Saving Seafood

A Bacteria That Thrives In Warmer Waters Keeps Mass. Oyster Fisheries On High Alert

August 31, 2017 — Massachusetts loves its local oysters from places like Wellfleet and Duxbury. The state’s bivalve business is booming along with increased consumer demand. These days there’s no shortage of $1 oyster specials and oyster-centric restaurants around here.

But the ways oysters are harvested and handled have become more involved and challenging since 2013. That’s when bacteria linked to warming waters appeared in our marshes for the first time.

The result was an outbreak of gastrointestinal illness caused by Vibrio Parahaemolyticus — Vp or Vibrio for short. (To be clear, this is different from norovirus, which led to a closure of shellfish beds in Wellfleet last year.)

In response to the Vp bacteria’s emergence in New England, the state implemented a Vibrio Control Plan. Here’s how those state efforts to control bacterial infection have been affecting people in the oyster industry.

‘The Waters Are Warmer Than They Used To Be’

At Select Oyster Bar in Boston, you can find a rotating selection of Massachusetts oysters on-the-half-shell — Moon Shoal petites from Kingston, Ichabods from Plymouth and Wellfleet Puffers.

For about a dozen years Select’s chef-owner Michael Serpa has been serving mollusks in Boston establishments, including the cult-favorite Neptune Oysters in the North End. “I’ve seen a lot of oysters,” he told me, smiling.

Read and listen to the full story at WBUR

With clams under siege, Maine’s Casco Bay is seeing an oyster boom

May 27, 2017 — Two years ago, Dave Hunter floated 200,000 tiny seed oysters in 4-millimeter mesh bags off Snow Island in Quahog Bay.

A full-time Brunswick firefighter, Hunter also worked as caretaker for the island, which had just been purchased by Patrick and Mary Scanlan — and Pat Scanlan wanted to dig some clams.

“Just a few clams out front, but he couldn’t because the bay would be closed each summer because boats would come in [and degrade the water],” Hunter said. “He said, ‘what do we do?’”

One mid-May afternoon, Hunter sped across the calm waters of Quahog Bay and around behind Snow Island before slowing his boat and hauling up a mesh bag full of those same oysters, now about 2½ inches long.

“A ‘cocktail’ might be a two-chew,” he said, pointing to a smaller oyster. “A ‘select’ might be a four-chew.”

Hunter scrubbed them with a brush, then shucked them and passed them around the salty-sweet oysters.

Since that first year, when Scanlan established the Quahog Bay Conservancy and began cleaning up the bay, about 70,000 of the original 200,000 Snow Island Oysters have been sold and shipped as far away as Chicago and Texas. Last year the oyster farmers started another 100,000 seed, and plan to start another 100,000 in July.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

MARYLAND: Oyster sanctuary bill finds support in House of Delegates

March 20, 2017 — The House of Delegates voted 102-39 on Thursday in favor of a bill that would keep intact existing oyster sanctuaries on the Chesapeake Bay, a blow to the commercial fishing industry’s efforts to expand the state’s oyster fisheries.

Supporters and opponents of the bill, named the Oyster Management Plan, are both saying that their solution is best for the long-term health of the bay and its oyster population, which helps clean the Chesapeake by filtering nutrients like excess algae out of the water column.

“(The Oyster Management Plan) protects the fragile progress that has been made to date in recovering oyster populations,” the Chesapeake Bay Foundation said in written testimony to the House Environment and Transportation Committee on Feb. 24. “This bill would in no way impact (the Department of Natural Resource’s) ability to manage the public oyster fishery, including the development of rotational harvest management for public oyster bottom.”

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Oysters help Pensacola waterways and economy after BP spill

March 20, 2017 — Ann Birch is a big fan of oysters — not because of how they taste on crackers with a little cocktail sauce and horseradish  — but because of what they do when they are in their natural environment.

“They are amazing critters,” said Birch, a marine biologist for The Nature Conservancy who is overseeing a major project to restore oyster reefs in parts of Pensacola Bay.

An individual oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, meaning an entire oyster reef works as a cleaning system for all of the surrounding water.

“The reefs also serve as a nursery for shrimp and blue crab and as a feeding ground for many fish species while protecting shorelines from waves and preventing erosion,” she said.

The Nature Conservancy in Florida has a $1.5 million grant for the reef project from the Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund, a $2.5 billion fund created after the 2010 BP Gulf Coast oil spill from legal settlements paid by the British oil giant and others involved in the massive spill.

The group plans to restore 6.5 miles of reefs in Santa Rosa County’s East Bay along the Escribano Point Wildlife Management Area. The $1.5 million will cover the first phase of the project, which includes surveying the existing water quality and wildlife along with design and permitting for construction.

Read the full story at the Pensacola News Journal

N.H. researcher finds new bacteria contaminating oysters

February 15, 2017 — Scientists studying oysters along the Atlantic Coast have discovered a critical clue to understanding why more seafood lovers are getting sick from eating shellfish.

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire have found a new strain of the bacteria Vibrio parahaemolyticus, the world’s leading culprit of contamination in shellfish that, when eaten, causes diarrhea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare cases, people have died from contracting lethal septicemia.

Cheryl Whistler and her colleagues discovered the new strain ST631 and detailed their findings in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology. Previously only one strain of the bacteria was blamed for this type of food poisoning, which Whistler said is on the rise in New England and already is responsible for an estimated 45,000 cases in the U.S. each year.

