Monday, January 7, 2008PENSIVE
Business Toolbox: Surely teenager
Eating fish helps protect from depression
Scientists believe that eating fish can help ward off depression among teenagers, and are about to put their theory to test.
A group of Australian scientists believe too few omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish and seafood, and too many omega-6 fatty acids, found in processed oils and nuts, raises the risk of depression in adolescents.
According to one of the researchers, Dr Ross Grant, the results would be used to give teenagers positive messages about healthy eating.
''Often kids who are physically unhealthy are emotionally unhealthy as well.''
Lower seafood consumption has been linked to higher rates of depression in adults. The ''How Food Affects Mood'' study will attempt to prove how it affects teenagers in the same way. – India Business
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health
Pregnant women may cut back on shellfish, not fish
Women who eat too much shellfish before pregnancy, particularly crabs and lobsters, may increase their chance of having babies who are small for their gestational age (SGA), report French scientists.
Eating fish, however, seems to have the opposite effect. The findings further fuel the debate over how much and what types of fish and other seafood are beneficial to would-be moms.
"Some studies suggest the omega-3 fatty acids in fish and seafood are beneficial to fetal growth and birth weight," explains first author Laurence Guldner, an epidemiologist at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research, University of Rennes, "but others report no benefit or even a negative effect."
The new report could help explain these discrepancies, because the results distinguish between the effects of fish and shellfish, and between even more specific subcategories of seafood—something most earlier work did not do.
The study included 2,398 pregnant women in Brittany, France, who were part of the Pélagie cohort assembled to investigate effects of environmental pollutants on pregnancy, birth outcomes, and child health and development.
The researchers gathered information on consumption in the year prior to pregnancy of saltwater fish (e.g., salmon), mollusks (e.g., oysters), large crustaceans (e.g., lobster), and small crustaceans (e.g., shrimp).
Statistical analysis, adjusted for a number of potential confounders, showed that women who ate 2 or more meals of shellfish per week had a statistically significant 2.14 greater likelihood of having an SGA baby (defined as having birth weight below the tenth percentile for a given gestational age and sex) compared with those who ate shellfish less than once per month. Those who ate fish 2 or more times per week were about half as likely to have an SGA baby than those who ate it less than once per month (a nonsignificant finding).
"Most of the negative effect of seafood on SGA was [associated with] eating large crustaceans, like crabs and lobsters," explains Guldner. He suggests that high tissue concentrations of persistent organic pollutants such as dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls accumulated by these animals may cancel out the potential beneficial effect of their omega-3 fatty acids.
Indeed, the results of some other studies have suggested that low-level exposure in utero to such pollutants may have a negative effect on birth weight. However, the evidence to date is inconclusive.
"Unfortunately, no distinction was made between the fish types eaten [in this study]," cautions Thorhallur Ingi Halldorsson, a researcher at the State Serum Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. "We should [therefore] be careful in promoting fish as beneficial for fetal growth. Oily fish is a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, but high consumption can lead to higher body burdens of organic pollutants, which might affect growth." Halldorsson adds that regular consumption of varying fish types should therefore be encouraged.
Rosa Ortega, a professor of nutrition at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, adds, "It would certainly be a good idea for women to make sure their seafood comes from guaranteed clean waters. But with everything in moderation, a new mother-to-be is probably still safe to satisfy her craving for a lobster dinner." – Environmental Health Perspectives
Business Toolbox: Perversities of supply and demand
Tuna, now rare, sells dear
TOKYO — A Hong Kong sushi restaurant owner paid a record $55,700 dollars for a massive bluefin tuna in the first auction of the year at the world's largest fish market in Tokyo, an official and media reports said.
The final price was a record for Japan.
A Hong Kong-based sushi restaurant chain owner made the highest bid, local media reported although the fish market official was unable to confirm details about the buyer.
Prices of tuna caught overseas were on average 20 to 30 percent higher than the previous year as imports of cultured tuna from Mediterranean countries including Croatia and Spain have dropped sharply.
