In 2009, Maine lobster fishers were required to replace more than 27,000 miles of floating ground line (underwater ropes that float above the ocean floor and connect trawls) with whale-safe sinking line (which rests on or near the ocean floor, preventing whale entanglements). Then, in 2015, they were mandated to put more traps on each buoy to reduce the number of end lines, or individual points of harvest, in the water. By 2020, Maine lobsterers had to ensure their gear was labeled in case of a whale entanglement. The next year, regulators instituted a closure of a 1,000-square-mile area during a particularly lucrative time of year for lobsterers, and in 2022, regulations enforcing the use of weak links, which allow whales to more easily break free of entanglements, went into effect. Making these changes was costly and time-consuming for lobster harvesters.

Photography by Shutterstock.

But since right whales are so endangered—the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that there are only about 360 North Atlantic right whales remaining, with only around 70 reproductively active females—advocates say it’s important to address threats to their continued existence now, before it’s too late. After all, large whales are important to their marine environments. “They are vital to the balance of marine ecosystems, play an important role in the food web and are key indicators of the overall health of the ocean,” says Jennifer Goebel, NOAA’s Marine Mammal Policy Analyst.

According to NOAA, regulating fishing equipment is key to protecting vulnerable right whales. “Vessel strike and entanglement are the leading threats to whales,” says Goebel. Until the required marking of lobster gear went into effect in 2020, it was difficult to attribute whale deaths and injuries to specific pieces of equipment. Since the regulation went into effect, other large whale species have been found entangled in Maine lobstering gear, demonstrating, says Goebel, that the equipment can, in fact, pose a threat to right whales as well.

Curt Brown, lobsterman and marine biologist for Ready Seafood, says that Maine’s lobstering industry has been proactive in complying with these new regulations. “We’re certainly not opposed to protecting right whales, quite to the contrary.” But many lobstermen and women question the necessity of these seemingly ever-more-restrictive right whale regulations, particularly because they maintain that there has been no documented entanglement of a right whale in Maine lobstering equipment since 2004, and there has never been a recorded right whale death associated with Maine’s lobstering industry. “Ultimately, we’re not in favor of being put out of business for rules and regulations that aren’t going to save any right whales,” explains Brown.

However, NOAA says that right whales do appear to be getting entangled in fishing rope off the coast of Maine, but the incidents can be difficult to document officially. “Most, over 85 percent, of all North Atlantic right whales show scars caused by entanglement, and about 100 new scars are detected each year, says Goebel. “Of the 1,600 entanglement scars and incidents evaluated by New England Aquarium researchers, only about 16 have been traced back to a fishing location—that is one percent. In most entanglement cases, no gear is observed. When gear is observed, it can rarely be retrieved.” Tracing these injuries back to the equipment that caused them is, therefore, quite complicated.

Lobster fishing in Vinalhaven, Maine, 2017. Photography by Shutterstock.

Ultimately, Maine lobsterers say that these regulations still pose significant risks to the financial viability of the industry. Maine’s lobster industry is composed of thousands of individuals, effectively all small business owners. Brown estimates that, conservatively, harvesters along the coast of Maine spent a collective $100 million adhering to regulations designed to protect right whales over the last 20 years, in addition to the hours of labor required to implement these changes. Although some state and federal subsidies are available for lobsterers, they say that the money doesn’t come close to covering the costs they’ve invested in making these changes.

In fact, some lobstermen, like Bruce Fernald, say that they very rarely even see whales out on the water. “We’re doing all this just because we’re supposed to, but there are no real issues with whales in our area,” says Fernald, who’s been fishing for more than 50 years. “We do it because we have to or you’ll lose your license.”

Some are feeling anxiety as the industry changes. “Within the last two years, there’s a lot of guys riding on the border of red,” says fourth-generation lobsterman Mike Sargent, who started fishing full-time in 2016. Rising costs of equipment and labor, plus supply chain shortages and a growing list of regulations, are making some lobsterers question their long-term prospects in the industry. A year ago, says Brown, “There were more boats for sale than I think I’ve ever seen, more traps for sale than I think I’ve ever seen.”

Sargent lives in Steuben, a town of 1,129 residents, and says that lobstering is really the only viable industry in town. “If fishing were to go south, this place would close up. There’s nothing here for me to do that I could support myself with the cost of living here. It just doesn’t exist.” 

Mike Sargent. Photography submitted.

Many of Maine’s lobsterers come from families that have done this work for generations, but it’s become more difficult for younger people to enter the industry. “Think, if you’re going to put your roots down here, you’re a young person wanting to start a family, the realization is it might not be here for you,” says Sargent. “There’s a good chance it won’t be here for your kids. So, do you want to put roots down here and not give your kid the same opportunities you had? You know, it’s a risk.”

The collapse of the lobster fishing industry could absolutely change the face of coastal Maine’s culture. Without a healthy, sustainable lobster fishery “many of these island communities would very quickly just turn into vacation homes for people from out of state, and that would be very different from what we have now,” says Brown.

