Saving Seafood

How more Maine lobsters can be cracked by the Japanese market

November 25, 2015 — After five years of double-secret negotiations, the world has had its first look at the text of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. All together, the 12 nations comprise nearly 40 percent of the global economy, and Maine lobster exporters are just one group that hopes this will crack open new markets.

If the trade pact is accepted, more than 18,000 tariffs would be reduced or eliminated, including those Pacific rim nations levy on Maine lobsters.

And Maine lobster exporters see the elimination of tariffs to prized agricultural markets in Asia, especially Japan, as an opportunity to export more of the valuable commodity.

Already, Maine lobster exports have soared in value to $366 million in 2014 from $185 million in 2010, according to data from the Maine International Trade Center.

For Calendar Island Lobster Co. in Portland, exports of frozen and processed lobster are big business, accounting for nearly 60 percent of sales, with the lion’s share shipped to consumers in Asia, said Emily Lane, vice president of export sales and marketing. The trade pact has benefits for lobstermen and suppliers, Lane said.

“I think it’s going to open a lot of markets in an area of the world where there is one of the largest consumer populations,” she said.

Eyeing Japan

Already Maine lobsters are appearing more frequently on menus in Asia. Much of this growth has been in China, South Korea and Hong Kong, none of which took part in the recent trade negotiations.

With trade barriers expected to come down in other Asian emerging markets, Lane hopes to see growth in exports to that part of the world, Japan in particular.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

 

Absurd Creature of the Week: This Crafty Fish Turns Mussels Into Its Surrogate Parents

October 23, 2015 — Last week I wrote a little ditty about North America’s lampsilis mussels, which do unbelievable impressions of fish. And why would they? So that real fish attack them, busting loose clouds of mussel larvae that infiltrate the attackers’ gills. Here the larvae clamp onto the filaments and suck out nutrition, developing in safety until they drop out of their host. This, as you can imagine, is bad for the fish, to the point where it can kill them.

Lampsilis has the most highfalutin way of infesting fish with their larvae, but freshwater mussels the world over do it too—simply by releasing the young into the water column. There’s one group of fishes in Europe and Asia, though, that won’t suffer such parasitization without retaliation: the bitterlings. These guys flip mussels’ reproductive strategy back on them. Using a tube-like structure, the female fish inserts her eggs into a mussel’s gills, then the male fires his sperm in as well. The fertilized eggs get a nice little home in the host. The host mostly just gets embarrassed.

So let us explore the strange game that is different kinds of parasitic river critters trying to impregnate each other with their offspring.

Typically fish reproduction is about as basic as it gets in the animal kingdom. Males and females get near each other, then dump their sperm and eggs into the water. That’s it. The problem with that, though, is it opens the young up to all kinds of problems, particularly predation. Only a fraction will make it. The rest will end up in stomachs.

For the bitterling, this won’t do. Its reproduction begins with good mussels, and it’s up to the male to find them, preferably large hosts with more room to hold the young. When he chooses a victim, or even several in a given area, he posts up. Should rival males take an interest in his property, his coloration intensifies as he head-butts his foes for control of the territory.

Read the full story at Wired