The record prices come amid a decline in tuna supply due to tighter international controls on the catch for bluefin tuna.
Japan, which eats a quarter of the world's tuna, is moving towards limiting bluefin tuna fishing in its own waters in a bid to help protect the species from extinction. – APF
Business Toolbox: Fish fraud
Today's read: Florida restaurant stops selling grouper
TAMPA — At many restaurants around Florida, the specialty of the house is a slab of grouper, blackened, grilled, stuffed or encrusted with pecans, sometimes on a roll, maybe with a slice of Bermuda onion. But not at Richard Gonzmart's place.
Gonzmart, whose family has owned the Columbia restaurant in Tampa's Cuban-American Ybor City section for four generations, won't serve grouper, because he can't be sure he is getting the real thing from his suppliers.
Many restaurants in Florida have been caught passing off Asian catfish, tilapia or other cheaper species as grouper. Fake grouper is by far the biggest food-misrepresentation problem Florida inspectors handle, and it has turned up in all corners of the state — even at the Capitol cafeteria.
"I'm not going to take that chance because my reputation is more important than keeping grouper on the menu," Gonzmart said. "It's not worth it to take a short cut. If grouper is $20 a pound, so be it, but if we buy it for $20 a pound and it's not grouper, that's a problem."
The Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation, which regulates restaurants, found 139 cases of something other than grouper being sold as the fish between January 2006 through the end of last October — more than half of all food misrepresentation cases statewide during that time. The runners-up were 75 cases of fake crab and 34 cases of fake tuna.
"It's just a huge amount," said Department Secretary Holly Benson.
The problem has gone on for years but is receiving more attention lately.
About a year ago, an owner of two Florida Panhandle seafood companies was sentenced to prison after federal authorities caught him selling more than a million pounds of Asian catfish labeled as grouper.
In the Miami area, inspectors walked into a food processing plant and found workers taking 6,000 pounds of Vietnamese catfish that sells wholesale for about $2.50 a pound and repackaging it as grouper, which goes for about $6 wholesale.
And that hurts fishermen like Michael Athorn. He and his three-man crew spend up to 12 days 60 to 70 miles from shore in the Gulf of Mexico, trying to reach the 6,000-pound catch limit for grouper, which has to be caught on individual hooks.
Back on shore he has often found restaurants advertising grouper and putting something else on a plate.
"It's something that's aggravated us for a long time," he said. "I've embarrassed girlfriends and wives in the past by making a big point of it in a grocery store, letting them know it wasn't what it was. I've embarrassed people that I've taken out to dinner by refusing a meal that wasn't really grouper."
State officials are becoming more aware of the problem. Benson's agency has doubled the fine for restaurants from $250 to $500 for a first offense. Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson has posted a Web page with full-color, high-resolution photos that can show people how to distinguish real grouper — lean, thick, firm flesh — from thinner, darker fillets of Asian catfish. – AP
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Business Toolbox: Your supply
Fluke - enjoy it while you can
Shoppers will find lots of fresh New Jersey fluke in their local fish cases this week. But it won't last for long.
Fishermen who put their nets out will get just one day's haul of 7,500 pounds out of the January commercial season for summer flounder, or fluke as it's also called, before it closes.
Relatively speaking, they're OK with that as a way to both conserve the resource and help fishermen survive the economic fallout.
"Our January-February season is crummy no matter what. At the same time, North Carolina opens up, so it's the lowest prices of the year," captain Jim Lovgren of the Fishermen's Dock Cooperative in Point Pleasant Beach said.
With the East Coast federal quota for flounder set at a new low of 15.77 million pounds for 2008, the agreement with state officials to conduct a one-day season will help keep enough fish available for later in the year when prices are higher, Lovgren explained.
