Saving Seafood

What can researchers learn by eavesdropping on fish?

July 17, 2019 — Oyster reef restoration provides important benefits, such as stabilizing shorelines, filtering water, and providing habitat for estuarine fish. However, quantifying fish use of restored oyster reefs can be difficult. Traditional sampling methods do not record all fish species and are often conducted only intermittently. As a result, fish diversity and resulting conservation and restoration decisions often rely on incomplete “snapshots” in time.

Luckily, many  and invertebrates make sounds to communicate, navigate, and feed, providing the opportunity to “listen in” to learn about what species are present, when they are present, and what behaviors they exhibit on restored reefs.

Passive acoustic recording offers a non-destructive method to gather data on species of ecological and economic importance that traditional sampling misses. This information is vital for understanding fish behavior, including when and where certain species are spawning—a key to conservation and for establishing targets for habitat restoration.

Researchers at NC State University monitored oyster cultch reefs for two years following restoration, using a combination of traditional net and trap fish sampling and underwater acoustic surveys. In North Carolina, oyster cultch reefs are constructed primarily to provide oysters for harvest, and the NC State team wanted to determine their value as fish habitat, which is currently unknown.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

MAINE: State rejects group’s petition to change aquaculture lease process

July 17, 2019 — The Department of Marine Resources rejected a petition to change the criteria for aquaculture lease applications on the basis that the request was “not realistic,” “arbitrary” and could have a “perverse outcome” for some applicants.

Meanwhile, the company pitching a 40-acre oyster aquaculture lease on Maquoit Bay continues to await the department’s decision on its application, which is now two months overdue.

A group known as Save Maquoit Bay, composed of coastal property owners, lobstermen and fishermen, submitted a 189-signature petition asking officials to include a stipulation requiring the department to consider whether any other locations near a proposed lease site could “accommodate the proposed activities while interfering less with existing and surrounding uses of an area.”

The petition requested the actions to be imposed statewide, Mere Point Oyster Co.’s proposed 10-year, 40-acre lease has been mired in controversy. A marathon three-day hearing that spanned several months wrapped up in mid-January after waterfront property owners and lobster fishermen spoke out against what they saw as conflicting uses of the bay and the potential infringement on valuable lobstering grounds. Some of the lobstermen who spoke out against the lease also are members of Save Maquoit Bay.

The department had 120 days to make a ruling, which would have been May 15, but according to Jeff Nichols, communications director of the department of marine resources, “depending on the complexity of the application and the evidence, it may take longer.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

With more storm flooding expected, Louisiana and Mississippi fishermen seek aid

July 10, 2019 — The news just got worse for the commercial fishing industry in Louisiana and Mississippi. Already impacted by oyster mortalities and movement of shrimp to other areas after the Bonnet Carre Spillway opening, the Gulf Coast is expecting flooding due to a tropical storm and likely hurricane this weekend.

A weather system in the Gulf could form as a tropical depression or tropical storm this week, and then hit the Gulf Coast as a Category 1 hurricane on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.

Already, the tropical system caused flash flooding in New Orleans, and the Mississippi River in New Orleans is forecast to crest near 20 feet this Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.

The Mississippi and Louisiana fishing industries are already plagued by Mississippi River flooding. The flooding caused the opening of the Bonnet Carre Spillway more than 100 days ago, causing freshwater to mix with saltwater, producing toxic algae bloom off the coast of Mississippi and in Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans.

Already, a majority of oysters along the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi are dead, and other seafood species have been impacted.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Louisiana governor: Upriver floods a disaster for fisheries

June 18, 2019 — Louisiana’s governor says floodwaters from the Midwest are severely hurting people who make their living from coastal seafood, so he’s asking the federal government to declare a fisheries disaster for the state.

Floodwaters rushing from the Bonnet Carré Spillway north of New Orleans have killed oysters, hurt fish catches and damaged livelihoods, Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

The fresh water has driven crabs, shrimp and fish out of bays and marshes and into saltier water where they can survive. But oysters are stuck — glued to the bottom.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, we are 9-and-a-half destroyed,” said Brad Robin, whose family controls about 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) of oyster leases in Louisiana waters.

The full impact won’t be known for some time because the spillway, which protects New Orleans’ levees by directing huge amounts of Mississippi River water into usually brackish Lake Pontchartrain, remains open, Edwards said in a letter sent Thursday and released Monday.

