Saving Seafood

Atlantic Sapphire suffers mass salmon mortality at its Florida RAS farm

March 24, 2021 — On Tuesday, 23 March, Atlantic Sapphire suffered a mass mortality event at its recirculating aquaculture system salmon farm in Miami, Florida, U.S.A.

In a press release issued via the Euronext Market, where the company’s stock is listed, Atlantic Sapphire said it expected a loss of 500 metric tons (MT), or around 1.1 million pounds, of head-on, gutted salmon. The company said the average weight of the deceased fish was one kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, meaning an estimated 500,000 individual salmon died due to the accident. The total represents around 5 percent of its phase-one harvest volumes.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

AMERICAN AQUAFARMS CEO: Aquaculture can play a big role in Maine’s economy and climate change response

March 23, 2021 — Maine is setting the stage with its response to climate change, the need for greater sustainability and environmental stewardship.

Aquaculture plays an important role in all three.

The United States imports about 90 percent of the fish eaten in the country. Those imports ship consumer dollars out of the country, while also having a direct impact on the environment from the transportation required to deliver the food.

With wild fisheries under pressure from overfishing and warming oceans, aquaculture provides an opportunity to produce food closer to the people who will eat it and in a controlled and sustainable way.

That’s why American Aquafarms has proposed a new aquaculture facility along the working waterfront in Gouldsboro with pens located in Frenchman Bay.

We believe that this project will produce salmon safely and sustainably, while helping to fight climate change and creating good jobs for Maine people.

Read the full opinion piece at the Bangor Daily News

Huawei Pivots to Fish Farms, Mining After U.S. Blocks Its Phones

March 15, 2021 — Six months after the Trump administration dealt a crushing blow to Huawei Technologies Co.’s smartphone business, the Chinese telecommunications giant is turning to less glamorous alternatives that may eventually offset the decline of its biggest revenue contributor.

Among its newest customers is a fish farm in eastern China that’s twice the size of New York’s Central Park. The farm is covered with tens of thousands of solar panels outfitted with Huawei’s inverters to shield its fish from excessive sunlight while generating power. About 370 miles to the west in coal-rich Shanxi province, wireless sensors and cameras deep beneath the earth monitor oxygen levels and potential machine malfunctions in mine pit — all supplied by the tech titan. And next month, a shiny new electric car featuring its lidar sensor will debut at China’s largest auto show.

Once the world’s largest smartphone maker, the Chinese corporation has seen a series of U.S. sanctions almost obliterate its lucrative consumer business. With the Biden administration keeping up the pressure on Huawei, billionaire founder Ren Zhengfei has directed the company to grow its roster of enterprise clients in transportation, manufacturing, agriculture and other industries. Huawei is the world’s leading supplier of inverters and it’s now banking on growing those sales alongside its cloud services and data analytics solutions to help the 190,000-employee business survive.

Read the full story at Bloomberg News

Slimy, smuggled, and worth more than gold: Can one Maine entrepreneur break into the crime-ridden global market for eel?

March 12, 2021 — It’s hard for aquaculturist Sara Rademaker to pin down the precise moment she fell in love with eels.

It may have been when a fisherman first gifted her a handful of squirming baby eels—also called glass eels or elvers—or the hours she spent with them, raising them to adulthood in a giant tank in her basement. Or it might have been when she killed them, cooked them in a borrowed smoker, and took a bite.

“When I had that eel, I was like, ‘I have to grow this fish,’” Rademaker said. “People get obsessed with eels. They like to work with them, and then it just, like, engulfs them.”

Six years after that first bite, Rademaker stared down into a tank in her eel business’ headquarters in rural Maine, watching sinuous, footlong eels weave figure-eights under the surface. The eels’ slim bodies tumbled together in a blur of green backs and stormcloud-gray bellies. When they were netted as glass eels in 2018—legally, she stresses—they were worth more than gold, at about $2,400 per pound.

Read the full story at The Counter

MAINE: American Aquafarms seeks approval for ocean-based salmon pens

March 11, 2021 — American Aquafarms, an aquaculture start-up headquartered in Portland, has filed two draft lease applications with the Department of Marine Resources to begin development of closed-pen, ocean-based salmon operation in Downeast Maine.

The two proposed sites would be in Frenchman Bay, off the town of Gouldsboro to the east and Bar Harbor to the west.

Each site would be 60.3 acres. The pens at each site would take up about 6.6 acres.

The company plans to establish a hatchery, fish farm facilities and a state-of-the art processing plant that’s expected to result in hundreds of jobs in coastal Maine.

“Maine is the ideal location for this project,” American Aquafarms CEO Mikael Roenes said in a news release. “By leveraging the state’s deep water assets with next generation eco-friendly technology to sustainably produce food close to its market, we have the opportunity to set a new standard in the United States. Additionally, we are confident that Maine has the workforce we need to fill the year-round, good-paying jobs we’re creating.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz

ASC launches largest-ever public consultations on new standards

March 8, 2021 — The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) on Monday, 8 March announced the launch of its largest-ever public consultations, seeking feedback on two separate changes to its standards.

The public consultation, which seeks input from stakeholders, is looking for feedback on the council’s proposed environmental requirements on the aligned farm standards, which according to the ASC will cover all certified species “bringing efficiencies and improvements without compromising on quality.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Give Us Your Input on Making Fisheries and Protected Resources More Resilient to Climate Change

March 5, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA has started an agency-wide effort to gather initial public input in response to Section 216(c) of the Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad (EO 14008) issued on January 27, 2021.

Section 216(c) of EO 14008 directs NOAA to collect recommendations on how to make fisheries, including aquaculture, and protected resources more resilient to climate change, including changes in management and conservation measures, and improvements in science, monitoring, and cooperative research.

The comment period opened March 3, 2021 and will close on April 2, 2021.

For more on this effort and how to submit comments, please visit our new story on the effort.

Maryland oyster industry may be forever altered by COVID-19 pandemic

March 3, 2021 — The pandemic-impacted oyster season has been difficult for the industry in Maryland, causing farmers and watermen to rethink how they sell their product and changing how programs conduct oyster restoration.

After restaurants reduced their capacity and a stay-at-home order was issued last spring, restaurant sales essentially went to zero within a matter of a week, said Scott Budden, founder of Orchard Point Oyster Co. headquartered in Stevensville, Maryland.

Pre-pandemic, Orchard Point Oyster Co. would primarily sell to restaurants, either directly to the chef or through regional distributors and wholesalers. Since April, they have transitioned to directly selling to the public, through local pickups and cold shipping, Budden said.

Read the full story at Delmarva Now