Maine’s lobster fishers are hoping that things are starting to look up. In December of 2022, they won a six-year break from new regulations, which they hope will provide some stability for the industry and, in turn, for their communities. But regulators whose aim is to protect right whales still want to see changes in the industry, including wider use of ropeless fishing gear. Some environmentalists say that without the ability to enact new regulations, whales will die.

Brown underscored that the industry is well equipped to contend with the inevitable changes to come and that the six-year pause gives them some breathing room to adjust at a slower pace. But it’s still unclear how the industry will take shape after the conclusion of the six-year pause. What is clear, though, is that Maine’s lobsterers are committed to preserving their way of life. “The thought of losing this fishery to regulations that aren’t warranted is, in my mind, unacceptable,” says Brown. “People know Maine for its lobster resource. People don’t come to Maine to eat chicken.”

The post The Uncertain Future of Lobstering in Maine appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“I was always seeing these little segments of yellow rope,” says Shaw. “We would see thousands of them across the season.”

After asking around, Shaw realized that these little yellow ropes came from longline oyster aquaculture, an off-bottom growing technique that is particularly useful in areas where the bottom can’t support bottom-grown oysters due to the prevalence of burrowing shrimp. After the oysters are harvested, pieces of these ropes can end up back in the water, contributing to the issues of marine debris and microplastics pollution.

In 2019, Shaw called a meeting with the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association and the Willapa-Grays Harbor Oyster Growers Association. He presented the issue, and a discussion ensued about how to solve the problem. Oyster growers such as  Pacific Seafood began introducing processes to address these rope fragments. The industry response had an immediate effect.

In September of this year, Shaw went for a walk down a 2.5-mile stretch of beach that he visits frequently. 

“Prior to [2018 or 2019], I would pick up 500 to 600 pieces of yellow rope in a walk and bring in multiple bags,” says Shaw. On this walk, he found only three or four individual pieces.

“We just saw this immediate decline in the material that was coming out of Willapa Harbor,” says Shaw. “It was stunning.”

Beach clean-ups helped pull tens of thousands of pieces of yellow rope out of the environment. (Photography courtesy of John Shaw)

The Cluster Buster

Beach clean-ups in Washington state resulted in the collection of tens of thousands of pieces of yellow rope. Yellow rope affects beaches in the Pacific Northwest and is one part of a larger issue of marine debris pollution. But unlike things such as water bottles and glass fragments, this yellow rope comes from one specific source.

Longline aquaculture uses yellow polypropylene rope. To grow oysters this way, you have to splice an oyster shell with seed on it into the rope. As the seeds grow, they form a cluster.

“You get this big, almost flower of oysters,” says Kyle Deerkop, Washington Shellfish Farm manager for Pacific Seafood. “One shell can turn into 10 to 15 oysters.”

When harvesting, you cut between the clusters. After the oysters have been harvested, you’re left with softball- or cantaloupe-sized balls of shells. The industry recycles these shells—either new oysters will be set on them in the hatchery or the shells will be spread on oyster beds to catch natural set oysters. The problem has been that these clusters dispersed for natural catch production still held onto their yellow rope segments. That rope would eventually end up floating in the water and washed up on the beach.

After the 2019 meeting, nonprofits such as the Surfrider Foundation and Twin Harbors Waterkeeper also got involved in trying to address the issue. 

“There’s two things when you have a challenge like that. The first is to stop the flow of it to the environment,” says Deerkop. “And then the second is to clean up what’s out there.”

Yellow rope collected during beach clean-ups in southwest Washington. (Photography courtesy of John Shaw)

The industry and nonprofit groups worked to approach the issue from multiple angles—beach clean-ups, education and figuring out what interventions could intercept the yellow rope before it makes it back into the water. Pacific Seafood, with help from college interns from surrounding universities, got to work developing what they would end up calling the “Cluster Buster”—a machine that could take these shell clusters and break them apart, so that the rope within could be removed and disposed of. The Cluster Buster breaks apart the clusters but without damaging the shells. This is important, since the shells are usable for future growing operations. It took some trial and error to get it right.

“You don’t realize how much force it actually takes,” says Deerkop. “So, we were bending shafts, we were having to reconfigure the rollers.”

Left: The Pacific Seafood team picking rope from the “busted” clusters. Right: The team loads shells into the hopper. (Photography by Kyle Deerkop)

After they built their onsite Cluster Buster, they received funding from the Washington State Conservation Commission to develop a mobile version that could be used at the shell piles—not just those belonging to Pacific Seafood but also those of other companies. Longline oyster growers in Oregon and Washington will be able to borrow the mobile Cluster Buster, once processes are established for maintenance and repairs. A chance to use it annually would be sufficient for most growers, says Deerkop. Continued effort will be necessary to keep yellow rope numbers down.

Shaw is satisfied with the industry reaction. “I think that the industry should get kudos for having responded.”

Shared resource

In addition to the Cluster Buster, community engagement has resulted in other alternative endings for yellow rope. In one project, yellow rope collected during beach clean-ups was processed and delivered to Western Washington University, where it was used to make crab gauges, an industry tool to determine if a crab is big enough for harvest. In that instance, the yellow rope was recycled right back into the industry.

