Saving Seafood

Texas passes law allowing oyster aquaculture

June 5, 2019 — Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently signed a bill into law establishing a new regulatory framework allowing for oyster aquaculture on the state’s Gulf Coast.

Before passage of House Bill 1300, Texas was the only coastal state in the U.S. that didn’t allow oyster mariculture off its coasts. The new law allows oysters to be raised for their pearls, as well as their shells and meat.

Set to go into effect, the new law requires the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission to adopt rules that would establish a program to regulate the process of growing oysters. Abbott signed the bill into law last month, the last day of the 2019 session of the Texas Legislature.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

How ocean mapping changed the way a seafood giant fishes

June 5, 2019 — North America’s largest shellfish company showcased some of its advanced ocean-mapping technology Tuesday at an Oceans Week conference in Dartmouth, N.S., illustrating how it is making the industry more efficient and sustainable.

Geographic information systems, or GIS, has transformed the way Clearwater Seafoods fishes, said Jim Mosher, the company’s director of harvest science.

Ocean mapping reduced the fuel bill in its offshore lobster fishery by shaving nearly 10,000 kilometres a year in vessel transiting, or movement in the fishing ground, he said.

In the scallop fishery, this technology reveals areas that should be closed because scallops are too young to harvest.

Read the full story at CBC

It’s Time to Be Honest about Seafood

May 28, 2019 — Demand for seafood is increasing across the globe, and the United States is no exception. Aquaculture, or aquatic farming, is increasingly meeting this demand and now supplies just over 50 percent of all seafood globally. In fact, it has been one of the world’s fastest growing food sectors for years.

The U.S. is the largest importer of seafood in the world, and some of Americans’ favorites—including shrimp, salmon and tilapia—are predominantly farmed these days. Yet, we contribute less than 1 percent of the world’s total aquaculture production. This means we rely heavily on other countries to satisfy our appetites for seafood.

If the U.S. does not increase its domestic production of farmed shellfish, seaweed and finfish, the divergence between what we consume and what we contribute to the global seafood market will continue to widen. This gap may make it harder for our seafood diets to be sustainable. It also means the U.S. won’t have a hand in shaping the standards or economies that contribute to the seafood sector as a whole in the future.

A brand-new bill that proposes a moratorium on commercial permits for marine finfish aquaculture facilities in U.S. waters could serve to widen this gap, and it represents another divergence: between public wariness about domestic aquaculture operations and the science showing aquaculture’s potential for sustainable growth.

While wild-caught fisheries have hit “peak fish” domestically and globally, with limited potential for additional sustainable growth, there is mounting scientific evidence that the U.S. could dramatically increase domestic aquaculture production and do so sustainably, as we did with our fisheriesbefore they peaked. And this growth does not have to come at the cost of our wild-caught fisheries or other priorities for our oceans, especially under careful management and planning.

Read the full story at Scientific American

Atlantic scallop haul tops 60 million pounds

May 24, 2019 — The valuable 13-month Atlantic sea scallop 2018 fishing year wrapped up on March 31, with prices strong for final landings. While final data is not yet available, preliminary NOAA estimates for fishing year 2018 show 60.1 million pounds landed.

“This is 107 percent of the projected landings for fishing year 2018, but that does not represent an overage of any type,” said Travis Ford, NOAA’s sea scallops fishery manager.

“At the beginning of the year, the price took a bit of a dive because of the influx of product, but ended up leveling out later in the year,” said Ford.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

National Fish & Seafood revived under new ownership, new name

May 24, 2019 — The assets of Gloucester, Massachusetts, U.S.A.-based National Fish & Seafood (NFS) have been purchased by NSD Seafood, which said in a 22 May announcement it planned to restart production of NFS’ Matlaw’s stuffed clam line and other products.

NFS abruptly closed its doors on 10 May. SeafoodSource first broke the story on 20 May that an unnamed buyer wanted to acquire NFS and resume the company’s operations. On 22 May, NSD Seafood agreed to purchase all of National Fish’s assets and rename the company Atlantic Fish & Seafood, according to the Gloucester Daily Times. The operations team is hoping to begin production within a week at NFS’s former 60,000-square-feet facility in Gloucester.

Nicholas M. Osgood, a principal in NSD Seafood, along with two other partners from the NSDJ Real Estate company that owns NFS’s 159 E. Main St. facility, acquired NFS’s assets, according to the Gloucester Daily Times.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

US kids aren’t eating enough seafood, study says; here’s how to add more

May 21, 2019 — The humble tuna sandwich, once a lunchbox staple, is making less frequent appearances in school cafeterias across the nation. American children are eating relatively little fish and shellfish in comparison to meat, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The report, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, explores both the health benefits and the risks associated with eating what once swam in the sea while informing parents of the safest, most sustainable choices for their children.

Read the full story at CNN

Insight: Scottish fishing industry fears radical measures to protect marine life

May 20, 2019 — Loch Carron is a breathtakingly beautiful spot in the northwest Highlands, surrounded by imposing mountains and nature at its most sublime. Less obvious is the beauty that lies beneath the waves. The area is home to rare marine life with international importance.

The seabed hosts the world’s largest known flame shell bed, with an estimated 250 million of the brightly colored mollusks. The reef provides important habitat and nursery grounds for many other species.

Today is a special day for that sea loch and perhaps also for Scotland. An incident took place here two years ago that has proved a turning point in the way the country’s inshore waters are to be managed.

A fishing crew wreaked havoc on the reef while dredging for scallops, leaving barren scars across the seabed and a trail of smashed up marine life in their wake.

Read the full story at The Scotsman

The future looks bright for Maine’s growing aquaculture industry

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.

Read the full story at WCSH-WLBZ

Just Five Types of Fish Dominate our Fish Counters. It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way.

May 12, 2019 — Dozens of species of fish and shellfish are caught in New England’s waters. But only a handful show up in most seafood retailers. You can probably list them: cod, haddock, scallops, clams, lobster.

Now, it’s not just anecdotal. A citizen science initiative has found that five species dominate at New England seafood counters and that some of the species that are most common out in the ocean are the rarest in our markets.

That’s largely a reflection of our food tastes but it can have ecological – as well as economic – ramifications.

So, Eating with the Ecosystem – the group that ran the citizen science project – has also released a cookbook to help us enjoy a greater diversity of seafood. It’s called Simmering the Sea: Diversifying Cookery to Sustain Our Fisheries.

Read the full story at WCAI

Amid aquaculture boom, report guides investors toward sustainability

May 9, 2019 — Aquaculture, the commercial farming of finfish like salmon, shellfish and seaweed, has exploded over the past 30 years, becoming a nearly $250-billion industry globally. More than half of all seafood now comes from farms, and that percentage is projected to rise if the human population expands, as expected, to 9.7 billion people over the next 30 years. However, environmental problems currently bedevil the aquaculture industry and a consensus on the most sustainable practices has yet to emerge.

A new report released May 8, “Towards a Blue Revolution,” aims to guide the private sector, NGOs and policymakers toward better aquaculture strategies that can both meet the growing global seafood demand and operate “in harmony with ocean ecosystems.”

“Transforming how we produce seafood through strategic investment in innovative, more sustainable production methods may ultimately represent the difference between a healthy, abundant, and profitable food system, and one that degrades the environment, destroys value, and fails to meet the growing food security challenge,” the report states.

Published by the Virginia-based environmental non-profit the Nature Conservancy and the New York-based impact investment firm Encourage Capital, the report urges the seafood industry to shift away from “business as usual” aquaculture practices. It argues that equally lucrative and more sustainable forms of aquaculture exist that investors would do well to nurture.

Read the full story at Mongabay