Saving Seafood

GAA Announces “Hybrid” GOAL Conference; In-Person Event Set to Take Place in Seattle This Fall

June 25, 2021 — The Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) is continuing to adapt to the current circumstances with the coronavirus pandemic. The organization announced on Monday that this year’s GOAL Conference will be going “hybrid,” with virtual events beginning in April and an in-person event set to take place later this year in Seattle.

This is the first time that GAA will be taking the hybrid approach to their GOAL conference. The 2020 event was supposed to take place in Tokyo, Japan, but GAA ultimately decided to make the event virtual due to COVID-19. The 2021 conference was supposed to take place in Tokyo, but GAA decided to postpone the in-person event in Tokyo to 2022. Instead, GOAL attendees will be able to participate in a face-to-face meeting in Seattle this fall. A venue and dates have yet to be announced.

Read the full story at Seafood News

MAINE: Bar Harbor to try to intervene on American Aquafarms lease

June 24, 2021 — As a controversial proposed salmon farm goes through the state lease process, Bar Harbor will likely be the first in line to ask for “intervenor status.”

The Town Council voted unanimously last week to apply to be an intervenor with the state Department of Marine Resources (DMR) on the American Aquafarms salmon farm project, which is proposed to be in the waters of Frenchman Bay off Bar Harbor, though it is technically in the jurisdiction of Gouldsboro.

The Norwegian-backed company has applied to grow salmon at two 60-acre, 15-pen sites northwest of Long Porcupine Island and northeast of Bald Rock Ledge in Frenchman Bay, sparking concerns among local conservationists and fishermen.

If the town is granted intervenor status, it would be allowed to provide testimony at a public hearing on the lease. In some cases, intervenors may also comment on draft decisions.

No other entity has applied for intervenor status yet, said Jeff Nichols, a spokesman for DMR.

The council’s decision to pursue intervenor status took only a few minutes with little discussion. The council had previously sat down with James Hanscom, a Bar Harbor lobsterman and member of the Lobster Zone B Council, and heard his concerns about the project. Before last week’s meeting, Hanscom delivered a statement of opposition on the project to council member Valerie Peacock.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

MAINE: Two dozen Bar Harbor fishermen sign against proposed Frenchman Bay salmon farm

June 23, 2021 — Twenty-six Bar Harbor fishermen have signed onto a statement opposing a proposed salmon pen operation in Frenchman Bay.

The statement cited numerous concerns about the proposal by American Aquafarms, a business based in Norway that has submitted applications to the Department of Marine Resources to lease 120 acres in order to install 30 “closed net” pens for raising salmon. The company has said its goal is to scale up to grow 66 million pounds of salmon per year.

Hatchery and processing facilities would be located in Gouldsboro. Support vessels would travel between the pens and facilities.

Fishermen say they’re concerned about the potential “loss of prime fishing ground for lobster, scallops and shrimp,” increased fishing pressure on grounds adjacent to the proposed operation, loss of gear from service vessels and related support activity, navigational conflicts, water pollution related to discharge, feed and fuel spills, habitat impacts, and disturbance to the ocean bottom around the pens.

In addition, the statement said, the proposal could lower “the potential for a comeback to the historical fisheries of the bay, including the recent shrimping fishery that centered inside the bay on these two deep water holes.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Aquaculture advocates want to bring more Oregon-grown fish from farm to table

June 22, 2021 — While the word “farm” might conjure visions of corn planted in neat rows, Luke Fitzpatrick’s acreage looks, feels and functions more like wetlands. Chirps and squawks emanate from the ponds covering his patch of land just a short drive from Salem.

Fitzpatrick called out avian creatures by name as he maneuvered an off-road vehicle around the farm on a sunny Thursday this spring. Stilt sandpiper. Cinnamon teal. Western meadowlark, Oregon’s state bird.

He pulled to a stop, got out and dipped into a duck blind filled with decoy mallards and rolling desk chairs to gaze out over his crop growing beneath the glassy surface of the water.

“I’m tied to the land,” he said. “I love it out here.”

Fitzpatrick is a fish farmer. He raises and sells warm-water species like bass, bluegill, crappie and catfish through a practice called aquaculture. It’s basically just farming in water, and it’s used to grow a variety of finfish, shellfish and aquatic plants.

Aquaculture has become a much bigger part of the global food system in recent years. The world now produces more seafood on farms than it catches wild, by volume, and the fish farming industry is still growing rapidly.

