Saving Seafood

Feds give N.J. $1M to protect South Jersey wetlands

February 26, 2021 — More than 500 acres of wetland habitat near the Jersey Shore is in line to be protected, thanks to a $1 million grant from the federal government.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would award the funds to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres Program to help pay for the acquisition and permanent protection of 517 acres in Atlantic and Cape May counties.

The federal agency declined to give a specific location for the tract, but said it is adjacent to the state’s Tuckahoe Wildlife Management Area.

The total cost of the project is expected to reach $1,492,000, according to the USFWS. That leaves nearly $500,000 to be matched by the state and any local conversation groups that are partnering in the effort.

The property is part of the Great Egg Harbor estuary, which includes a variety of wetland habitats, from barrier islands and back bays to mud flats and forested areas. The area is critical for the survival of various fish and shellfish, plus hundreds of species of birds, including the threatened red knot.

Read the full story at NJ.com

UK seafood disruption support extended to shellfish, aquaculture sectors

February 24, 2021 — Seafood and aquaculture businesses previously omitted from the United Kingdom’s Seafood Disruption Support Scheme are now able to apply for some of the GBP 23 (USD 32.4 million, EUR 26.7 million) financial aid after the government extended the scheme.

The country-wide fund, initially announced on 19 January, is intended to provide financial assistance to businesses that suffered a financial loss because of delays related to the export of fresh or live fish and shellfish to the E.U. during January.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

REPORT: CLIMATE CHANGE A MAJOR THREAT TO RECREATIONAL FISHING

February 24, 2021 — A new report by fly fishing industry leaders brings to light what scientists have long known: that fishing is suffering from the effects of climate change—and offers solutions.

The American Fly Fishing Trade Association and its nonprofit AFFTA Fisheries Fund released the report last week, which acknowledges, “Climate change is significantly affecting ocean ecosystems, the abundance and distribution of fish, and the nature of saltwater fishing.”

AFFTA sees the effects of climate change and overfishing as principal threats to fisheries that the fly-fishing industry has long fought to address. This blue-ribbon report offers a systematic approach to strengthen marine fisheries conservation and management, support recreational fisheries, and lead to more abundant marine fisheries in all U.S. ocean waters.

Though the report looks at these issues on a national scale, it offers many recommendations that apply to the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, from warming of upland coldwater brook trout streams to effects on oyster shells and loss of shoreline habitats. One particularly applicable example is the report’s commitment to work with coastal states to increase the size and distribution of seagrass beds, by improving water quality and planting grasses. It notes that coastal ecosystems like marshes and grassbeds are capable of absorbing carbon at rates up to four times those of forests on land.

Read the full story at Chesapeake Bay Magazine

As water temperatures rise, Rutgers scientists breed tougher shellfish

February 23, 2021 — Over the last half-century, global sea surface temperatures have been on the rise, but in the last decade they have increased at an accelerated rate.

New Jersey’s coastal waters, both along the Atlantic Coast and Delaware Bay, have been no exception. More alarming, recent research indicates that sea surface temperatures in the Northeast are warming two to three times faster than the global average. For instance, in 2012, water temperatures in the Mid-Atlantic reached the highest levels ever seen in over 150 years of recorded observations.

This rapid increase in water temperature is already influencing New Jersey’s marine species. Breeding habits, ranges and growth rates are adjusting as the environment in which they have evolved to thrive has changed at an unnatural pace. For the commercial fishermen and women whose livelihoods depend on the state’s fishery, particularly those who are only just beginning to experiment with shellfish aquaculture, warmer waters mean higher operational risk.

A new study from the Rutgers University Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory, which has been monitoring New Jersey’s shellfish stocks for more than a century, is working to combat the impacts of climate change by selectively breeding bay scallops and surf clams that can grow faster and tolerate higher water temperatures.

Read the full story at NJ Spotlight News

Brexit: UK fishermen fear losing their homes as export ban bites

February 22, 2021 — Since 1 January, the European Union has stopped British fishermen from selling oysters, scallops, clams, cockles and mussels, known as live bivalve molluscs (LBM), that are caught in so-called “Class B” waters.

The government says it is seeking an “urgent resolution”, while the European Commission told Sky News the ban, on health grounds, applies to all third countries and “is not a surprise” to the UK.

The Sailors Creek Shellfish company in Falmouth, Cornwall, has seen 99% of its business disappear.

