July 19, 2021 — Earlier this month, the American Fisheries Society and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) presented a congressional briefing on developing marine aquaculture to build climate resistance and climate-friendly food production.
According to panelists, the world will need about 60 percent more food by the year 2050 in order to keep feeding a growing population, including 60 percent more animal protein by 2030.
July 19, 2021 — Open-net pen Atlantic salmon aquaculture is big business on Canada’s east coast. Given the industry’s size, much has been studied and written about its effects on wild salmon. But how might fish farms be affecting other species in their vicinity—such as lobster? Lobster is one of the most economically valuable wild species, and the bulk of the world’s catch is made along the eastern seaboard of North America. Inka Milewski, who studies the interactions between aquaculture and the wider ecosystem at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, recently parsed the scientific literature to determine the ways in which salmon aquaculture is affecting wild lobsters.
Milewski and her colleagues identified a multitude of factors that could affect lobsters, their habitat, and the lobster fishery. Net pens change oceanographic conditions, for example by reducing current speeds, increasing turbulence, and breaking up waves. The farms also generate waste, such as excess food, fish feces, and urine, as well as the chemicals used to control pests and diseases. Lights, noises, and odors associated with the farms can disrupt lobster behavior.
Milewski says she was most surprised by how sensitive lobsters are to the particulate and dissolved organic and inorganic waste that result from fish feces and uneaten food. These chemicals can disrupt critical lobster behaviors like feeding, spawning, and mating. Her review identified studies that show that these waste products can change the quality of lobsters’ diets and promote harmful algal blooms near farms.
“There is a tremendous amount of waste generated by fish farms,” Milewski says. “I don’t think people have a sense of the scale.” A fairly typical farm of about 600,000 fish will generate around 40 tonnes of waste every month during its 22-month production cycle. “It’s understandable how that waste can change lobsters’ behavior, distribution, and abundance,” she adds.
But the review also identified serious gaps in our understanding of the interactions between aquaculture operations and lobsters. While some aspects, such as the use of chemical pesticides, have been well studied, information on others, including waste discharges, disease, and noise, are limited or entirely lacking.
July 16, 2021 — A new documentary based in North Carolina that premiered on 14 July showcases the state’s burgeoning aquaculture industry.
The documentary, titled “Fish Farms,” was created by WRAL, an NBC-affiliated television station licensed to Raleigh, North Carolina, and was sponsored by the state’s Farm Bureau. Throughout the video, multiple types of local aquaculture are harvested – including trout farming, crawfish farming, oyster farming, and a sturgeon farm that uses a recirculating aquaculture system.
July 15, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
The growing aquaculture industry has exciting implications for Alaskan communities, both human and marine. In recent years, the State of Alaska has seen a significant increase in aquatic farm applications and notably, the farm acreage amount applied for. According to the 2021 Mariculture Task Force Final Report (PDF, 169 pages), if the state approved all applications currently under review, it would result in approximately an 850 percent increase in the acreage for aquatic farms in state waters over the last five years. Not only does this growth have exciting economic implications, research is increasingly showing the ecological benefits of aquatic farming. As Alaskans apply for more and bigger farms, that means more habitat for everything from crab to salmon smolt to barnacles and mussels.
July 14, 2021 — China’s domestic aquaculture sector is shifting its production focus to a later harvest in order to supply rising demand from within the country, according to a leading Chinese supplier of fishmeal and fish oil.
A fishmeal trader with an IFFO-certified fish oil refining plant, Fujian High Fortune Bio-Tech Group also has a GMP plant for omega-3 related products and healthcare industry production. Its clients are in the human consumption and health care industries, in addition to animal and aquafeed production and the pet food industry.
July 12, 2021 — The following was released by Friend of the Sea:
Friend of the Sea, the global certification standard for products and services that respect and protect the marine environment, has recognized seaExpert for sustainable seaweed production. Therefore, seaExpert can now display the Friend of the Sea label, certifying the engagement with sustainable marine practices.
SeaExpert, a company created in 2003 in the Azores archipelago, is a seaweed producer. It supplies clients with algae biomass for various uses, including cosmetics, supplements, livestock feed, and scientific research.
Seaweed, the generic name for different marine plants and algae, has been described as a game-changer. Filled with vitamins, minerals, proteins, and amino acids, it has immense potential, not only for human health but also for the planet. Including seaweed in cattle feed has the power to offset ruminant methane emissions, a gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect.
Friend of the Sea certifies companies that respect sustainable seaweed harvesting and farming. This standard aims to protect from overfishing wild seaweeds, which serve as a crop and as a habitat for hundreds of other ocean species.
The Azores, a Portuguese archipelago located in the North Atlantic Ocean, has a natural abundance of numerous algae species. SeaExpert identified the benefits of each specimen and developed a sustainable production process from harvesting to drying respecting the Friend of the Sea guidelines.
SeaExpert is licensed to harvest nine different species of algae, using sustainable techniques to have minimum impact on the marine ecosystem while supplying a high-quality product.The seaweed is harvested manually through scuba diving within seasons with the highest bioavailability rates.
The algae are dried in green houses or solar dryers, being monitored throughout the whole process. Once dried, the seaweeds are carefully weighed, packed, and stored.
“The protection of the ecosystem through sustainable practices is at the core of our company,” said a seaExpert’s spokesperson. “Achieving the Friend of the Sea certification represents a milestone as well as an encouragement to continue working.”
