Saving Seafood

Brad Warren & Julia Sanders: Washington’s Initiative 1631 will help fight ocean acidification

November 2, 2018 — We write today to announce our support for Washington’s Initiative 1631. As businesses who rely on healthy fisheries for a significant portion of our income, we believe this is a well-designed policy that offers us – and our customers – the best possible chance against an uncertain future fraught with the threats of changing ocean conditions.

It’s become clear that our fisheries need a lifeline. Here in Washington, we are experiencing the worst ocean acidification anywhere in the world. Research has firmly established the cause of this problem: emissions from burning coal, oil and gas mix into the ocean, altering its chemistry. The consequences loomed into headlines a decade ago when the oyster industry lost millions and nearly went out of business during the oyster seed crisis. Temporary and limited adaptation measures in hatcheries are keeping them in business, but in the rest of the oceans, fisheries that put dinner on billions of tables are at risk. Here in the Northwest, harvests are already being eroded and even shut down by the effects of unchecked carbon emissions.

The “warm blob,” an unprecedented marine heatwave off the West Coast, reached its height in 2015 and caused mass fatalities. In the Columbia River, a quarter-million salmon died. The largest recorded toxic algae bloom shut down the Dungeness crab fishery for months. The food web crashed, and marine creatures were spotted farther north than ever before. Sea surface temperatures never returned to their previous norm, and new research indicates another blob is forming.

Summers have become synonymous with a smoky haze from wildfires causing poor visibility and poor health – this summer the National Weather Service warned even healthy adults in some Washington areas to stay indoors due to hazardous air quality. At the same time, our iconic orca whales are starving from a lack of Chinook salmon. The Chinook in turn are suffering from a lack of the zooplankton that juveniles eat.

Research has made it clear that some of our most lucrative fisheries are vulnerable to ocean acidification: king crab, Dungeness crab, and salmon. Scientists also warm that combining stressors – like warming with ocean acidification – makes survival in the ocean all the more precarious.

Read the full op-ed at Seafood Source

 

Some North Carolina seafood unsafe to eat after Hurricane Florence

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.

Read the full story at ABC 11

Omega 3 fatty acids found in seafood tied to healthy aging

October 24, 2018 — People may be more likely to age without health problems when they have more omega 3 fatty acids in their blood, a recent study suggests.

The study authors focused on so-called healthy aging, or the number of years people live without developing disabilities or physical or mental health problems. They examined data on 2,622 adults who were 74 years old on average, following them from 1992 to 2015. Only 11 percent of participants experienced healthy aging throughout the entire study period.

“We found that older adults who had higher levels of omega 3 from seafood were more likely to live longer and healthier lives,” said lead study author Heidi Lai of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston.

“These findings support current national dietary guidelines to consume more seafood,” Lai said by email.

Adults should get about eight ounces a week of seafood, ideally by eating it twice a week in place of meats, poultry or eggs, according to U.S. dietary guidelines. Some options that are high in omega 3s include salmon, anchovies, herring, shad, sardines, oysters, trout and Atlantic or Pacific mackerel.

Read the full story at Reuters

 

‘Aquaculture’s Next Wave’ Explores How Maine Entrepreneurs Are Navigating Changing Seas

October 2, 2018 — This week we’re taking a deep dive into aquaculture and its potential to add real value to the state’s coastal economies. In “Aquaculture’s Next Wave” we will meet the innovators who are trying to take seafood farming to a new level in Maine.

Worldwide, aquaculture now provides more than half the world’s seafood. Yet here in the U.S. and in Maine, it’s far behind wild caught harvest. At the same time, we in the U.S. import roughly 90 percent of our seafood. For some investors and entrepreneurs, including Maine lobstermen, that spells opportunity.

Maine Public reporter Fred Bever spoke with Morning Edition host Irwin Gratz about aggressive exploration of new technologies and new markets for farmed seafood.

Gratz: Why is aquaculture important right now?

Bever: It’s because marine ecosystems and economies are being disrupted. Actively farming fish, shellfish, even seaweed — that can be a hedge against disruption and, long term, maybe the most profitable response. There’s a growing set of Maine visionaries who are pursuing that.

The planet’s oceans are always in flux and wild harvests have long been vulnerable to natural variation and overfishing, right?

Yes, but with the oceans warming, the dynamics are accelerating, and that’s nowhere more true than in the Gulf of Maine.

Scientists say the Gulf is warming faster than 99 percent of the world’s oceans, correct?

That’s almost a truism now. We’ve seen epic disruptions in recent decades — the crash of cod, fisheries for marine shrimp, for urchin and now herring are all restricted, lobster populations are making a slow march ever north and east following the warming trends.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Plans for second-largest oyster farm in US state of Maine runs into resistance

September 27, 2018 — An effort to launch what would be the second-largest oyster farm in the US state of Maine is running into some resistance, the Portland Press Herald reports.

Doug Niven and Dan Devereaux, owners of The Mere Point Oyster Co., in Brunswick, have planned a 40-acre oyster farm in Maquoit Bay, consolidating 26 aquaculture licenses to produce about 5 million oysters annually.

The bay is about 3,000 acres and the Maine Department of Marine Resources limit for aquaculture farms is 100 acres. A site review shows the farm unlikely to affect boat traffic or hinder lobster harvesters and bait fishermen.