Read the full story at OPB

Bar Harbor, Maine seeks intervenor status on American Aquafarms salmon farm

June 21, 2021 — The town council of Bar Harbor, Maine, U.S.A. has filed to seek intervenor status in with the Maine State Department of Marine Resources regarding a salmon farm project proposed by American Aquafarms.

The project is planned to initially produce 30,000 metric tons of salmon a year out of its proposed site in Frenchmen’s Bay in Gouldsboro, Maine – across the water from Bar Harbor’s location on Mt. Desert Island. Bar Harbor’s intervenor status, if approved, would allow the town to provide testimony at a public hearing on the lease and potentially comment on draft decisions, reports the Mount Desert Islander.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NORTH CAROLINA: Coastal Resources Commission looks at permitting floating structures for aquaculture

June 21, 2021 — Shellfish growers may be able to use floating structures at their lease sites in the near future, once state officials create regulations for it.

The N.C. Coastal Resources Commission held its regular meeting Wednesday at the Beaufort Hotel on Lennoxville Road. This was the first in-person meeting the commission has had since February 2020 due the coronavirus pandemic.

During the meeting, the commission directed the N.C. Division of Coastal Management to look into drafting regulations for permitting floating structures for shellfish aquaculture leases. DCM Director Braxton Davis said he wants to come back to the CRC with drafted permitting rules at the commission’s September meeting.

Existing CRC regulations don’t allow floating structures on shellfish aquaculture leases, and any such structures found have to be removed.

N.C. Coastal Federation assistant director of policy Ana Zivanovic-Nenadovic gave a presentation to the commission on the importance of floating structures to shellfish aquaculture Wednesday.

“The current need for the industry is to have some kind of floating structure on the lease,” she said. “Most of the states that have large (aquaculture) industries allow these structures.”

Read the full story at the Carteret County News-Times

ASC to tackle “one of biggest threats to aquaculture’s reputation” with new feed standard

June 15, 2021 — After years of development, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) launched a new feed standard on Tuesday, 15 June, seeking to “tackle one of biggest threats to aquaculture’s reputation.”

Recognizing that “unsustainable and irresponsible practices across the aquaculture feed-supply chain risk undoing the positive impact of the farming industry,” ASC’s new standards requires feed mills to meet a series of “strict environmental and social requirements; source ingredients from socially responsible suppliers; and use environmentally responsible raw materials.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Dong Shuanglin: China’s marine ranches represent new approach to aquaculture

June 14, 2021 — China has rolled out a national policy with a new approach toward aquaculture, according to a leading Chinese researcher in the field.

Dong Shuanglin, a professor at the Key Laboratory of Mariculture at the Ocean University of China in Qingdao, has spent much of his career researching mariculture along the coast of Shandong Province, currently an area of focus for numerous companies seeking to develop mariculture initiatives in China. He said such efforts are now being guided by China’s National Marine Ranch Demonstration Area Construction Plan, implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, which has prioritized the construction of large-scale, integrated multitrophic systems, many of which include leisure facilities.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Oyster Farmers Who Feared Going Broke Brace for a ‘Bonkers’ Summer

June 14, 2021 — A year ago, oyster growers who farm New Jersey’s marshy coastal inlets and tidal flats were fighting for survival.

Restaurants were shut down by the pandemic, and the oysters they had nurtured for two years were growing past their prime. The pricey seafood that should have been sold in raw bars or served at weddings was instead submerged in cages and racks in Barnegat and Delaware Bays, crowding out a younger crop of oysters.

“When Covid hit, that market disappeared,” said Tim Dillingham, executive director of the American Littoral Society, a nonprofit dedicated to the study and conservation of marine life and habitats.

Unable to pay for boat fuel or the following year’s seed, some small aquaculture farmers in New York and New Jersey, struggling to revitalize what was once the country’s pre-eminent oyster market, braced for the worst.

But a year later, against long odds, the industry is poised for a summertime boom.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation assisting sustainable aquaculture in developing markets

June 11, 2021 — Fish is climbing the global agenda for food and nutritional security, and the seafood sector has the scope to provide much more essential protein as long as industry and small-scale producers can find ways to come together and create shared value, according to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Explaining the Gates Foundation’s interest in fish at this year’s North Atlantic Seafood Form (NASF), its deputy director for agriculture development, Samuel Thevasagayam, said that its vision is “a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life.” The foundation aims to achieve this through its six different divisions of global health, global policy and advocacy, gender equality, global growth and opportunity, global development, and U.S. programs that focus on education.

Read the full story at Seafood Source