Whistler said the new strain is endemic to the region but it is unclear how it evolved to become so dangerous. It has similar virulent genes to ST36, the strain long blamed for infections and which is believed to have come from the Pacific Northwest.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Concord Monitor

If oysters are polluted, what about the fish?

February 10, 2017 — The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has sent out a number of releases over the past year about oyster harvesters getting busted pulling up the mollusks from polluted waters. That’s a disturbing trend for consumers who like to like to get a fix on Friday nights from their favorite oyster bars.

But it’s also concerning for South Louisiana’s recreational anglers, who regularly fish the same waters that host polluted reefs. One such bust occurred last month in Hopedale’s Lake Robin, which is heavily fished in the spring, fall and early winter.

But Gordon Leblanc, who administers the molluscan shellfish program for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, said just because an area’s oysters are polluted doesn’t mean its fish necessarily are.

“The water goes through a fish’s gills, and the fish is able to move around,” Leblanc said. “An oyster is a filter-feeder. Everything that passes through him goes through his digestive tract.

Read the full story at The Times-Picaynne

Study specifies benefits of shellfish in Cape water quality plans

February 7, 2017 — Why spend millions of dollars if you don’t have to?

Mashpee is turning to one of the oldest wastewater cleanup technologies on earth – the nitrogen removal systems in oysters and clams – to reduce the cost of federally mandated wastewater cleanup. Orleans, Falmouth, Barnstable, Dennis, Yarmouth, Wellfleet and Edgartown are also either using or considering shellfish for water quality improvement.

But, until recently, towns had to use estimates of how much nitrogen the bivalves actually removed from the water. Now, a study released last month in the online journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, is providing more specific information on the effectiveness of the shellfish-based strategy. As part of the study, Barnstable County, Woods Hole Sea Grant, and University of Massachusetts School of Marine Science and Technology researchers gathered both farmed and wild shellfish from around the Cape and analyzed shells and meats to determine how much nitrogen each contained.

“The study was really done to help local municipalities who are approaching this idea that shellfish might be used for remediation,” said Woods Hole Sea Grant agent Joshua Reitsma, the study’s lead author. “It provides values for that where people were using data from elsewhere, like the Chesapeake.”

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MAINE: January 24th Taunton Bay Oyster Co.,Inc. Aquaculture Public Hearing Postponed Until January 25th

January 24, 2017 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

The DMR public hearing on an application filed by Taunton Bay Oyster Co., Inc. scheduled for Tuesday, January 24, 2017 has been postponed until January 25, 2017 due to weather. The hearing is on an application filed by Taunton Bay Oyster Co., Inc. for a standard aquaculture lease located in Northern Bay, Bagaduce River, Penobscot, for bottom and suspended culture of American/Eastern oysters.

PLEASE NOTE: if the hearing cannot be concluded by a reasonable hour on the 25th, it will be continued to January 31 and, if necessary, February 1, at the same time and location.

The meeting will be held at 6:00 p.m. at the Penobscot Community/Elementary School, 66 North Penobscot Road, Penobscot

Oysters remain king as growers race to meet consumer demand

January 23, 2017 — Demand for oysters continues to trend upward heading into 2017, with production capacity expanding to satiate consumer demand.

According to a panel of bivalve and oyster experts speaking at the National Fisheries Institute’s 2017 Global Seafood Market Conference in San Francisco, California, “the number of oyster growers [is] increasing just to keep up with demand.”

The rate of oyster consumption particularly at restaurants, remains strong, with the popular shellfish serving to elevate complementary species such as mussels, clams and scallops, noted the panel.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alabama’s first Oyster Shell Recycling Program captures ½ million shells; ready for January expansion

December 22, 2016 — GULF SHORES, Ala. — With an anticipated 130,000 pounds of shells to be collected by the end of a productive pilot period, Alabama’s oyster shell recycling program is set to expand into Gulf Shores and Orange Beach restaurants starting in January.

The successful program — the first multi-partner initiative of its kind in the state — is expected to save nearly 600,000 oyster shells from landfill in just nine weeks and return them to Alabama’s reefs as habitat for future oysters.

“This is an excellent program because it creates a positive cycle,” said Mark Berte, Executive Director of the Alabama Coastal Foundation, which designed the program and secured two years of funding from National Fisheries and Wildlife Federation officials.

“The more shells we collect from restaurants, the more opportunity we give new oysters to grow when we put them in the water, which means more oysters for restaurants to sell…and more to recycle,” Berte said.

The program involves weekly pickups from six seafood restaurants in Mobile along the Causeway who otherwise would toss their oyster shells as garbage or discard them somewhere out of the way on property.

Felix’s Fish Camp Grill, for example, used to line the perimeter of their parking lot with oyster shells; in fact, the restaurant became renowned for it on Travelocity and other tourism websites. A shell recycling event on November 31 filled more than 317 bins, weighing nearly 70,000 pounds, from Felix’s property — an estimated 341,092 shells.

“We had lined those along our parking lot so people weren’t driving off into the grass,” said Julius Harbison, General Manager at Felix’s Fish Camp, in Spanish Fort. “They had been there a year or two so they were some already seasoned shells.”

Harbison’s father was an oysterman so he understood the value of the program when ACF first approached the restaurant.

“Our owner asked me and my chef what we thought, and we said it was really a no brainer,” Harbison said. “It doesn’t take a lot of effort as a business, and for me personally, it’s amazing to be able to participate in something like this.”

Read the full story at the Gulf Seafood Institute