For Deerkop’s part, he and his farm team continue to go to beach clean-ups. He says it’s important to have the mindset of being invested in the health of the estuary, as a seafood company. Without clean water, he says, you can’t have clean shellfish.

“It is a shared resource, right? It’s important for our company and it’s important for the community.”

The post Stopping Aquaculture Rope Pollution at the Source appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“They can be divided into two categories,” says Claudio DiBacco, a research scientist with Canada’s Fisheries and Oceans Canada. “Those that have been around since the latter part of the 19th century, they don’t harm the environment. It’s the newcomers that have arrived in the last few decades that are the troublemakers,” he says.

How sea squirts arrive and spread in a new area is no mystery. Often, they hitch rides in the ballast water used to weigh down ships without cargo. “The larvae are invisible and float with the ocean currents. They’re onboarded with a ship’s ballast water, and when it discharges in a new location, so does the tunicate,” says Boris Worm, a marine ecologist at Dalhousie University’s Ocean Frontier Institute. “It is almost impossible to keep them from spreading.”

Sea squirts are tiny (species range from 6-10 inches long) and have cute nicknames such as Compound Sea Squirt, Golden Star and Pancake Batter. But, despite their small stature and fun names, these invaders sucker themselves like barnacles to any hard surface, natural or manmade, singularly or in massive colonies. And they are heavier than they look. Made up of organs, sea squirts are 95 percent water; an oyster cage weighing five pounds can easily exceed 75 lbs. when attacked by colonized tunicates. 

“We weren’t prepared for how heavy they were.” (Photo courtesy of courtesy of Fisheries and Oceans Canada)

Colton D’Eon is a self-described sea farmer and chief operating officer for D’Eon Oyster Company in Yarmouth, NS.  He remembers the first time his oyster farm was hit with a tunicate infestation. “We weren’t prepared for how heavy they were, and lines snapped and we lost equipment. Now, we’re diligent. Our oysters are grown on the surface of the water in cages that can hold up to six bags of 300-1,200 oysters. We have learned to regularly take the bag and cage out of the water and let the sun and wind dry it out. This kills the tunicate but doesn’t solve the problem. They never go away,” he says.

It used to be that tunicates would die back in the cold winter water, and reemerge in the spring as the ocean warmed. “Now,” says DiBacco, “they’re finding thermal refuges, where the water stays warm enough for them to survive all year.”

Since the 1980s, there’s been an increase of more than two degrees Celsius (four degrees Fahrenheit) in the Gulf of Maine and surrounding waters. The average global ocean temperature has risen by only 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.5 degrees Fahrenheit) during that time. “The rate of warming is more than twice as fast as the global average,” says Worm.

Where the Bay of Fundy converges with the Gulf of Maine, for example, the water has warmed from a low of -3 degrees Celsius in 1960 to a low of just above freezing in 2020.

In 2006, NASA scientists said warming sea surface temperatures were also causing a global decline in phytoplankton productivity, a main food source for tunicates and shellfish.

“This competition for resources has caused the growth rate of mussels in some areas with heavy tunicate populations to be reduced by 30 percent,” says DiBacco. In 2015, bio-fouling tunicates so severely affected mussel supply in Nova Scotia that there was a three-month shortage for shellfish consumers.  

Bio-fouling tunicates have severely affected mussel harvests. (Photo courtesy of courtesy of Fisheries and Oceans Canada)

Controlling bio-fouling organisms such as tunicates is expensive for fishermen, sometimes taking up to 10 percent of their profits in terms of manpower and equipment needed. These expenses can then be passed on to the consumer.

They are everywhere along the eastern coast of North America. The United States Department of Agriculture lists several species of sea squirts including clubbed and compound as invasive. In 2008, tunicates were found in Lake Tashmoo, a protected marine pond with shellfish aquaculture operations located on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. 

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts says oyster farmers along the US Eastern seaboard are continually finding cages and equipment covered with the brown-and-orange foam of the pancake batter tunicate. It takes months to clean it off and recoup the market loss of thousands of oysters suffocated by the invader. The institute is now studying the adaptive qualities of tunicates, wondering if there are any limits to their survival.

 “I don’t think there’s a way for humans to stop them,” says D’Eon.

Aside from manually flipping and drying cages, pressure washing to rinse off the fouling tunicates has also been effective, along with adding a chemical lime solution to infested mussel stocks. And starting in 2024, the Canadian government will implement new ballast water regulations that require ships to scrub the water of organisms before dumping it. But, ultimately, it may be climate change that solves the problem. 

In July 2023, Nova Scotia experienced a massive rain event. A total of 200 millimetres  of rain fell within 12 hours, adding fresh water to Halifax harbor where the DFO had set up plates to track tunicate populations. “After the storm,” says DiBacco, “the invasive tunicates were gone and, as of mid-September 2023, hadn’t returned. It might be that the rainfall lowered the salinity in the water, changing oxygen and PH levels and affecting reproduction. We’re still collecting data.”   