"The bottom line is there's not enough quota. But there are enough fish," co-op manager John Cole quipped. "There should be a 30 million, 32 million-pound quota." -- Cherry Hill Courier Post, NJ
Business Toolbox: The unthinkable Part I
Get ready for the latest food craze: carp
Sometimes as darkness falls, an odd slurping, sucking sound can be heard coming from the banks of Jimmie and Penny Hepburn's 17 spring-fed ponds. Jimmie admits that it could not be called a pleasant noise, but it is a satisfactory one, for it means the couple's carp are fit and getting fatter.
The Hepburns will this year haul Britain's first crop of organic farmed carp from the ponds at their Devon home, and they have already had interest from pubs, restaurants and a chain of popular wine bars in London.
"There's great interest in the fish," said Jimmie. "The truth is that we have forgotten how to eat fish like carp. In medieval times they were very popular. Now they are usually grown to huge proportions for anglers who take a photo of them and throw them back. Hardly anyone thinks of them as food."
Two factors might just make the couple's enterprise, at Upper Hayne farm in the Blackdown Hills, work.
First, there is the increased interest in fish such as carp, driven by immigrants from Eastern Europe who regard carp as a great treat, especially at Christmas. The Hepburns had their first taste of their reared carp in the summer when a few were big enough for the table.
If taken straight to the kitchen from the ponds they can taste muddy, Jimmie says, so they need to be swilled with spring water for a day or two.
"We had ours done with lemon zest and some herbs and garlic and peppers. It was absolutely delicious. Tastes are changing. Remember, 10 or 15 years ago almost nobody ate sushi in the UK. Now it's everywhere."
The second factor is the environment. The increasing strain on popular fish such as cod, haddock and salmon is forcing a change in tastes. Jimmie, who once ran a salmon farm in Scotland, said: "We've got to get back to eating food like this for the benefit of the planet."
A few hundred years ago not only carp but fish such as tench, perch and chub were considered good for eating. Many monasteries and villages had their own carp ponds.
"If you lived inland it just wasn't possible to get access to sea fish. The industrial revolution meant we could get sea fish wherever we were and so fish like carp went out of fashion."
Unlike farmed salmon and trout, the Hepburns' carp get at least half their food from the ponds. The couple make sure conditions are right for the growth of algae and other organisms that the fish thrive on. Their diet is supplemented not with pellets but with grain bought from local farmers and scraps from the kitchen -- carp are pretty much the chickens of the fish world.
Penny is also the proud custodian of the business's mealworm farm. In the corner of her smart dining room there is a glass tank full of flour beetles. She transfers the beetles' eggs to wine boxes containing the mealworms and apples from the farm's orchard.
Penny feeds the worms to the fish. "The fish love the worms, they go mad when you put them in," she said. "They are also very good for them as they are high in protein."
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. At the nearby Culm Valley Inn, the chef, Marc Jerem, stuffed a fish reared by the Hepburns with rosemary, thyme and garlic, adding lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. The carp was then roasted for 20 minutes or so. Jerem described the fish as "quite meaty, not dissimilar to sea bass in texture". He though it would sell, at the right price. – The Guardian, UK
Business Toolbox: The unthinkable, Part II
Prepare yourself for gourmet jellyfish
Somewhere in China right now, there's a cannonball jellyfish from the waters off Panama City just waiting to be eaten.
Shrimpers trying to stay afloat during the off season have been scooping them out of the gulf by the thousands since September. The gelatinous masses have turned out to be a profitable commodity on the Asian market, once they are processed into crispy protein wafers.
"Cannonball is a whole new business to us," said 68-year-old shrimp boat operator Steve Davis. "We used to run from them when we were shrimping because they would fill up the nets. Now we run to 'em."
The Panama City operation is run by Roger Newton, owner of Gulf Jellyfish Inc. He was on the dock at the St. Andrews Marina recently, watching crews unload their cannonball catch.
He said he has been in the business about seven years, more of them good than not. The cannonballs, rounded, non-stinging jellyfish that can grow to nearly a foot wide, start showing up around September and usually stay about three months, though he never can be certain, Newton said.
"If I could play God, I wouldn't be in the fish business," he said.
But what Davis does know is that they are a good way to make money, especially at a time when Asian imports are keeping wholesale shrimp prices low. A day's work and about $70 in fuel can bring in $1,000 worth of jellyfish, he said.
Two trawlers were busy netting cannonball in the bay within sight of the marina, while another boat was tied up to the dock to unload. A large vacuum hose sucked the jellyfish off the boats sunken deck and delivered them to a conveyor belt, where a crewman with a shovel scooped them into plastic bins.
Though they don't sting, they are slimy, and their mucus-like covering will cause a burning sensation if it gets in your eyes, Davis said.
"You can't hardly pick them up. We were going to call that man that's got the dirtiest jobs on television," he said, refering to the Discovery Channel's Mike Rowe.
Another worker with a forklift loaded the bins into a pair of waiting tractor-trailers. The jellyfish go to a processing plant in Georgia, where they are dried out, and the salt is removed. Then, they are packed into 50,000-pound containers for shipping to China and Japan, Newton said.
He retrieved a plastic bag from his truck to show to curious visitors. Inside were three yellowish wafers about 5 inches across.
"They're all protein and taste like whatever you put on them," he said.
According to the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the dried jellyfish are popular in Asia as salad toppers, or with cooked vegetables. A four-ounce serving contains 30 calories, eight grams of protein and 120 milligrams of sodium.
Researchers also believe the jellyfish might be useful in fighting certain types of arthritis because of the collagen they contain. –Miami Herald
Business Toolbox: Know the competition
How your farmed fish is grown
In the wild, an average fish will swim hundreds, if not thousands, of miles in its lifetime. In a fish farm, it is forced to occupy an enclosure no bigger (and often a great deal smaller) than a swimming pool.
This can have a huge effect on its welfare. To a fish, water is like air: it has to "breathe" it to stay alive. And the more fish that there are in one place, the more that water quality is affected. Fish raised in cramped conditions also suffer damage to their fins and scales, and tend to be flabbier than their counterparts in the wild because they are unable to be as active.
Farmed fish are fed on processed pellets, many of which contain unpleasant additives: caged salmon, for example, are fed a form of food colouring in order to make their flesh pink. They are also highly susceptible to diseases and infestations, in particular sea lice, which are then often passed on to their wild counterparts, causing huge damage to already threatened native populations.
A consumer looking to buy cruelty-free fish should try to establish the "stocking density" under which they were reared. Farmed salmon are reared intensively and then packed into cages at densities of 20-25kg (44-55 pounds) of fish per cubic metre of water.
There is also concern surrounding the methods by which farmed animals are slaughtered, which the Royal Society Against Cruelty on Animals claims can cause the fish intense stress. Common practices include asphyxiation in air and on ice, and gill-cutting without prior stunning.
Recently, though, there have been improvements in how trout and salmon are slaughtered.
Playing devil's advocate for the fish-farming industry, it is of course important to stress that wild fish that end up on supermarket shelves are either line-caught or scooped up in nets before being dumped in the hold of a trawler to suffocate.
This is hardly more humane than the methods of slaughter employed with farmed fish. In addition, eating farmed fish prevents endangered wild fish from being further threatened.
Meanwhile, some people believe that normal animal-welfare standards should not be applied to fish at all, arguing that, as cold-blooded animals, fish are unable to experience either distress or pain. Scientists are at best divided about the merits of this argument.
Consumers looking to buy guilt-free fish should avoid threatened wild species, and go organic when buying farmed ones. – The Independent, U.K.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
China food safety improving but challenges
" arduous"
BEIJING -- China defended its fish farming industry on Tuesday and said it was making progress in curbing use of illegal additives, from pesticides to banned steroids, as the country's food safety record remains in the spotlight.
China has suffered a rash of scares over the safety of its food and manufactured products in the last year which highlighted shoddy oversight and prompted a wave of new regulations and clean-up campaigns from the central government.
Vice Minister of Agriculture Gao Hongbin said the country had made encouraging progress.
"However, regulation of quality and safety of agricultural products is still faced with arduous challenges due to a number of factors," he told a news conference.
"There is still a gap between China's standards and that in other countries."
According to a survey published in the official China Food Quality News, almost two-thirds of Chinese are worried about food safety, while a fifth have no confidence in drinking water safety.
But Gao said the government has curbed the use of highly toxic pesticides in vegetable production and was making progress in stamping out the use of clenbuterol, a steroid used in pork production which is illegal in China.
He also said the compliance rate for the use of three toxins used in fish production, including malachite green, a potential carcinogen illegally used to kill fungus and bacteria in fish tanks, was rising, and he defended China's fish farming against a New York Times piece entitled "Fishing in Toxic Waters."
"It is a question of common sense. Do you believe that fish can live in toxic water?" Gao asked. "Personally, I believe that this report is sensational and misleading."– Reuters
Chesapeake Bay crab project loses funding
A pioneering research project to boost the dwindling numbers of juvenile crabs in the Chesapeake Bay has lost its federal funding, leaving the program's future in doubt.
Since 2002, the Center of Marine Biotechnology has received $15 million in earmarked federal funds to conduct research on the life cycle of the blue crab, then put young crabs in the bay to see how they live and where they migrate. In the omnibus spending bill signed by President Bush, the project's appropriation was slashed from nearly $4 million in 2007 to zero in 2008.
"We were all surprised that such a program that delivered so much on the investment was cut," said Yonathan Zohar, the center's director and the crab project's leader. "There is no other way to conduct this type of program other than to get this type of federal funding. ... And for the blue crab, it was so well- deserved because we wanted to do something before it was too late."
Zohar said he has enough money to continue the research until the end of this year and in the meantime will seek other funding. If he doesn't find it, Zohar said, he will have to lay people off. The federal grant pays at least part of the salaries of two dozen scientists at the center, as well as for researchers in Virginia, North Carolina and Mississippi. Most of the money has stayed in Maryland and is shared between Zohar's lab and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, in Edgewater.
The project is regarded as important by bay advocates because the researchers were able for the first time to raise large numbers of blue crabs in a hatchery, then map their migration patterns in the bay. The hope was that the work would help state officials better protect the bay's diminishing crab population.
The funding cuts come a few months after the Maryland Department of Natural Resources announced that the bay's blue crabs - one of the state's last productive fisheries - are in danger of being overfished. – Baltimore Sun
Chesapeake Bay crab project loses funding
A pioneering research project to boost the dwindling numbers of juvenile crabs in the Chesapeake Bay has lost its federal funding, leaving the program's future in doubt.
Since 2002, the Center of Marine Biotechnology has received $15 million in earmarked federal funds to conduct research on the life cycle of the blue crab, then put young crabs in the bay to see how they live and where they migrate. In the omnibus spending bill signed by President Bush, the project's appropriation was slashed from nearly $4 million in 2007 to zero in 2008.
"We were all surprised that such a program that delivered so much on the investment was cut," said Yonathan Zohar, the center's director and the crab project's leader. "There is no other way to conduct this type of program other than to get this type of federal funding. ... And for the blue crab, it was so well- deserved because we wanted to do something before it was too late."
Zohar said he has enough money to continue the research until the end of this year and in the meantime will seek other funding. If he doesn't find it, Zohar said, he will have to lay people off. The federal grant pays at least part of the salaries of two dozen scientists at the center, as well as for researchers in Virginia, North Carolina and Mississippi. Most of the money has stayed in Maryland and is shared between Zohar's lab and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, in Edgewater.
The project is regarded as important by bay advocates because the researchers were able for the first time to raise large numbers of blue crabs in a hatchery, then map their migration patterns in the bay. The hope was that the work would help state officials better protect the bay's diminishing crab population.
The funding cuts come a few months after the Maryland Department of Natural Resources announced that the bay's blue crabs - one of the state's last productive fisheries - are in danger of being overfished. – Baltimore Sun
Fish oil is great & if you gulp it
It's no wonder that more Americans are gulping fish oil. Hardly a month goes by without a study suggesting that the omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil can fend off disease -- including heart attacks, strokes, Alzheimer's disease, depression, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, psoriasis and even attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The problem is, to get the health benefits seen in clinical trials, you probably need to take fistfuls of capsules.
