May 20, 2019 — “Aquaculture is farming, commercial fishing is hunting,” says Sebastion Belle of the Maine Aquaculture Association.
There are about 200 aquaculture farms on Maine’s coastal waters, and Belle says the industry is poised to double over the next decade.
Farms like Gary and Matt Moretti’s.
The father and son duo started Bang Island Mussels in 2010. They lease 17 acres of ocean from the state of Maine to grow mussels, kelp and they have just begun experimenting with scallops.
March 8, 2019 — Alaska Rep. Don Young (R) introduced the Keep Fin Fish Free Act in early May, a bill that that would prohibit federal agencies from authorizing commercial finfish aquaculture operations in the Federal Exclusive Economic Zone unless specifically authorized by Congress.
The seafood industry is critical to Alaska’s economy, and we must be doing all we can to protect the health and integrity of our state’s wild fish stock,” said Young. “If not properly managed, industrial aquaculture operations threaten Alaska’s unique ecosystem with non-native and genetically modified fish species.
There is only one federally regulated offshore aquaculture producer currently in operations in the United States — Catalina Sea Ranch, which produces 2 million pounds of mussels a year in a 100-acre site six miles off the coast of California. But plans to establish new marine finfish operations have been discussed off and on for years.
April 26, 2019 — Think of the dangers climate change poses to animals, and you’ll likely picture skinny polar bears or cliff-diving walruses (collective sob). But it turns out that our overheating planet is actually wreaking the most havoc on creatures out of our sight: marine life.
Sea animals like crabs, lobster, and fish are dying off at twice the rate of land animals, according to a study published in Nature on Wednesday.
The researchers looked at more than 400 cold-blooded animals on land and sea, including lizards, dragonflies, lobsters, and mussels. They found that creatures that people rely on for food (fish, mollusks, shellfish) are among the most vulnerable, especially in the developing world, where many rely on them for a regular protein source.
January 7, 2019 — When it comes to fishery management controversy never seems to be too far away. Last month you may have read about the dubious nature of a decision by the New England Fishery Management Council to close a large area of Nantucket Shoals to fishermen who harvest surf clams there, ostensibly to protect fish habitat. Questionable actions such as these undermine industry confidence in fishery regulators and serve only to alienate, and embitter, fishermen and the many others on the waterfront whose livelihoods are threatened by such draconian measures. With respect to protecting fish habitat allow me to quote from NOAA Fisheries’ own web site (fishwatch.gov) which bills itself as ‘U.S. Seafood Facts.’ The salient quote, with respect to the Atlantic surfclam, spissula solidissima, is this: “Fishing gear used to harvest surfclams has minimal impacts on habitat.” In spite of this fact these traditional grounds have now been designated as essential fish habitat and clamming is banned there indefinitely. NOAA also tells us that surfclams support a valuable fishery. Well, come April 9 it will not be nearly as valuable for those who participate in the harvest and that includes fishermen and shore workers in New Bedford, Gloucester and Bristol, Rhode Island where Galilean Seafood employs around 120 people in this fishery.
“There were five areas out there where we harvested our clams and the two areas with the most historical tows are the ones they closed,” Alan Rencurrel told me. Alan knows surf calms. He owns Nantucket Sound Seafood in New Bedford where the clams he catches are hand shucked. “If you steam ’em open they get chewy,” he said. He’s been fishing on the Shoals since 1992. “And there were boats out there before me.”
He also played me some high-resolution video, taken from a dredge-mounted camera, showing the sea bed in the area known as the Rose and Crown, the largest of the areas to be closed. There were no fish, rocks or cobble to be seen, just a solitary skate, on a sandy bottom littered with old mussel shells. “We can’t tow over rocky bottom like a scallop dredge,” he told me. It’s too hard on the gear and anyway clams prefer sand bottom, he said. Conversely, groundfish such as cod and haddock are found on hard bottom.
December 10, 2018 — A regulatory board is allowing shellfish harvesting in a key management area off of New England, though more monitoring of the fishery will now apply.
The New England Fishery Management Council has approved new measures to allow the harvest of surfclams within the Great South Channel Habitat Management Area. The council says mussel fishermen will also be able to operate in the new areas.
The council says it wants fishermen and researchers to work together to get a better idea of where surfclams can be harvested without disturbing sensitive undersea habitat.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at Maine Public
December 5, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:
The New England Fishery Management Council has signed off on new measures that will allow surfclam fishermen to continue fishing within strictly defined boundaries inside the Great South Channel Habitat Management Area (HMA). Increased monitoring provisions will apply. Mussel fishermen also will be able to fish in the new areas. The measures are included in the Council’s Clam Dredge Framework, which is a trailing action to Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat (EFH) Amendment 2, often referred to as OHA2.