If a long-range forecast of little rain holds up, spillway closing might begin in about four weeks, Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Matt Roe said Monday.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

MAINE: Smaller oyster farmers cry foul as red tide shuts them down. Meanwhile, larger harvesters can test and reopen.

June 12, 2019 — Ask Dave Hunter of Snow Island Oysters, grown in Quahog Bay, and he’ll tell you: the perfect oyster is 2 ½ to 3 inches long. That’s the length oyster dealers and customers are looking for, he said Monday.

“It’s, ‘Chew, chew, swallow,’” Hunter said.

“I usually tell the guys 2 ½ to 3 ½,” Ray Trombley, who buys American oysters at Casco Bay Shellfish in Brunswick, said Tuesday. “They’re not worth as much if they get any bigger. As a buyer, I like that size, and so does the market I sell to, and they sell to restaurants in Portland.”

But as of June 5, more than 200 of Maine’s smaller oyster farmers were temporarily out of business after PSP (paralytic shellfish poisoning) — a biotoxin known as red tide — was detected off Basin Point in Harpswell, the islands in Middle Bay, and Christmas Cove Landing in South Bristol, according to records from the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

State officials closed areas to oyster harvesting near the Bristol peninsula and, approximately, from Phippsburg to Cape Elizabeth.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Growth of Maine oyster farming prompts debate, disputes about aquaculture

May 23, 2019 — A short line of black floating tubes comes into view rounding Hopkins Island in Cundy’s Harbor. While they’re large enough for passing boaters and fishermen to spot, they don’t rise out of the water much higher than a lobster buoy. This is one of Peter Rand’s aquaculture leases.

He’s among the hundreds in Maine getting involved in the burgeoning aquaculture industry that has pumped millions into the state’s economy, but is under fire from lobstermen who compete for the same fishing grounds and homeowners who don’t want to see aquaculture sites from their waterfront properties.

With the situation coming to a head,  the Department of Marine Resources began the process at a meeting Wednesday of examining whether it should amend its rules to limit the size and location of aquaculture lease sites.

In March, the Department of Marine Resources received a petition with 189 signatures seeking an immediate moratorium on aquaculture leases larger than 10 acres. The petition also sought to create a new rule requiring that regulators consider alternate locations before approving aquaculture leases.

The petition triggered a rule-making process that began with Wednesday’s hearing.

In 2017, Maine aquaculture brought in 2.8 million pounds of oysters – a nearly fivefold increase since 2011 – and had an estimated $13.6 million economic impact.

That number is dwarfed by the landings value of Maine’s most famous shellfish – lobsters. Maine lobster landings were valued at a $484 million in 2018.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Illness Fears Thwart NJ Oyster Colonies That Would Aid Water

May 17, 2019 — The fear of poachers stealing oysters from polluted waters and making consumers sick has long thwarted efforts to grow them in New Jersey and use their natural ability to filter and improve water quality.

A proposed remedy could actually make matters even worse by removing state oversight and potentially causing the very illnesses regulators have long feared, some say.

The bill pending in the state Legislature would allow oyster colonies to be planted in polluted waters for research, water quality improvement or shoreline stabilization purposes. It also would block the state Department of Environmental Protection from regulating the patches, which even the most ardent supporters in the environmental community agree would be going too far.

“We’re throwing the baby out with the clam broth,” said Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.

A state Senate committee was supposed to consider the bill Thursday, but after hearing criticism from both sides, lawmakers agreed to table it for amendments.

No DEP official spoke during the hearing. The department said it would issue a statement later in the day.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

ALASKA: Emerging mariculture industry seeks to streamline permitting

May 6, 2019 — Alaska may be famous for its wild fish, but some are working to make room in the state’s waters for more shellfish, kelp, and crabs on aquatic farms.

Mariculture is a hot topic in fisheries right now. Essentially, mariculture can be defined as the cultivation of plants or animals in controlled saltwater environments, but in Alaska, it doesn’t include finfish, as that’s illegal in the state. So mariculture farmers have stuck to primarily kelp and oysters so far, but they’re starting to get more adventurous.

