Saving Seafood

Virginia Tech study shows consumer behavior pandemic repercussions threaten US aquaculture businesses

February 21, 2023 — Researchers at Virginia Tech are researching consumer market data to aid the survival of aquaculture businesses in the wake of the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The study, based on surveys completed in 2022, is examining a wide array of consumer data to analyze the “abrupt changes” in the food supply chain, and how that impacted consumer purchasing of food. In turn, the researchers said they hope to provide information to guide aquaculture businesses in marketing efforts to respond to the changes.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Researchers identify behavioral adaptations that may help Antarctic fishes to adapt to warming Southern Ocean

November 30, 2021 — At first glance, Antarctica seems inhospitable. Known for howling gales and extremely cold temperatures, the continent is blanketed with a mile-thick ice shelf. Occasional elephant seals and seabirds fleck the glacial shorelines.

Yet dipping below the waves, the Southern Ocean teems with biodiversity: vibrant swaths of sea ice algae and cyanobacteria, swarming krill and crustaceans, bristling kelp forests, gigantic polar sea spiders and sponges, whale pods, and abundant Antarctic fish fauna.

These fishes play a vital role in the Southern Ocean’s food web of 9,000 known marine species, yet their subzero haven may be at risk. A 2021 climate analysis posited that by 2050 some areas of the Antarctic continental shelf will be at least 1 degree Celsius warmer.

Researchers from Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC have published a new study in PLOS ONE describing how two species of Antarctic fish – one with hemoglobin in its blood cells and one without – respond to acute thermal stress.

The research team, directed by Virginia Tech Vice President for Health Sciences and Technology Michael Friedlander, observed that both species responded to progressive warming with an elaborate array of behavioral maneuvers, including fanning and splaying their fins, breathing at the surface, startle-like behavior, and transient bouts of alternating movement and rest.

Read the full story from Virginia Tech

 

How America’s Canned Tuna Industry Went Belly Up

August 18, 2020 — This story is about the canned tuna business and the three big companies that dominate it. It’s a story about price fixing, and it’s a saga so dark and disruptive those companies are still reeling from it, facing bankruptcy, legal action, even prison time. It’s a story that upended a century-old industry—but if you ask Cliff White, executive editor of the news website SeafoodSource, he’ll tell you there’s way more at stake than just business: “Price fixing is absolutely wrong, especially for a product that people depend on. That’s the difference between them eating dinner and not eating dinner. That’s canned tuna. We’re not talking about bluefin toro that’s served at Nobu.”

Tuna has been eaten all over the world for thousands of years. In the United States, it was at one time a food mostly associated with immigrant communities—Japanese Americans who fished it in the waters off California, or Italian Americans who’d grown up eating bluefin from the Mediterranean. What turned it into a universal staple was a new technology: canning.

Anna Zeide, founding director of the food studies program at Virginia Tech, explains: “Right around the turn of the 20th century is where you start to see a really focused effort on the part of early tuna canners to build an industry. Canned tuna has this really meteoric rise from being a very marginal food that very few people ate in the early 20th century to being an embodiment of canned food and American processed food by the 1950s and ’60s.”

Read the full story at Slate

Most US oyster shipments meet standards, but supply chain improvements could reduce risk

November 13, 2019 — A box of raw oysters in the United States is typically handled by two to seven companies while it moves through the supply chain – a long and circuitous path that, if not managed properly, can make the shellfish ripe for foodborne illnesses.

The middlemen in this process are crucial to keeping molluscs safe from contamination, and must ferry them from farm to consumer along temperature-controlled supply chains that are constantly refrigerated from harvest to plate. Gaps in the “cold chain” that lead to temperature spikes can lead to spoilage or growth of pathogens, whether during harvesting, processing, distribution, or even at the point of sale.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

ASMFC Horseshoe Crab Board Sets 2018 Specifications for Horseshoe Crabs of Delaware Bay Origin

October 19, 2017 — NORFOLK, Va. — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Horseshoe Crab Management Board approved the harvest specifications for horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay origin. Under the Adaptive Resource Management (ARM) Framework, the Board set a harvest limit of 500,000 Delaware Bay male horseshoe crabs and zero female horseshoe crabs for the 2018 season. Based on the allocation mechanism established in Addendum VII, the following quotas were set for the states of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, which harvest horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay origin:

  Delaware Bay Origin Horseshoe Crab Quota (no. of crabs) Total Quota**
State Male Only Male Only
Delaware 162,136 162,136
New Jersey 162,136 162,136
Maryland 141,112 255,980
Virginia* 34,615 81,331

*Virginia harvest refers to harvest east of the COLREGS line only

** Total male harvest includes crabs which are not of Delaware Bay origin.

The Board chose a harvest package based on the Technical Committee and ARM Subcommittee recommendation. The ARM Framework, established through Addendum VII, incorporates both shorebird and horseshoe crab abundance levels to set optimized harvest levels for horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay origin. The horseshoe crab abundance estimate was based on data from the Benthic Trawl Survey conducted by Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech). This survey has not been funded consistently in recent years, but was funded and conducted in 2016. A composite index of the Delaware Trawl Survey, New Jersey Delaware Bay Trawl Survey, and New Jersey Ocean Trawl Survey has been developed and used in years the Virginia Tech Survey was not conducted. While continued, long-term funding of the Virginia Tech Survey is preferred, the recent revival of this survey also allows the composite index to be improved through “tuning” relative to additional Virginia Tech Survey data points. The Virginia Tech Survey has been funded for 2017 and is currently underway. Funding for future years continues to be explored.

Terms of reference for the 2018 stock assessment were presented to and approved by the Board. Within these terms of reference were tasks specific to the horseshoe crab stock assessment, including assessments of regional populations of horseshoe crabs, incorporation and evaluation of estimated mortality attributed to the biomedical use of horseshoe crabs for Limulus Amebocyte Lysate production, and comparisons of assessment results with results from the ARM Framework used to annually set bait harvest levels for horseshoe crabs from the Delaware Bay region. The completed assessment is expected to be presented to the Board in October at the 2018 Annual Meeting.

For more information, please contact Michael Schmidtke, FMP Coordinator, at 703.842.0740 or mschmidtke@asmfc.org.

A PDF version of the press release can be found here –http://www.asmfc.org/uploads/file/59e8e1eapr49HSC2018Specifications.pdf