The amendment was implemented April 9, 2018 and prohibited the use of mobile bottom-tending gear within the HMA. However, the surfclam fishery was granted a one-year exemption to continue operating in all but the northeast corner of the area. This exemption expires April 9, 2019. If the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS, NOAA Fisheries) approves and implements the Clam Dredge Framework, surfclam and mussel fishermen will be granted long-term exemptions under certain restrictions for the following subareas:
In addition, the Habitat Plan Development Team (PDT) will work with industry to prioritize research needs for two other sub-areas:
Once prioritized research needs are identified for Rose and Crown and Zone D, the Council’s intent is that fishermen and researchers will work collaboratively toward obtaining exempted fishing permits for these sub-areas to better define where concentrations of surfclams can be harvested without disturbing sensitive habitat. The Council said this research potentially could lead to the development of additional exemptions in the future.
Read the full release at the New England Fishery Management Council
November 14, 2018 — BRUSSELS — The United States and Europe may one day put aside their differences on trade, eliminate tariffs on industrial goods and work together to rein in their common economic adversary, China.
But for Cecilia Malmstrom, the European trade commissioner, the most urgent task is to produce quick results, however humble, that will keep an impatient President Trump from imposing even more drastic penalties on European imports than the tariffs his administration has already levied.
So when Ms. Malmstrom meets in Washington on Wednesday with her American counterpart, Robert E. Lighthizer, she will count it as a substantial victory if she can lower the barriers hindering one bit of trans-Atlantic commerce: oysters.
The United States and Europe have long banned the importing of each other’s shellfish. But a deal to ease trade on that front has been in the works for several years and could be dressed up by both sides as a success that helps smooth relations with the White House.
Shellfish may seem like an odd focus for negotiators, but exports from the United States are worth about $1.7 billion a year. And international trade in clams, mussels, oysters and scallops — all of which are shipped live by air — is growing.
The emphasis on mollusks also illustrates a strategy that officials in Brussels hope will prevent Mr. Trump from acting on a threat to impose steep tariffs on European cars, a potentially devastating blow to the European economy.
Read the full story at The New York Times
October 26, 2018 — Some seafood caught in North Carolina may not be safe to eat in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence.
Florence made landfall in Wrightsville Beach on Sept. 14. It was a Category 1 storm at landfall, and the storm moved extremely slowly–dumping dozens of inches of rain on many parts of North Carolina.
Florence dumped 8 trillion gallons of water on North Carolina. That’s enough to fill Falls Lake more than 70 times.
The influx of water turned creeks and streams into whitewater rapids that picked up everything in their paths.
The polluted runoff spilled into the Cape Fear River and Neuse River, then into the Pamlico Sound, and finally into the Atlantic Ocean.
The runoff forced North Carolina’s Department of Marine Fisheries to order a blanket ban on harvesting any shellfish off the coast. Months after the storm, miles of coastline remain off limits.
Wildlife most vulnerable to the pollution are filter feeders like clams, mussels and oysters.
October 1, 2018 — WOODS HOLE, Mass. — Scientists from the Northeast Fisheries Science Center say that offshore wind energy construction could affect the behavior of Black Sea Bass.
Black Sea Bass live up and down the east coast from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, providing a significant ecological and economic importance.
The fish are also attracted to structurally complex habitats, often found around rocky reefs, mussel beds, cobble and rock fields, and artificial habitats like shipwrecks.
Scientists, commercial and recreational fisherman have expressed their concerns about how the sounds that come with the development of offshore wind energy overlapping with the natural habitats of Black Sea Bass.
Read the full story at CapeCod.com
September 19, 2018 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program has given a grant of USD 267,440 (EUR 229,165) to a Maine, U.S.A.-based nonprofit Manomet in order to work on creating a fishery for invasive European green crabs.
The grant will allow Manomet to expand its project on creating a new economic opportunity out of soft-shell green crabs in New England. The green crab, a species that is invasive to New England, has been present for more than a hundred years and has recently expanded in numbers to the point it is putting pressure on local species.
That pressure has contributed to record low landings of caught and farmed mussels, and also threatens Maine’s softshell clam industry.
Manomet has already launched efforts to galvanize efforts on commercializing green crabs. On 6 and 7 June, the organization hosted a “Green Crab Working Summit” in Portland, Maine, to bring together various experts to discuss commercialization of the species.
Read the full story at Seafood Source