"The kind of benefits seen in most of the clinical trials with omega-3 generally have involved much higher doses than you see recommended on supplement labels," says Charles Serhan, a Harvard Medical School expert on omega-3's activity.
"But although a large number of studies have used industrial-level doses," he adds, "we don't have rigorous scientific evidence about what the doses should be."
Regardless of the recommended dose, the need to stockpile bottles of supplements may diminish as more foods are fortified with omega-3 and as research shows ways of enhancing the benefits with other therapies. – Wall Street Journal
Fish farmer wants high density for livestock
MUNCIE, Ind. -- The owner of a fish farm wants Delaware County officials to exempt aquaculture from a proposed new ordinance that would govern confined animal feeding operations.
Michael Miller, who owns Bell Aquaculture about 10 miles northeast of Muncie, also said passage of the CAFO ordinance could cause him to halt plans to expand his $10 million operation.
"Restrictions on new facilities in Delaware County should aquatic animals remain part of this zoning approval process will eliminate this county from any further consideration for building additional facilities by Bell Aquaculture or others," he said.
Miller questioned why the CAFO proposal should include fish farms along with operations that house dairy cows, swine, chickens and other animals.
"Is there a valid reason for Delaware County to put aquatic animals in with pigs? Please don't put us in with CAFOs," he urged city-county planning officials at a public hearing on the ordinance.
Miller said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management already have regulations governing confined aquatic animal production.
Bell Aquaculture produces yellow perch for the restaurant market in indoor tanks filled with water pumped from the ground. He said the company plans to create 70 jobs at its farm in Albany and 120 jobs at a planned processing facility in Redkey.
Miller said the setback requirements under the proposal would leave only a small fraction of the land that could be used for fish farming. – Indianapolis Star
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Business Toolbox: Your supply
Suit filed in Maine over trawlers
PORTLAND, Maine—Two Maine-based commercial fishing groups are suing the federal government in hopes of getting herring trawlers banned from certain New England fishing grounds.
In their suit, the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance and the Midcoast Fishermen's Association claim federal regulatory agencies aren't doing enough to protect populations of cod, haddock and other groundfish from industrial herring boats.
Earthjustice, a national nonprofit law firm based in California, filed the complaint on Dec. 28 in federal court in Washington, D.C. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Marine Fisheries Service and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez are named as defendants.
A spokeswoman for NMFS' Northeast region said she couldn't comment on the lawsuit, but said strict rules are in place to limit the how much groundfish is caught by herring boats. Herring boat owners say efforts to restrict them are based more on politics than on science.
The two fishing groups filed a petition with regulators last October asking that herring trawlers be banned from areas that are closed to boats that fish for groundfish. The groups claimed that "midwater trawlers" -- which pull their nets in the middle of the water column where herring swim -- are inadvertently catching large volumes of groundfish, known as bycatch, as they fish for small herring using massive nets with small holes. -- Boston Globe
Business Toolbox: Your (fat) customer
Fat man says buffet banned him
HOUMA, La. —A 265-pound man says a restaurant overcharged him for his trips to the buffet, then banned him and a relative because of how much they consumed during their visits.
Ricky Labit, a 6-foot-3 disabled offshore worker, said he had been a regular at the Manchuria Restaurant, eating there as often as three times a week. But on his most recent visit, he said a waitress gave him and his wife's cousin, Michael Borrelli, a bill for $46.40, roughly double the buffet price for two adults.
"She says, 'Y'all fat, and y'all eat too much,'" Labit said.
Labit and Borrelli said they felt discriminated against because of their size.
"I was stunned, that somebody would say something like that. I ain't that fat, I only weigh 277," Borrelli said.
