Saving Seafood

Legislators Consider Changes to Ballast Water Regulations

July 6, 2016 — The following is excerpted from the television program Chicago Tonight, which is hosted by Elizabeth Brackett and aired on WTTW in Chicago:

Elizabeth Brackett: Ocean-going ships that bring their cargo into Great Lakes ports, like the Federal Biscay, unloading foreign steel at the port of Indiana’s Burns Harbor, are regulated by both the U.S. Coast Guard and the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act.

In 2006, the Coast Guard began requiring those ships to dump the ballast water they picked up in foreign ports and pick up sea water.

That ballast water exchange must be made at least 200 nautical miles from land, in water that is 2,000 meters deep to prevent invasive species from being brought in with the new ballast water.

Shippers say those Coast Guard regulations have kept invasive species out of the Great Lakes.

James Weakley, Lake Carriers’ Association: The door was closed in 2006 when the Coast Guard stopped allowing vessels from the ocean to come in with ballast water that wasn’t managed. Not coincidentally, in 2007 the last invasive species was discovered, the bloody red shrimp, in the Great Lakes.

Brackett: Ocean-going vessels that sail the Great Lakes, called Salties, have worked on developing ballast water treatment systems. The Federal Biscay is the first ship on the Great Lakes to bring a ballast water treatment system online. Located in the bowels of the ship over the ballast water tanks, these pumps will push out the old ballast water and bring in the ocean water when the ship is at sea.

Ships, like the 678-foot Wilfred Sykes, that never sail beyond the Great Lakes, are called Lakers.

The Lakers have always been a bit concerned that they’ve gotten blamed for bringing in these invasive species, when you say primarily it’s been the Salties.

Weakley: Actually it’s exclusively been the Salties. We never leave the Great Lakes. Our ships are physically too big to get beyond the Welland Canal so we’ve been in the forefront of calling attention to the problem.

Brackett: Both the Salties and the Lakers agree that the proposed legislation called the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act, which would exempt ballast water from the Clean Water Act and put the Coast Guard in charge, is needed.

Weakley: Currently we have a patchwork quilt of regulations, more than two dozen states have requirements on top of the two federal agencies, and what we’re looking to do is have a piece of legislation that has a single national standard with a single federal agency in charge.

Read the full transcript at WTTW

Invasive species? Try new culinary treat

March 3, 2016 — It’s not easy being green . . . crabs, that is. Then, how could it be?

The green crabs are the poster child of invasive seafood species, prompting their fair share of hand-wringing and vitriol — not to mention legislative action here in Massachusetts to figure out ways to mitigate the far-flung eco-damage they’ve foisted on animal and plant species throughout the state’s Great Salt Marsh that stretches more than 20,000 acres from Cape Ann to the New Hampshire border.

Many people talk about the green crabs, but Spencer Montgomery is actually trying to do something about them. In short, he’d like restaurants and large-scale institutional food purveyors to start using them in recipes and for the consuming public to start eating them. 

Montgomery, a seafood buyer for Woburn-based food vendor Dole & Bailey, is trying to build up a consuming market for the small, ubiquitous crabs, even if he has to do it one chef and harvester at a time.

“There’s really no reason we shouldn’t be selling hundreds of pounds of the green crabs each week,” Montgomery said. “It would be better to get them out of the water to help protect our other seafood species and the marine environment, but they’re also a real alternative for chefs looking to use crabs and crab flavors in different ways and at a far lower price.”

Montgomery said he recently filled orders for about 70 pounds of the crabs from three New England restaurants and now he’s looking to build up his network of harvesters to handle the future demand he envisions from restaurants, hotels, universities and hospitals.

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times

Could invasive lionfish end up in Chesapeake Bay?

December 29, 2015 — Few fish are as lovely as the lionfish. Few are as venomous.

A frilly, colorful native of the clear tropical waters and reefs of the South Pacific and Indian oceans, the lionfish has been a favorite of aquarium hobbyists for years.

In the Atlantic, however, it was unknown.

Then in the 1980s genetic researchers believe a handful of hobbyists in Florida, perhaps thinking it a kindness, released their aquarium pets into the wild ocean.

At that point, the lionfish proved they aren’t just lovely and venomous — they also breed like rabbits on Viagra. Ravenous eaters, they gobble up any smaller fish they spot and easily displace native species. And because nothing in this part of the Atlantic recognizes them as prey, their population has exploded into a serious and unfortunate marine invasion.

“It’s gotten really bad,” said Richard Brill, fishery biologist at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point.