It’s a small flicker of hope for D’Eon, especially as more fresh water is coming. As polar ice caps melt, volumes will spill into the Atlantic. This, along with a warmer atmosphere and its ability to hold more moisture, increasing the frequency and velocity of rain events, could be the sea squirt’s kryptonite—an outcome for which fishermen and shellfish farmers have been hoping.

The post What Will Stop Troublemaking Sea Squirts Along North America’s Atlantic Coast? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

When you harvest oysters, you have to make sure you aren’t crossing over into restricted territory. To help, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources developed a web app for commercial and recreational shellfishers called iShellfish, that depicts state waters with demarcations for several categories including seaweed protection zones, oyster sanctuaries, aquaculture leases and more. Users can see where they are in relation to these boundaries, many of them hard to see in person.

“I can hold it in my hand and look at it and know exactly where I am without having to get the binoculars out to look,” says Harrison. The app helps him stay on the right side of the different boundaries. Crossing them could have serious consequences. “I could actually lose my license.” 

Screenshot of the iShellfish web app.

Harrison uses iShellfish regularly. When it comes to knowing where he can go, it takes all of the guesswork out of the process, he says. Harrison, also the president of the Talbot Watermen Association and chair of the County Oyster Committee for Talbot County, used to try to find individual boundary charts online, but the app compiles all of the information into one place.

Shellfish are both culturally and economically significant in coastal communities across the continent, but knowing which waters are legal and safe to harvest can present a significant obstacle. Behind these issues are wicked problems without simple solutions. But when it comes to figuring out where and when you can harvest shellfish, the answer may be as easy as downloading an app.

Helping farmers adapt

Some call North Carolina’s estuaries the “Napa Valley of oysters,” a nod to the abundance of perfect shellfishing conditions in the area. But being an oyster grower in this area also comes with its fair share of financial risk and unpredictability.

Heavy rainfall can flush pollutants and chemicals from roadways into the water. This is when pollutant concentrations in a waterbody can hit dangerous levels, and in North Carolina, the Division of Marine Fisheries enforces temporary closures for affected shellfish leases as a way to address the health risks associated with eating oysters from contaminated waters. 

These closures are critical for public health. But they also create a very inconvenient interruption for growers.

View of the water from Morehead City, North Carolina. (Photography by Lena Beck)

Before Natalie Nelson started working on the ShellCast app, there wasn’t an accessible tool in North Carolina that could help oyster farmers predict potential closures to their leases. Nelson is an associate professor in the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department at North Carolina State University. ShellCast, which was piloted in 2021 and released to the public in 2022, was recently updated and expanded this year. It sources data from the National Weather Service’s probabilistic quantitative precipitation forecast, which shows the future precipitation possibilities.

“We’re essentially contextualizing [the forecast],” says Nelson. “So we provide that information in the context of the management criteria that are used to determine when the temporary harvest closures should occur.”

The app features a map of all the oyster waters in the state, and users can see whether the risk of closure is very low, low, moderate, high or very high. The forecast presents the risk level for the present day, one day out and two days out. 

Now, the team has expanded the app to include South Carolina and is working on expanding to Florida. Nelson says the farmers who benefit the most are the ones who are most vulnerable to low influxes of rain—that is, are more likely to experience a closure due to less rain.

“If they have a temporary closure that occurs, they are then suddenly in limbo, and they might not be able to harvest their products as planned,” says Nelson. “By having information, they’re at least able to assess whether or not they should potentially harvest early.” 

Screenshot of the ShellCast web app.

Mapping toxin risk

Toxin-producing algae and pollution present multiple obstacles to shellfish consumption. In coastal areas of Canada, a new app is mapping toxin risk to enable safe, local harvesting. 

The idea for Can U Dig It was developed by Q’ul-lhanumutsun Aquatic Resources Society (QARS), a coalition of Hul’q’umi’num’ communities. Intertidal shellfish are a traditional food source for these First Nations, and safe access to these foods is important to maintain. Trailmark Systems, a cultural and environmental consulting firm, took on the project.

“Folks do get sick by harvesting shellfish in these areas, and we really wanted to develop something that they felt was trustworthy and that they could use while they’re out in the field,” says Beth Keats, partner at Trailmark Systems. “QARS wanted to make sure that people would know when there is a partial opening so that they can go and exercise their rights to harvest and be safe to do it.”

Screenshot of the Can U Dig It app.

Can U Dig It harvests open-access government data from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, including which beaches are currently open or closed to shellfishing, as well as whether the closure is caused by biotoxins or sanitation issues. The openings can sometimes be short and easy to miss, says Keats, so it’s important to be able to identify harvest windows when they occur. Can U Dig It is also available in more languages besides English, including Korean, Tagalog and Vietnamese. The app is usable on both Canadian coasts.

Harvesting shellfish contributes to a greater sense of well-being, says Keats, and is an especially important right for First Nations.

“It is so essential…to maintain that practice as they have for millennia.”

The post Harvesting Shellfish? Get the App appeared first on Modern Farmer.

This marks Patryn’s sixth year as a seaweed farmer, but he’s been working on the water for much longer. Hailing from a commercial lobstering family in Maine, Patryn sees cultivating this marine crop as a lifeline for a community threatened by fishing’s uncertain future. While he still casts his traps on occasion, farming kelp by hand and selling it as snacks and seasonings has become his main focus.