As of December 2018, 58 aquatic farms were operating in the state along with five hatcheries and seven nurseries, though only 41 of the farms documented production in 2017, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Oysters are still the most widely grown product, though kelp is gaining ground; after the first operations for kelp were permitted in 2016, four farms had produced 16,570 pounds of ribbon and sugar kelp by the following year.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce 

International Collaboration Sheds Light on Ocean Acidification’s Impact on Shellfish

April 10, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Emilien Pousse has been fascinated by the sea since learning to scuba dive with his father. He wasn’t always as keen on computer programming.

Yet here he is, a post-doctoral researcher from France, working to calibrate a computer model that describes the energy budgets of two commercially important shellfish – oysters and surfclams.

But first, he must know more about the consequences of ocean acidification on the metabolism and shell development of these creatures. He’s in the process of conducting those experiments with shellfish experts at the NEFSC Milford Lab.

Back in France, Emilien pursued his master’s degree with a math professor who required students to learn computer modeling skills. While some students enjoyed it, initially Emilien did not. Despite this, his internship advisor convinced him to apply for a Ph.D. project in the marine ecology doctoral program at Université de Bretagne Occidentale in Brest, France, though the project also involved modeling.

After conducting experiments for his dissertation, Emilien persevered in learning computer programming and discovered the dynamic energy budget theory on which his shellfish model is based.

“Little by little, I understood computer modeling,” Emilien says. When he began to see it as a tool to understand how oysters function, learning became easier. “I needed to learn some new skills to understand computer modeling, but it allowed me to learn more about the physiological processes of oysters and other marine animals,” Emilien reflected.

Oysters are a major industry in France. In 2012, a large bloom of Alexandrium minutum, a toxic algae known to cause paralytic shellfish poisoning, caused the oyster fishery in the Bay of Brest to close for several weeks during the summer and led to considerable economic disruption.

This algal bloom inspired Emilien’s doctoral work, which focused on modeling the accumulation of paralytic shellfish toxins in oysters. His dissertation was part of a multidisciplinary project, which engaged marine biologists, policy experts and researchers studying food safety.

While he was wrapping up his dissertation, a group of collaborators from the Milford Lab, led by lab director and shellfish expert Gary Wikfors, visited the university to conduct an experiment. The lab has a 25-year long (and counting) collaborative relationship with researchers in France. A colleague who had previously conducted research in Milford introduced Emilien to the group. Research chemist Shannon Meseck mentioned that she was looking for a post-doctoral researcher to work on a modeling project with shellfish, which was exactly the opportunity that Emilien had been looking for.

While driving home from that meeting, he weighed whether to apply for the job. The opportunity would mean moving thousands of miles away from home for two years. Ultimately, the excitement of coming to the United States and working with scientists in Milford won out. Emilien knew the project would allow him to grow as a researcher, flex his computer modeling skills, and expand his knowledge to understand the effects of ocean acidification. He was also excited to experience American culture and live close to New York City.

Although Emilien is currently studying the Eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, a native of the US East Coast, he admits his favorite oyster to eat is the European flat oyster, Ostrea edulis. No matter the species, he likes to eat oysters on the half shell, with a little bit of vinegar and shallots. Emilien hopes the results of his research will help shellfish growers plan and be resilient in the face of a changing ocean.

Story originally posted by NOAA Fisheries 

Maryland legislators increase protection for oyster sanctuaries in 5 Bay tributaries

April 1, 2019 — Oyster sanctuaries in five Chesapeake Bay tributaries selected by Maryland for large-scale restoration projects will get an extra level of protection from commercial harvest under legislation approved in Annapolis this week.

Maryland lawmakers gave final approval Wednesday to a bill that requires legislative approval to alter the sanctuaries where major reef restoration work is either completed, under way or planned. It now goes to Gov. Larry Hogan.

The bill, backed by the General Assembly’s leadership and by environmental groups, passed the Senate by a vote of 32 to 14. The House had approved it nearly two weeks earlier, 98 to 40.

Alison Prost, Maryland executive director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, issued a statement hailing its passage.

“This legislation is crucial to the recovery of Maryland’s oyster population,” she said, adding that the bivalves are the foundation of the Bay ecosystem. They filter the water, and the reefs they build with their shells provide habitat for fish, crabs and other aquatic creatures.

As part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, Maryland pledged nearly five years ago to restore oyster populations in five of its Bay tributaries by 2025. Restoration is essentially complete in Harris Creek and in various stages of construction or planning in the other four — the Tred Avon, Little Choptank, St. Mary’s and Manokin rivers.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal