well that as water temperatures continue to rise, lobsters — by far the state’s most lucrative fishery — will abandon Maine for cooler Canadian waters. Lobster brings over $400 million dollars in direct revenue to Maine each year, and lures visitors from all over the world to restaurants, seafood shacks, and festivals. But perhaps not for long: In 2018, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and several research partners estimated that by mid-century Maine’s lobster population will plummet by as much as 62 percent.

To fend off economic disaster, Maine is striving to wean itself from its dependence on lobster, and on all wild fisheries. It has little choice. Wild Atlantic salmon all but disappeared from the state decades ago, as have cod and northern shrimp. Sea urchins have been harvested to near extinction, and wild clams and mussels are increasingly scarce. As one wild fishery after another falters, a growing number of ambitious, far-sighted people like Redmond see the future of Maine — and in some sense the future of food — in the cultivation of water-dwelling plants and animals.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

MIKAEL ROENES: Aquaculture project fits Maine’s environmental goals

July 23, 2021 — Maine is pursuing an innovative approach to addressing climate change, one that promotes environmental stewardship while driving economic and job growth. Sustainable and eco-friendly aquaculture investment supports not only the state’s goals, but makes Maine a world leader in creating climate-friendly and responsible food production practices and supply chains.

The U.S. is a minor aquaculture producer, ranked 17th globally, but it is the leading global importer of fish and fishery products. Approximately 90 percent of the seafood we eat comes from abroad, over half from aquaculture.

Instead of importing our fish and exporting our dollars, Maine has rightly identified aquaculture as a prime opportunity to complement traditional fisheries and strengthen our Maine-made food systems.

Maine’s ambitious climate plan encourages increased growth of aquaculture, noting the potential to mitigate ocean acidification and improve water quality. The state’s economic development strategy promotes aquaculture development, specifically the ability to grow salmon to meet the global demand for safe, climate-responsible food sources.

Read the full opinion piece at the Portland Press Herald

EU pleads with US judge to limit discovery in salmon price-fixing class-action lawsuit

July 21, 2021 — The European Union has not issued any public comment regarding its antitrust investigation into Norwegian salmon farmers for more than a year, but on 13 July, it made clear its inquiry is still active.

In a brief filed in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida, the European Commission contended that a class-action suit filed on behalf of U.S. purchasers of Norwegian farmed salmon in 2019 is interfering with its investigation. The lawsuit accuses Mowi, SalMar, Lerøy Seafood, Grieg Seafood, and Cermaq Group of exchanging competitively sensitive information among themselves, with the aim of artificially controlling the price of farm-raised salmon sold in the United States.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Kelp at the Crossroads: Should Seaweed Farming Be Better Regulated?

July 20, 2021 — On Vancouver Island, seaweed is abundant, diverse, useful, and symbolic. Indigenous peoples have used it for centuries for food preparation, fishing, and as a cultural and spiritual touchstone. On the island’s southwest coast, Dr. Louis Druehl started farming and researching kelp in the late 1970s and says he has dedicated his life to it “and loved every minute.” He mentored seaweed farmer Kristina Long, who now grows bull kelp over about 40 acres, and harvester Amanda Swinimer, who wades out into waist-deep water at low tide to carefully hand-cut blades of winged kelp in just the right spot to ensure regrowth.

These tiny operations barely create ripples within the vast coastal landscape, but kelp—here and elsewhere in North America—is at a crossroads.

In recent years, seaweed has been promoted around the globe as an overlooked, multifaceted climate solution: a sustainable food and biofuel source, a feed that reduces methane emissions from cattle, and a tool with the potential to absorb massive quantities of carbon from the atmosphere (although much more research is needed to determine how farms might actually contribute to sequestration). As a result, companies looking to capitalize on those promises are turning up in far-flung coastal communities with big plans.

Take Cascadia Seaweed. The company arrived on Vancouver Island soon after it was founded in 2019, and set a goal to farm 1,200 acres of the ocean there by 2025; its larger “stretch goal” is over 6,000 acre. In Alaska, Seagrove Kelp Co. has 127 acres in operation and 700 in the permitting phase. And in Maine, the continent’s seaweed-farming hub, Running Tide’s vision involves millions of biodegradable buoys attached to lines of kelp offshore.

Read the full story at Civil Eats