But some residents, calling themselves the Maquoit Preservation Group, attended a meeting of the Brunswick Town Council last week to voice concerns about the proposal, including especially the impact on the environment and the amount of noise produced by the oyster tumbler. One resident compared the oyster sorting machine to having a cement mixer on the water. They say they were surprised to learn of the size of the farm, as most other oyster farms in the area are just five to 10 acres.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Residents alarmed by proposed expansion of Maine shellfish farm

September 17, 2018 — ELIOT, Maine — Frustrated residents from the Eliot and Kittery sides of Spinney Creek appeared before the Select Board Thursday night, seeking recourse about their concerns of the proposed expansion of Spinney Creek Shellfish.

Spinney Creek Shellfish, at 27 Howell Drive in Eliot, is applying to the Maine Department of Marine Resources to obtain a three-year aquaculture lease on 3.67 acres of Spinney Creek, a salt pond between Eliot and Kittery off the Piscataqua River. The new lease is for raising oysters and littleneck clams (quahogs) in suspended cages.

The residents have discovered Eliot and Kittery’s boards have no control over aquaculture in the pond.

Roberta Place of Spring Lane on Spinney Creek said residents of 50 households bordering the creek are concerned about the creek’s health.

“I have lived there a long time. I used to swim there with a wet suit. Now the temperature in the creek is 74 degrees,” she said.

She said she thought oysters are supposed to clean water, but added that the eelgrass in front of house has disappeared.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Our Coast’s History: NC’s Oyster War

August 29, 2018 — Late January 1891, the steamer Vesper, rented from the Wilmington Steamship Co. and mounted with a well-used howitzer and caisson borrowed from the state of Virginia, left Elizabeth City with militiamen of the Pasquotank Rifles. Their mission: To enforce “An Act to Promote and Protect the Oyster Interests of the State” that had been passed barely a week earlier.

After three years of growing tension between North Carolina oystermen and vessels drifting down from Chesapeake Bay to harvest oysters in Pamlico and Roanoke sounds, North Carolina’s legislature had acted, creating a list of draconian restrictions on the harvest that prohibited dredging and allowed only in-state residents to gather oysters.

Tasked with telling the oyster poachers — mostly from Maryland — of the new law, as conflicts go, the North Carolina oyster war wasn’t much of a war, the rhetoric far outstripping the action.

“As she (the Vesper) proceeds on the return trip if any dredgers are found continuing to ravish the oyster beds they will be arrested, even if their boats have to be blown out of the water and their crews killed,” the Wilmington Weekly Star wrote.

In the end, the Vesper made one arrest, with other boats heeding the warning and leaving North Carolina waters.

Although short-lived and bloodless, what occurred on the water was but a part of an intersection of changing priorities in northeastern North Carolina.

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online 

 

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford, the city of oysters? City Council wants to explore that idea

August 17, 2018 — In many ways, the city is the mecca for scallops. Now, Dana Rebeiro wants to expand that to oysters.

The Ward 4 councilor filed a written motion Thursday asking the Committee on Fisheries to help draft an ordinance that Mayor Jon Mitchell’s administration has been crafting regarding aquaculture permits.

The permits would allow fishermen to begin growing oysters as part of the city’s movement toward aquaculture.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Demand for Maine oysters continues to skyrocket

August 16, 2018 — Maine’s cold-water oysters are a hot item on the regional shellfish market, and market research shows the industry will be able to continue expanding well into the future.

Demand for oysters is expected to continue its rise, outpacing the state’s supply through 2026, according to a report delivered to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s Aquaculture Program by an outside consulting firm.

“There has been a lot of investment going into Maine’s oyster farms recently, both in existing operations and new leases,” said Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association. “And these new leases are typically being tended by either members of working waterfront families or commercial fishermen themselves, either shifting out of another fishery or looking to diversify their income.”

Oyster farming has become a popular option for fishermen nearing retirement age who have the boat skills and knowledge to be successful but are looking to move away from the physical tolls of fishing.

For decades Maine’s oyster operations were focused on the Damariscotta River, but they’ve spread out in recent years. Oyster operations can now be found anywhere along the coast from the Canadian to New Hampshire borders. With a growing variance in farm locations comes a diversity in taste, a boon for increasing markets.

Maine is in the process of approving a minimum harvest size for American oysters — 2.5 inches with a 10 percent tolerance — in order to increase the average quality on the market.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Southern Maryland county considers limiting dock access for oyster farmers

August 7, 2018 — Oyster farming has grown rapidly in Maryland in recent years — too rapidly, in the eyes of some. Last week, spurred by complaints from waterfront homeowners and others, local elected officials in St. Mary’s County moved to put the brakes on the burgeoning industry along their shoreline.

The Southern Maryland county’s board of commissioners voted on July 31 to hold a public hearing on Aug. 28 on a proposed 18-month moratorium on the use of commercial docks to land oysters from any newly issued aquaculture leases in local waters.

Randy Guy, president of the five-member board of commissioners, said they want to “slow down” what he called a proliferation of oyster farming operations in St. Mary’s. The county has no direct role in the approval of state-issued aquaculture leases, so they’re looking to change that by asserting local zoning control over the use of docks and marinas that support the shellfish enterprises.

“We’ve got people coming in who are not involved in the local water culture,” Guy said, noting that some of those seeking leases don’t live in St. Mary’s. “We feel some of this is restricting recreational areas and causing hazards for boating. … I’m worried about an accident happening.”

He and other commissioners — three of whom own waterfront homes — have said they’re also concerned about the aesthetics and impacts on property values from cages or floating baskets of oysters in front of waterfront homes. And at least a couple contend homeowners should have a say in whether they’re permitted.

Read the full story at the Bay Journal