Read the full story at SkyNews

MASSACHUSETTS: Task force: State needs shelllfish lab

February 19, 2021 — The Massachusetts Shellfish Initiative has developed a five-year strategic plan that could overhaul the management of the state’s shellfish resources, including a recommendation for a dedicated state shellfish laboratory.

The 2021-2025 strategic plan, developed by the 21-member MSI Task Force that includes Gloucester Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken, recommends increased public funding for additional staff and resources at the Division of Marine Fisheries. It also seeks more public funds to promote “the economic, environmental and social benefits” of the state’s shellfish resources.

“In many cases existing state and local government resources provide insufficient support to adequately manage the state’s shellfish resources and shellfish fisheries,” the draft of the plan stated.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Court revokes general permit for Washington shellfish growers

February 16, 2021 — A court in the state of Washington ruled in favor of a lawsuit to revoke the Clean Water Act general permit for the state’s shellfish farmers last week, shooting down an appeal by Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association (PCSGA).

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) and the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers last year, and in October of 2019 a federal court upheld the lawsuit, ruling the Corps’ Issuance of Nationwide Permit (NMP) 48 for shellfish farming unlawful.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

UK shellfish sector hit with EU ban

February 5, 2021 — The European Union has put a stop to the import of live bivalve mollusks from the United Kingdom that are not ready for human consumption, plunging the country’s shellfish sector into further uncertainty.

The measure follows on the heels of the challenges caused by new post-Brexit border rules. Historically, U.K. shellfish producers have exported millions of pounds of mussels, scallops, oysters, and other products into E.U. member-states. However, as the U.K. is now a separate country and subject to strict hygiene rules, it is no longer allowed to transport these animals to the E.U. unless they have already been treated in purification plants.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

More management measures lead to healthier fish populations

January 12, 2021 — The study, led by Michael Melnychuk of the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, draws upon the expertise of more than two dozen researchers from 17 regions around the world. The research team analyzed the management practices of nearly 300 fish populations to tease out patterns that lead to healthier fisheries across different locations. Their findings confirmed, through extensive data analysis, what many researchers have argued for several years.

“In general, we found that more management attention devoted to fisheries is leading to better outcomes for fish and shellfish populations,” Melnychuk said. “While this won’t be surprising to some, the novelty of this work was in assembling the data required and then using statistical tools to reveal this pattern across hundreds of marine populations.”

The research team used an international database that is the go-to scientific resource on the status of more than 600 individual fish populations They chose to analyze 288 populations that generally are of value economically and represent a diversity of species and regions. They then looked over time at each fish population’s management practices and were able to draw these conclusions:

  • In regions of the world where fish and shellfish populations are well studied, overall fisheries management intensity has steadily increased over the past half century
  • As fisheries management measures are implemented, fishing pressure is usually reduced toward sustainable levels, and population abundance usually increases toward healthy targets
  • If fish populations become depleted as a result of overfishing, a rebuilding plan may be implemented. These plans tend to immediately decrease fishing pressure and allow populations to recover
  • If strong fisheries management systems are put in place early enough, then overfishing can be avoided and large, sustainable catches can be harvested annually, rendering emergency measures like rebuilding plans unnecessary

Read the full story at Science Daily

In Scotland, the battle for scallops and the future of sustainable fisheries

January 4, 2021 — People enjoy scallops in Oban. “We can’t get enough of them to satisfy demand,” smiles Carol Watt, whose family business has been selling fish for more than a century in the port city of Argyll.

Watt explains how she likes to cook the mollusks: pan-fried and eaten with pancetta, Italian bacon, as a line of masked shoppers forms outside her tiny mustard-yellow shack.

Watt beams with excitement as she shows off a tray of shucked scallops, palm-sized, pale, fleshy slices with the fiery red roe still holding on, which some customers find too spicy, wearing an apron emblazoned with a species-rich school of fish.

In the past, scallops, often referred to simply as “clams” in Scotland, were never so common. In 1960, the Scottish ports landed just sixty tons of the species. There were 15,000 tons in 2019, down 2% from 2018 but still worth almost £ 36 million.

The boom, however, has sparked an often bitter conflict about how scallops, which grow on the seabed, are harvested between environmentalists and the fishing industry.

Some “scallops” are lifted from the sea sustainably by divers, who charge a premium for doing so.

Read the full story at Brinkwire