It may seem quaint compared to the industrial operations that grow most of the world’s food, but outfits like Patryn’s Nautical Farms are poised to skyrocket in number over the next few years. Now seen as a “future-proof” material, seaweed is a hardy, fast-growing protein source useful for everything from biofuel to petroleum-free plastic to consumer goods like utensils, soap, clothing, and of course, food. The World Bank said raising this versatile crop in just 5 percent of U.S. territorial waters would produce as much protein as 2.3 trillion hamburgers and sequester the carbon emissions of 20 million cars.

Given all that, the market, which stood at $15 billion two years ago, is projected to hit $24.92 billion in 2028. There were 30 venture investments in seaweed startups throughout North America last year, with some $130 million raised. The Department of Energy is throwing $22 million toward exploring how growing 500 million tons of macroalgae per year could meet 10 percent of the nation’s demand for transportation fuel.

Seaweed snacks represent just one of the many uses of seaweed. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Although China, Indonesia, South Korea, and the Philippines still account for more than 95 percent of global production, farms in North America – particularly British Columbia, Alaska, and Maine – are cropping up to meet demand. But just like industrial agriculture on land, such operations can harm the environment – and given the role kelp forests play in sequestering carbon, the climate. Monocropping, the introduction of non-native species, and poor management have led the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration to declare “commercial kelp harvesting is potentially the greatest threat to long-term kelp stability nationwide.”

In response, cultivators are calling for more policies to govern their business and protect waterways and marine ecosystems. This climate work is no less critical than reducing the world’s demand for beef or easing its dependence on fossil fuels because this ubiquitous plant provides essential habitat for hundreds of marine species, offers protection from storms and coastal erosion, and draws millions of tons of carbon out of the atmosphere each year. Marine algae also provide around 50 percent of the planet’s oxygen. Seaweed is, in many ways, already saving the world. People like Patryn want to make sure their growing industry doesn’t do anything to mess that up.

“I don’t think it would be a good idea to have thousands of kelp farms all up and down the coast of Maine, peppered in every single bay,” he said. “Growing this industry overnight would be a good way to to tarnish it before it even gets off the ground.”

Thousands of species of seaweed fill the world’s oceans, but only a handful are cultivated for human consumption. In North America, kelps, which thrive in cold, shallow, nutrient-rich waters, are the most commonly farmed varieties.

In the wild, thick ribbons of the stuff stretch up to 200 feet long, sheltering a wide variety of sea life. Rumor has it that the sheer size of South American kelp forests led Charles Darwin to remark, “I can only compare these great aquatic forests with the terrestrial ones in the inter-tropical region. Yet if in any country a forest was destroyed, I do not believe nearly so many species of animals would perish as would here, from the destruction of the kelp.”

Growing the stuff is remarkably straightforward: Farmers cast seedlings out on ropes and submerge them until they’re ready to harvest a few months later. It’s also relatively cheap. Seaweed is a “zero-input crop,” meaning it doesn’t need any additional food, fertilizer, or freshwater to grow. Bren Smith, who started the regenerative ocean farming company GreenWave, writes in his book Eat Like a Fish that anyone with $20,000 and a boat has enough to start harvesting 10 tons of kelp per acre — and net as much as $120,000 per year doing it, given they find the right buyer.

When Patryn and Fogg started Nautical Farms back in 2017, they were lucky to grow a few hundred pounds in a season. Now, they’re managing a 5-acre sea farm in Englishman Bay and cultivating thousands of pounds of kelp in the process. They used to sell their harvest to a few buyers, but these days they have as many as half a dozen part-time employees helping them dry sugar kelp, skinny kelp, and alaria themselves to make nearly a dozen different snacks and other goods.

Most of the nation’s seaweed farming occurs in their home state of Maine, with its abundance of cold, clean water and working waterfronts, and in Alaska, which has those things and the nation’s longest coastline. The two states account for more than 85 percent of the U.S. supply of edible seaweed. The 27 operations within Atlantic Sea Farms in Maine, for example, harvested nearly 1 million pounds last year. A 100-acre Alaskan operation owned by Premium Aquatics, which sells its bounty under the brand Seagrove Kelp Co, has become the largest kelp farm in the U.S in the four years since its founding.

The nutrient-rich and biodiverse waters around Vancouver provide another thriving location for kelp cultivation. Cascadia Seaweed, also founded in 2019, operates eight farms covering 62 acres. It plans to have 1,235 acres under cultivation by 2025 (and that many more pending development) as it looks to expand more than tenfold in the next decade. Government funding has given the company a good head start: It has provided two grants worth $5.8 million to help build a new farm and processing facility.

Since most U.S. seaweed farms sit within a few miles of shore, they are governed by state laws, which can vary widely. Maine limits farm size from 400 square feet to 100 acres depending on the lease, for example, while Alaska strictly regulates where species may be grown. Still, there are no national regulations monitoring seaweed farming. Canada doesn’t have much in the way of rules, either. There are currently no policies around farm size or native seed collection in British Columbia.

