Saving Seafood

The next time you enjoy Mississippi seafood, celebrate the people who brought it to you

October 27, 2017 — October is National Seafood Month, and there’s no better place to celebrate seafood than right here in the Magnolia State.

What Mississippi may lack in coastline length, it more than makes up for in seafood heritage and pride. Popular delights like oysters, shrimp, flounder and blue crabs — just to name a few — are all pulled from the briny waters off our coast and shipped fresh to seafood lovers across the state and this great nation.

The Mississippi seafood industry had a profound impact on the Gulf Coast by establishing itself as a diverse immigrant community that led it to be called the “Seafood Capital of the World” as far back as 1869. In 1890 alone, local canneries reportedly processed 2 million pounds of oysters and 614,000 pounds of shrimp. Twelve years later, those numbers had skyrocketed as 12 canneries reported a combined catch of nearly 6 million pounds of oysters and 4.4 million pounds of shrimp.

Over the years, Slovenians, Cajuns, Eastern Europeans and Vietnamese are among those who came to Mississippi for its seafood bounty, its canning industry and its promise of opportunity for all.

Read the full story at the Sun Herald

 

NORTH CAROLINA: Federation Nets Grant for Oyster Restoration

September 20, 2017 — The North Carolina Coastal Federation has received $1.088 million in funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to continue its oyster restoration work in Pamlico Sound. Construction on the second phase of the project is slated to begin in January.

This is the second year the federation has received funding from NOAA’s Community-based Restoration Program for its oyster restoration work. Last year, it was awarded a $1.275 million grant. By the end of the three-year period, the federation could receive up to $3.8 million for oyster reef construction. This funding supports the federation’s goal to build 50 acres of oyster reef statewide through its 50 Million Oyster Initiative.

Matching state budget appropriations from the North Carolina General Assembly have helped the federation receive this federal grant funding in 2016 and 2017. When combined with existing state funding, the budget provides $1.3 million to continue work on the Sen. Jean Preston Oyster Sanctuary Network.

Read the full story at Coastal Review Online

TEXAS: Gulf Oysterman Displays Heroics During Hurricane Harvey Flooding

September 11, 2017 — Sitting in his Kemah, TX home on Galveston Bay, Raz Halili was sure the small tropical storm named Harvey hovering off the coast of Texas was of little concern. A week later with his family’s oyster damaged, shrimp boats sunk, fishermen’s homes underwater or destroyed he realized his miscalculations on the impact of Hurricane Harvey.

Halili, a Board Member of the Gulf Seafood Foundation, considers himself lucky. Although the family oyster business, Prestige Oysters, suffered damage to both buildings and docks, his family was safe and houses stayed dry.

Worst Flood in U.S. History

“The small tropical storm that everyone thought was going to be no big deal turned into the worse flooding disaster in U.S. history of our country,” said the Galveston oysterman. “It is just devastating when viewed first hand. But there was a silver lining. In this time of need our community came together to help each other without regard to race, religion or political views. This is Texas spirit and the true character of America.”

While Harvey was dumping more than 30 inches of rain on the Houston area, Halili and his cousins, Gezim Halili, an oyster boat captain for the family business and Fatmir Halili, took to jet skis to perform water rescues as floodwaters rose in Dickerson, Friendswood and Port Arthur.

“We would leave the house in the early morning, do water rescues for more than 12 hours and then come back to relocate our refrigerated trucks from different shelter to keep food from spoiling,” he said. “We didn’t really count the number of people we ferried from their flooded homes to dry land, it was helping in any way we could.”

One of the most harrowing experiences for Halili’s was rescuing a man who had managed to flip his canoe in the middle of a rushing creek while trying to get back to his flooded house in Houston. “We managed to scoop him up, but it’s a great possibility if we weren’t there he wouldn’t have survived,” said the Jet Ski hero.

Read the full story at the Gulf Seafood Foundation

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