“There’ve been some efforts in Florida and some parts of the Caribbean to get people to eat them. And there’s been some efforts — and this is pretty crazy — but groups of recreational spear fishermen have been spearing them and then feeding what they catch to sharks, trying to convince the local shark population to eat these things.”

The hardy little invaders have established year-round populations from the Gulf of Mexico to the Outer Banks. They’ve been spotted in warmer months as far north as Massachusetts, although they can’t survive the northern winters.

Read the full story at the Hampton Roads Daily Press

 

NORTH CAROLINA: Lesser-known catches taking center spot

November 1, 2015 — It’s been an upstream swim, but thanks to curious consumers, clever marketing and a widening understanding of environmental realities, North Carolinians are gradually weaning themselves from a steady diet of top-shelf but increasingly restricted fish like tuna, grouper and snapper. In their wake, previously disregarded or invasive species such as triggerfish and lion fish have taken center spot on our collective plates, and a shift to these lesser-known catch will likely continue as fishermen, fishmongers and fish fans adjust to availability.

“With all the regulations out there put on top of the North Carolina fishermen, there’s got to be some type of diversity, some other type of catch to help them make their income,” said John Aydlett, a seafood marketing specialist with the N.C. Department of Agriculture. “And by diversifying the species, it helps them spread out their season.”

Read the full story at Star News Online

 

Invasive species exploit a warming Gulf of Maine, sometimes with destructive results

October 28, 2015 — Until two years ago, if you had walked down to the shore of Maquoit Bay at low tide, you would have seen a meadow of eelgrass stretching nearly as far as the eye could see across the exposed seafloor. Here near the head of the bay, the sea grass stretched for two miles to the opposite shore, creating a vast nursery for the shellfish and forage species of Casco Bay, of which Maquoit is a part.

Now there’s only mud.

Green crabs took over the bay in the late fall of 2012 and the spring and summer of 2013, tearing up the eelgrass in their pursuit of prey and devouring almost every clam and mussel from here to Yarmouth. Fueled by record high water temperatures in 2012 and a mild winter in 2013, the green crab population grew so huge that the mudflats of Casco Bay became cratered with their burrowing, and much of the Maquoit and adjacent Middle Bay bottom turned into a lunar landscape.

Eelgrass coverage in Maquoit Bay fell by 83 percent. With nothing rooted to the bottom, the seawater turned far muddier, making life hard on any plants or baby clams that tried to recolonize the bay.

“We were astounded,” says Hilary Neckles of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, who linked the destruction to the green crabs. “The ecological ramifications really reverberate throughout the ecosystem, because sea grass is the preferred habitat of so many fish and shellfish species.”

Over the past decade, the Gulf of Maine has been one of the fastest-warming parts of the world’s oceans, allowing warm-water intruders to gain a toehold and earlier invaders such as the green crab to take over. Coupled with declines of the cold-loving species that have dominated the gulf for thousands of years, the ecological effects of even more gradual long-term warming are expected to be serious, even as precise forecasting remains beyond the state of scientific knowledge.

Scientists say the 2012 “ocean heat wave” was an unusual event, and that the 10-year accelerated warming trend is likely part of an oceanographic cycle and unlikely to continue. But the gulf has been consistently warming for more than 30 years, and long-term forecasts project average sea surface temperatures in our region could reach 2012-like levels by mid-century. The events of 2012 and the nearly as warm year that followed likely provide a preview of things to come, of a gulf radically transformed, with major implications for life on the Maine coast.

Genevieve MacDonald, who fishes for lobster out of Stonington, was standing on the dock at Isle au Haut one morning that summer, looked in the water, and couldn’t believe her eyes. There, swimming around the harbor like mackerel, were dozens and dozens of longfin squid, temperate creatures rarely seen in the chill waters of eastern Maine. “If you had a cast net you could have brought in a whole basket full of squid,” she recalls.

Read the full story at Portland Press Herald

Foot-long Asian tiger shrimp caught on the First Coast

July 10, 2015 — JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Shrimpers on the St. Johns River had a rare catch Thursday, pulling in a foot long Asian tiger shrimp.

It’s not unusual for them to see them here, but representatives for the Trout River Fish Company say they’ve never seen one this big.

Even though the catch was one to remember, it brings to light a problem that can affect the amount and cost of seafood that you buy.

The Asian tiger shrimp is an invasive species to the St. Johns that eats meat and is impacting the ecosystem here on the First Coast. That has shrimpers worried.

“We’ve been in this business for 57 years,” said Kaleigh Rhodes with the Trout River Fish Company.

The company has seen a lot of customers, but over the years their competition isn’t the shop down the street.

Read the full story at First Coast News