SeaExpert algae are an excellent component for the cosmetic industry. Scientific research has found that seaweed has hydrating and exfoliating benefits, as well as unique healing properties for people with acne, rosacea, and skin sensitivity.
“Seaweed production has boomed in the last years. Supporting companies involved in this emerging and promising sector to implement sustainable practices is crucial,” said Paolo Bray, Founder and Director of Friend of the Sea.
The core criteria of the Friend of the Sea sustainable seaweed certification are:
July 2, 2021 — Hundreds of thousands of salmon swim against the current in southeast Norway—in massive indoor tanks away from the nearest river as the controversial industry increasingly embraces greener land-based facilities.
The fish live in two gigantic pools inside an inconspicuous industrial building in Fredrikstad owned by a company that plans to raise salmon in similar settings even further afield, in the United States.
By raising the salmon on land, the industry is attempting to move away from the river or sea cages that have invited criticism over a slew of issues.
The problems run from costly mass escapes to fish infected with sea lice treated with chemicals to mounds of faeces and feed piling up on the seabed below the farms.
“At sea, you depend on the almighty for many things. In a land-based farm, we are suddenly the all-powerful one,” Fredrikstad Seafoods general manager Roger Fredriksen told AFP.
July 1, 2021 — American Aquafarms last week once again made a case for its $330 million project to raise Atlantic salmon off Bald Rock and Long Porcupine Island and process the fish at the now dormant Maine Fair Trade Lobster Co. facility in Prospect Harbor. But the Norwegian-backed company’s June 23 presentation did little to quell citizens’ fears that the proposed operation will harm the area’s robust lobster fishery and scenic values that draw millions of visitors to the region annually.
At the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ 3.5-hour scoping session, held via Zoom, American Aquafarms heard comments and answered questions about its proposal and draft applications to lease the two Frenchman Bay sites for up to 20 years. The intent, too, was for the company to inform the public about its proposed plan to harvest as much as 66 million pounds of salmon annually from the two 15-pen sites and process the fish at the Prospect Harbor facility. Sardines, lobster and other seafood have been processed almost continuously at that facility and transported to market from there for at least 115 years.
Attending the Zoom session, Acadia National Park Superintendent Kevin Schneider had a prepared statement to read aloud, but he was not among the 13 people who got to speak during the allotted time. In his statement, made public June 24, Schneider called for the DMR’s July deadline for submitting written comments on the long-term leases to be extended to Aug. 6. In his remarks, he noted that Acadia National Park is just 2,000 feet at the closest point from the two lease sites each comprising 60.32 acres. At both sites, two rows of eight and seven closed pens would be arranged in grids and anchored to the ocean floor in mooring systems encompassing 10 acres each.
June 29, 2021 — Called regenerative ocean farming, this model involves growing shellfish and kelp in underwater gardens.
For all his life, Alaskan fisherman Dune Lankard has looked to the sea—for food, work and purpose. “I started fishing when I was five,” says Lankard, a member of the Athabaskan Eyak community, an Indigenous group from the Copper River Delta. “I really don’t have any skills beyond the ocean.”
Born in 1959, the same year Alaska became a state, Lankard has witnessed various natural and man-made disasters—including the commoditization of Indigenous peoples’ traditional fishing way of life—that have disrupted his industry and homeland. “As an Indigenous fisherman, I’ve seen it all,” he says.
In 1964, a massive magnitude 9.2 earthquake, fittingly called the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964, triggered a swell of tsunamis that killed more than 130 people and devastated fisheries. Exactly 25 years later, an Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck Bligh Reef in the Prince William Sound, spewing 10.8 million gallons of crude oil into the sea. The spill affected 1,300 miles of water and coastline, much of which is still considered to be in recovery.
Now, Alaskan fishermen are facing another urgent problem. Alaska is already feeling the effects of climate change, as the warming oceans have wreaked havoc on ecosystems of krill, wild kelp forests, salmon and birds. That’s all on top of the lingering losses caused by the 1989 oil spill. Before the Exxon spill, the Sound’s spring run of herring totalled more than 200,000 tons returning home. Today, there are only 4,000 tons returning annually. Lankard recently sold his fishing permit after several consecutive bad seasons.
To help mitigate the effects of warming waters, Lankard is now embracing an approach known as regenerative ocean farming, which involves growing seaweed and shellfish in small underwater gardens. Once a commercial fisherman, Lankard now mostly farms kelp.
“Alaska has always been based on extraction. We’re a natural resource extraction state,” says Lankard. “What regenerative ocean farming does is create a new regenerative economy that’s based on conservation, restoration and mitigation, as opposed to more extraction of resources.”
The burgeoning concept of regenerative ocean farming was developed and named by Bren Smith, a Canadian commercial fisherman turned ocean farmer. He believes ocean farming is the new farming model of the future.
June 29, 2021 — I am writing on behalf of the Maine chapter of Native Fish Coalition regarding the recent proposal by the state to allocate $20 million from the American Rescue Plan to update and modernize Maine’s fish hatcheries.
Native Fish Coalition (NFC) is a nonpartisan, grassroots, donor-funded, all volunteer, 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to the conservation, preservation, and restoration of wild native fish. Founded in Maine, we also have chapters in Alabama, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and West Virginia with members, partners, volunteers, supporters and followers.
When it was announced that Maine’s hatchery system will receive $20 million from the American Rescue Plan, it was stated: “At the core of Maine’s fisheries is Maine’s state hatchery system.” This is a gross misrepresentation of what Maine’s fisheries are, what makes Maine unique, and why people come to Maine to fish.