While this piecemeal approach has worked out so far, industry insiders wonder how it will hold up as farms become larger and drift further from shore. Growing enough seaweed for the biofuel needed to meet the nation’s energy needs, for example, will require more than a few buoys in a bay.

Amanda Swinimer of Dakini Tidal Wilds, who has been wild-harvesting seaweed off the west coast of Vancouver Island since 2003, believes the seaweed industry has already started sneaking up on policy — with potentially costly results. “There was no need to have regulations around seaweed farming before because nobody was doing it before,” she said. “But now, if both the feds and the provincial government are throwing the kind of money at it that they are, policymakers should be doing primary research and putting some basic regulations in place.”

A seaweed harvest in Japan. (Photo: Shutterstock)

One question looming over the North American seaweed market is how big is too big. Large-scale monoculture outposts covering 100 acres or more could starve the surrounding ecosystem of nutrients, obstruct wildlife migration patterns, or prevent sunlight from reaching other flora and fauna. Massive seaweed operations in Asia offer a cautionary tale. In China, where farms can cover 15,000 acres, pests and bactia infections present a growing concern. Some diseases are triggered by abiotic factors: Unfavorable conditions like too much or too little light have provided the conditions they need to spread rapidly, ruining an estimated 25 to 30 percent of annual seaweed harvests and changing the microbial structure of nearby ecosystems.

“There’s always going to be a point where you get too much of a good thing,” Scott Lindell, a marine farming researcher at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said. “And we don’t know where that breaking point is.”

The introduction of non-native species also could pose a risk. Seaweed farmers choose strains that are resilient, fast-growing, and tolerant to many conditions — precisely the traits, scientists warn, that could allow them to overwhelm their habitat and crowd out other species. Varieties that are new to an area also can carry dangerous “hitchhikers.”

“You can’t guarantee that you’re just importing the seaweed,” said marine biosecurity researcher Elizabeth Cottier-Cook. “There will be other things like microorganisms attached to that seaweed that could then cause disease and spread to wild native strains as well.”

Seaweed farms can also be vehicles for food-borne diseases when improperly managed, as seen with a Salmonella outbreak traced to a Hawaiian seaweed farm in 2016.

Rapid growth of an industry that gets ahead of market demand could lead to significant waste issues, too, said Anoushka Concepcion, who works in marine aquaculture for NOAA’s Sea Grant program in Connecticut. She points out that the reason government-funded farms in China or Korea can stay afloat is because they feed populations accustomed to eating seaweed many times a day. The average American palate doesn’t have the same taste for the sea veggie, so barring quick innovation on the biofuel and bioplastic fronts (still very much in their infancy), huge seaweed farms in the West could leave whole lot of product left to rot.

Finally, Swinimer, who makes her living harvesting wild seaweed, worries about the risk of farmed seaweed mixing with wild strains. Seaweed hybridization has already happened off Oslofjord, an inlet of Southeast Norway, to unknown consequence.

“There are fewer boundaries in the ocean than there are on land,” Swinimer said, introducing the threat of genetic intermingling. Given the essential role seaweed, particularly kelp forests (often called the sequoias of the sea), plays in sequestering carbon and providing oxygen, Swinimer is worried about the risks industrial-scale cultivation has on this invaluable organism.

“Seaweed is already saving the world from climate change,” she said. “If we mess with that, we are going to be in big, big trouble.”

When considering how to regulate the seaweed industry to mitigate potential climate pitfalls, Cottier-Cook points to a “restorative aquaculture” model that would incentivize ecologically beneficial farming. Governments could, for example, pay farmers for the carbon their crops capture; a new type of blue subsidy. Smith’s company GreenWave is testing this idea with its Kelp Climate Fund, which awards farmers up to $25,000 per season for the carbon and nitrogen capture and reef restoration they provide.

Encouraging the growth of hyper-native seaweeds will also make sense in some places. Alaska leads the way here, with state laws that require farmers to collect their kelp seeds from within 50 kilometers (about 31 miles) of their grow site each year to ensure their crops share their genetic makeup with local wild stocks. Laws that prohibit altering the marine ecosystem in any way, like Maine’s strict regulations that fine farmers for abandoned gear, could also help keep quell aquaculture’s environmental impact.

While the process to secure an seaweed farming lease is closely regulated by a state’s department of marine resources or environmental conservation, government involvement fades once the first lines are dropped in the water. While Concepcion notes that some states are talking about enforcing more rigorous inspections and penalties, it’s a slow process in a new industry that still has so many question marks. “Agencies are hesitant to establish a policy because they don’t know what to expect,” Concepcion said. “They don’t want to add additional requirements to farmers that make it harder to get involved. But at the same time, they want to be cautious because they don’t want an accident to happen. So right now it’s still a lot of vetting of information, and a lot of discussion.”

Sugar kelp is one variety of edible seaweed being cultivated in the US. (Photo: Shutterstock)

The most important decisions have not yet been made. The regulations policymakers pass in the next few years ultimately will determine not only how and where seaweed is grown, but whose hands (or if the techies get their way, robotic appendages) grow it. Will the farms of the future be owned by massive corporations, or by local cooperatives? Those in coastal communities whose livelihoods hinge on ocean health would argue for the latter.

