The latest from the Alaska seafood front. The warming planet is now severely impacting Alaskan crab.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/valuable-crab-populations-crash-in-a-warming-bering-sea/
Filed under: Climate Change, fisheries, Puget Sound | Tagged: alaska, Crab, seafood | Comments Off on Valuable crab populations are in a ‘very scary’ decline in warming Bering Sea
Seafood industry struggling to stay afloat amid outbreak
The seafood industry has been upended by the spread of the coronavirus, which has halted sales in restaurants and sent fishermen and dealers scrambling for new markets. Seafood is a global industry that relies on a complex network of fishermen, processors, buyers and distributors, all of which have been affected by the virus. A lack of demand has sent prices tumbling and led some fishermen to tie up their boats until the outbreak subsides. Patrick Whittle reports. (Associated Press) See also: Coronavirus Devastates Geoduck Industry Sara Thompson reports. (Key Peninsula News)
Filed under: Aquaculture, Around the Salish Sea, Puget Sound | Tagged: Coronavirus, geoduck, Puget Sound, seafood | Comments Off on Seafood Industry struggling to stay afloat amid outbreak – AP
This is a good sign. We need stronger protections based on the real amount of seafood we eat here in the NW, not just some Washington DC ideal based on low consumption nationwide.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is making good on its promise to put forward a clean water rule for Washington, in case the state doesn’t come up with its own plan in time. At issue is how much fish the government says is safe to eat, if it’s caught in polluted water. In early August, Washington was on track to adopt a major rewrite of the state’s outdated water standard, known as the “fish consumption rule.” It uses the amount of fish we eat as a measure of how clean the water must be to protect human health. But Gov. Jay Inslee put the most recent proposal on hold and directed the state Department of Ecology to reassess its approach. Bellamy Pailthorp reports. (KPLU)
http://kplu.org/post/feds-propose-tougher-clean-water-rule-washington-holding-line-cancer-risk
Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: epa, fish, Puget Sound, seafood | 2 Comments »
Disturbing new study from University of Hawaii. Looks like Sea Bass may be off the list of food to eat, since it’s impossible to know where it really came from. Or which part of the sales chain is falsifying the data. It appears to be the people sourcing it.
New measurements from fish purchased at retail seafood counters in 10 different states show the extent to which mislabeling can expose consumers to unexpectedly high levels of mercury, a harmful pollutant, according to a new study from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Original Study named:
Seafood Substitutions Obscure Patterns of Mercury Contamination in Patagonian Toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides) or “Chilean Sea Bass”
Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: Chilean Sea Bass, fish, Mercury, Pollution, Puget Sound, seafood | Comments Off on UH study: High levels of mercury found in fish substitutions – KITV.COM
The good news here is that the levels are lower than that which is deemed hazardous, the bad news is that it wasn’t detected by people being paid to monitor such things, but by some researchers looking at migratory issues.
It is critical that the government get their monitoring in place and in front of these kinds of issues, before the public panics and destroys the fishing industry , which is likely to happen from this anyway. Many people do not trust government monitoring to be accurate and timely.
Pacific bluefin tuna which have migrated from Japan to California have been found to be contaminated with radioactive cesium from the Fukushima nuclear accident, researchers from Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific have reported in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Despite radiation contamination, levels so far detected are well below those considered hazardous for human health, the authors emphasized.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/245939.php
Filed under: Sea Life | Tagged: fukushima, japan, radiation, seafood, Threats, tsunamai, tuna | 1 Comment »