Accountant Thomas Campo, who spoke for the restaurant because the owner's English is limited, said the men were charged an extra $10 each on Dec. 21 because they made a habit of dining exclusively on the more expensive seafood dishes, including crab legs and frog legs. – Associated Press
Business Toolbox: Your supply
Fishing for "ghost fishing" crab pots on the Chesapeake
Scientists may have found a type of fishing that could actually benefit the Bay's beleaguered blue crab population: Fishing for crab pots.
After two years of research, biologists estimate that nearly 42,000 abandoned crab pots are lying on the bottom of Maryland's portion of the Bay. Many of them may continue to catch-and kill-crabs for years.
Crab pots are typically set on the bottom and connected to a buoy on the surface with a line. They are "lost" when lines are cut by boats passing through, or when storms rip buoys lose and move pots around.
"There are no villains in this," said Steve Giordano, fisheries program manager with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Chesapeake Bay Office. "No one wants to lose traps. It's expensive for the watermen, and it's probably bad for the fishery. Everyone wants to be part of the solution, I think."
In fact, watermen, recreational anglers and conservationists are planning to team up, possibly as soon as this spring, to fish out hundreds-possibly thousands-of abandoned pots along part of Maryland's Western Shore.
The removal would be the latest piece of research that began more than two years ago when Giordano and colleagues began noticing a large number of rectangular shapes popping up on their computer screens as they used sonar equipment to map bottom habitats.
The rectangles turned out to be abandoned crab pots. Since then, they've been investigating whether unmanned gear creates a problem by continuing to catch crabs-something dubbed "ghost fishing."
In the last two years, NOAA scientists have surveyed areas with various degrees of crab fishing pressure to see how many pots were still in the water after crabbing season. The answer: A lot. In one high density area, they found 900 pots in a single square kilometer. No survey failed to find lost pots.
Crab pots are cages with openings designed to allow crabs to enter, but it's difficult for large crabs to escape. The crab pots are typically baited with dead fish to lure crabs inside.
Crabs enter a pot. Once they consume the bait, they cannot escape. They die and become bait for a entirely new set of crab.
Over time, they degrade, develop holes and fall apart. Also, they can become so coated with fouling organisms that they no longer trap crabs. "Not every trap down there is fishing," Giordano said. "We know that."
In the Northwest and Alaska, crab pots are required to have degradable gates, which melt away after a relatively short time in the water, allowing trapped crabs and other creatures to escape. – The Chesapeake Bay Journal, Pennsylvania
Business Toolbox: Your environment
Greens fear Bush not addressing polar bears because of oil
Environmental groups fear that political meddling and a rush to sell oil leases in Arctic waters are behind the Bush administration's announcement that it will miss a legal deadline to determine whether to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act.
Federal law requires U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to make a final decision on protections for the white furry marine mammal by Wednesday, a year from when the agency first proposed that it be considered a threatened species.
Climate scientists predict that floating polar ice will disappear by midcentury, leaving the bear without food and habitat. Two-thirds of the population could disappear by 2050, scientists say.
In announcing the delay of up to a month, Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall said that the agency needs more time to finish its work on the decision.
Major environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Greenpeace, as well as some congressional leaders are suspicious that the delay means more than just taking 30 days longer to hear the news.
The administration has long resisted conclusions by international scientific bodies that global warming is a human-caused phenomenon, and it has actively opposed regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to the warming atmosphere and oceans.
Environmental groups fear that the polar bear decision has been purposefully delayed to allow a first-time oil lease sale to go forward Feb. 6 in Alaska's pristine Chukchi Sea, which provides one-tenth of the habitat for the world's polar bears.
Andrew Wexler, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Chicago, said, "The one-month delay comes at a time that is very fortuitous for oil and gas companies that want to drill in the Chukchi."
If the bear were listed before the lease-sale decision, Interior Department's Minerals Management Service might have to delay or stop the sale, Wexler said.
Melanie Duchin, a Greenpeace campaigner in Alaska, agreed that the delay is highly suspect. – San Francisco Chronicle
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health
Dangerous chemicals found in Chinese fish farms
A team of researchers, led by biologists at Dartmouth, has found potentially dangerous levels of mercury and arsenic in Lake Baiyangdian, the largest lake in the North China Plain and a source of both food and drinking water for the people who live around it.