“The people who I think should be in kelp farming are fishermen who already know how to work on the water, already have a boat, and already have another generation coming up underneath them to raise on the water,” said Patryn.

Dune Lankard, an Eyak Athabaskan Native of the Eagle Clan from Cordova, Alaska, also transitioned from fishing to kelp farming after watching local fisheries collapse. He started the non-profit Native Conservancy to help other Native peoples start kelp farms in order to maintain food sovereignty and cultivate a resource that has long been a part of their ways of life.

If passed, the federal Coastal Seaweed Farm Act of 2023 would help further this mission by establishing an Indigenous seaweed farming fund and publishing a report outlining how to responsibly scale seaweed in the U.S. with the help of Indigenous knowledge.

A spokesperson for U.S. Representative Mary Peltola of Alaska, who introduced the bill with Representative Jared Huffman of California in March, said it has received positive feedback and the lawmakers hope it will be included in this year’s farm bill.

As seaweed inhabits the liminal space between land and sea, it holds the opportunity to build a new food sector that is more equitable, efficient, and environmentally informed than those that came before it. By incentivizing restoration, prioritizing native planting, taking a precautionary approach to expansion, and centering coastal community knowledge, the industry can grow in a fast yet controlled and methodical way. In short, it can grow like seaweed itself.

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

The post The Kelp Business is Booming. How Big is Too Big? appeared first on Modern Farmer.

If you are a woman, the challenges don’t stop there. You may be the only woman fishing out of your harbor, vying for respect in an industry that throughout its long history has welcomed only men onboard. Every day, you’ll be working to prove you belong on the boat and not keeping the books back at the wharf.

When Krista Tripp was 18, she’d completed all of the hours at sea necessary to get her captain’s license, but her parents submitted her brother’s paperwork to the State of Maine and not hers. Why? Even though Krista had been hauling traps since she was eight years old and running her own boat since 15, the expectation was that now she’d settle down and start having babies. 

“My brother and I shared the boat, we had 150 traps and I became obsessed at an early age,” Tripp recalls. “I knew that was what I wanted to do. But, as a girl, my parents didn’t really take me seriously.”

Tripp would spend the next few years working as a sternman off of a scallop boat in Massachusetts. Eventually, she returned to Maine, and after 14 years, she got herself off the waiting list and became the captain of her own lobster boat. Today, she has been captaining her own lobster boat for more than eight years. 

Heather Strout Thompson’s boat “Gold Digger” in Harrington Harbor. (Photo courtesy Heather Strout Thompson)

Heather Strout Thompson started lobstering at age 10. She fishes the state limit of 800 traps out of the rural harbor of Harrington, just outside of Jonesport in the deep Downeast of Maine. Growing up there, it was either the sea or the blueberry fields, and Strout wasn’t a fan of the blueberry fields. 

“My dad was the one who gave me the hardest time out of anybody,” says Strout. “I always wanted to prove him wrong, throughout my childhood and even now, to prove that I can do it.”

Down the coast in the endearingly named town of Friendship, Kelly Wallace started fishing at age five. When she was old enough, she bought her own skiff and started hauling her traps by hand. Lobster traps are typically hauled onboard using a hydraulic trap hauler, but Wallace would haul 150 traps—each weighing 50 pounds—by hand all through high school.

Wallace’s family has been working on the water for six generations and operates the Wallace Lobster Wharf. But she was the first female member of her family to choose to become a lobster boat captain.

“It’s definitely hard to be a woman in the fishing industry because you aren’t ‘one of the guys’,” admits Tripp. “A lot of men are really egotistical when it comes to their jobs being physically demanding—so when they see a girl doing the same kind of job, it makes them feel less of a man. They just aren’t as welcoming.”

But none of these women has let a little bit of ego hold them back. 

“I might not do things the exact way a man does things,” says Heather Strout Thompson. “But I can get the job done. I might not lift a trap with my arms—I might have to use my legs a little bit—but I can get it up there.”

Being a woman in the lobstering industry can be singular, but it is a challenge upon which all three women have thrived. And within the world of lobster fishing, the proof is in the traps hauled and the hours put in.

“I’ve noticed more men giving women opportunities,” says Thompson, “because they’re looking for a more reliable person to work with and women are very reliable. They’re going to do whatever they can to prove themselves.”

Tripp echoes the same sentiment. “Some guys think that women are great workers because they want to prove themselves more.”

“When I was younger, you never saw women on a boat, ever,” says Tripp. “I know a lot of other women lobstering now, but I never did before.”

Commercial fishing is one of deadliest professions in the United States. (Photo: Kirsten Lie-Nielsen)

The lobster industry is a tough place to make a living for anyone. It is the backbone of Maine’s economy and the iconic food of the state, but it has become a more challenging industry in recent years. 