The researchers studied three separate locations in Lake Baiyangdian, all at varying distances from major sources of pollution, such as coal emissions, agricultural runoff, and sewage discharge. They found concentrations of arsenic and mercury in fish were above the threshold considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to pose a risk to humans and wildlife.
"It's important to study this system because it is typical of many throughout China where human activity and industrialization are having detrimental effects on the environment with major human health implications," says Celia Chen '78, a research associate professor of biological sciences. "It makes perfect sense to apply what we're learning about lakes in the U.S. to other places in the world, like China, that have a growing global impact."
Chen and her team were curious to learn how arsenic and mercury, two toxic environmental metals, moved through the food web in a freshwater ecosystem known to be polluted and contaminated.
In a process called bioaccumulation, mercury and arsenic were found throughout the food web, from the water, into the algae, through the tiny algae-eating zooplankton, to the fish. – Science Daily, adapted from materials provided by Dartmouth College
Business Toolbox: Your customers' health
Dangerous chemical found in Canadian fish farm
A Tofino, B.C.-area salmon farm has suspended operations after traces of Malachite Green were found in products bound for the US seafood market.
The site at Clayoquot Sound denies using the carcinogenic substance and managers are said to be shocked by the discovery.
According to the Canadian Press, Spencer Evans, general manager of the Creative Salmon Company said he was at a loss as to how the contamination had occurred. He said the traces were found in samples collected by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in early December.
Samples were taken from 12 separate salmon fillets, which came from 12 cases. The samples were pooled and the administration recorded levels of 2.868 parts per billion. The salmon had been harvested from the Eagle Bay site on Nov. 28.
Evans said the company has since tested some of the 20,000 remaining Eagle Bay fish in the presence of a provincial fisheries officer. Results from those tests could come back by the end of this week.
Harvesting from the Eagle Bay site won't resume until these results are available;the company will continue harvesting from its McCall farm.
"We have no explanation as to what has happened, We haven't done anything wrong. We don't use malachite green, period," Evans stressed. – TheFishSite, UK
Business Toolbox: Your costs
Lobstermen say new whale-friendly gear will cost a lot
ELLSWORTH, Me. — A new federal rule that could force Maine lobstermen to spend millions of dollars for new rope is bringing Sen. Olympia Snowe to town.
The new rule recently adopted National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) will require most of Maine’s full-time lobster harvesters to rig their traps with new groundlines made of sinking rope by Oct. 1.
The agency adopted the rule last October as part of a settlement of a federal lawsuit brought by the Ocean Conservancy and other conservation groups to force the agency to take steps to protect endangered northern right whales from entanglement with fishing gear.
David Cousins, president of the Maine Lobsterman’s Association (MLA), has estimated that the rule could force the average lobsterman to spend as much as $15,000 to pay for the initial changeover and an extra $9,000 a year in maintenance costs. The MLA also claims that rope manufacturers won’t be able to meet the demand for sinking rope in time for fishermen to comply with the October deadline.
Snowe, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Subcommittee on Fisheries and the Coast Guard, has been actively involved in efforts to reduce the impact of the new regulation. – Ellsworth American, Maine
Business Toolbox: Mindless celebrity worship
Spice girl loses weight with fish sticks
Victoria Beckham has become addicted to fish fingers.
The Spice Girl, famous for her svelte figure, has turned to the fishy breadcrumb-coated sticks to help her lose weight after reportedly gaining a few pounds over the festive period.
A source told Britain's Daily Star newspaper: "Victoria is very healthy. She knows that fish is one of the lowest foods in calories or fat. And it's something she genuinely likes.
"Fish fingers used to be a guilty pleasure which she gave up. But she was pleased when she recently discovered that they are actually good for you, as long as you grill them. And they're full of Omega-3 fatty acids." – The Age.com, Australia
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