The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than any other body of water in the world, and to survive, lobster may follow the Maine shrimp north to Canadian waters. When fishing, lobstermen are careful to take only crustaceans of a certain size and to return females with eggs to the sea. Nevertheless, additional environmental regulations come down hard on Maine lobstermen, while the cruise ships and tankers responsible for pollution and whale strikes are largely unregulated. Since 2020, the price of fuel has risen steadily, while the market price of lobster has dropped. Commercial fishing remains one of the most deadly professions in the United States, making every trip to haul a risk.

With all of these hurdles, you may wonder why women are heading out to sea in pursuit of the recognizable red “bugs.” But Maine women are as resilient as the state’s rocky coast, and they seem uniquely suited to thriving in a trade that requires grit and diligence.

Marina Landrith is a 13-year-old aspiring lobsterwoman who fishes out of the picturesque harbor of Rockport. She currently holds a student license that allows her to fish up to 50 traps. On lobstering days, she launches her boat, fills her bait bags and motors out to haul her traps. 

Her family has been lobstering for five generations and she was inspired to begin by her uncle, who lives and fishes off of Matinicus Island, the farthest inhabited land off the east coast of the US. Matinicus is home to less than 100 year-round residents, the majority of whom are lobstermen. Landrith’s uncle has been taking her out lobstering since she was a baby.

“What I enjoy most about it is that I get to spend time with my dad when we go out to haul and the feeling of accomplishment when I get in from hauling and sell what I caught,” says Landrith.

Marina Landrith holds a student license that allows her to fish up to 50 traps. (Photo courtesy Dale Landrith)

She knows several women who lobster or assist as sternmen on lobster boats, including her own 10-year-old cousin. A sense of accomplishment and personal pride seem to drive every woman in the industry. 

“Nobody else cares that I’m doing this or not,” says Heather Strout Thompson. “It’s something within yourself that you have to push and want to be able to do. At the end of the day, you’re the one that’s going to sit back and ask, ‘Did I work as hard as I could? Did I earn my spot here?’ And I feel I have.”

While commitment and drive push these women off shore every day to compete in the lobstering industry, the inspiration always circles back to family. The majority of lobstermen, male or female, are continuing a family tradition.

When Landrith thinks about her future, she can imagine life as a lobsterwoman. Someday, she wants to live on Matinicus like her uncle. “I think it would be great to live out there where my family grew up and I have visited during the summer for as long as I can remember,” she says.

Marina Landrith’s family has been lobstering for five generations. (Photo courtesy Dale Landrith)

Thompson points out that in the lobstering world, family goes beyond flesh and blood. “Fishermen are some of the most generous people I’ve ever met,” she says. “They’ll stop what they’re doing and help you, tow you in, give you a part to fix your boat, so you can get back to haul. It’s a family within the lobstering industry.”

And the family of women who lobster continues to grow. In 2021, 15 percent of lobster licenses belonged to women, compared to less than 5 percent in 2014. When tomorrow’s generation of lobstermen look back at their family heritage, it won’t be a men’s club anymore.  

“There’s different things that I might do that aren’t the way the men do it,” says Thompson. “But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong; it’s just different. Sometimes, you don’t have to do it the same as everybody else does. Do what’s best for you, what you are comfortable with and keep moving forward.”

The post Meet the Women Making Waves in Maine’s Tough Lobster Industry appeared first on Modern Farmer.

As a photographer, Tese has tried to document the changing ocean life, both to preserve a memory of what once was and to bring attention to its rapid decline. In December 2019, after years of trial and error, she finally perfected an innovative 8×10 sheet film camera, designed to take underwater photographs of the Channel Islands’ kelp forests. Tese wanted a unique way to tell the story of the plight of the integral kelp forests. Then, the pandemic struck, the dive boats were docked and her visual storytelling was put on indefinite hold. 

That’s when Tese decided to spread her message of ocean conservation another way: through a seafood restaurant. 

Chef Cheo Avila at Minnow. Photography by Michelle Colman.

Yes, it seems unorthodox or even counter-intuitive at first glance, but Tese is approaching the foodservice industry with resolve to shake things up. Minnow will only serve responsibly line or trap caught seasonably available seafood. The restaurant’s motto is: Local. Line caught. Organic. Despite being told by “almost everyone” that her business model is impossible (mostly due to cost and sourcing), Tese is determined to prove them all wrong. “Absolutely no nets, no draggers, trawlers, gill or seine nets,” she vows. “And, absolutely no bykill.” 

“Bykill” or “bycatch” are terms used for animals accidentally caught in fishing gear. Nets do not discriminate. Whatever is not intended to be caught is discarded. It is estimated that the U.S. discards two billion pounds of bycatch a year. According to Gen V, “About 40 percent of fish caught worldwide are captured unintentionally and are either thrown back dying or left to die on the boat.” Bycatch can include whales, dolphins, sea turtles, sea birds, coral and sharks. The negative effects of bycatch go far beyond the unnecessary deaths of unintentional catches, disrupting the entire marine ecosystem. 

The difficulties of only serving locally sourced, responsibly caught seafood extend beyond trying to find local fishermen in line with Minnow’s mission. Tese continues her extensive research of the fishermen’s methods and also takes into consideration where the fish are processed. 

Cognizant of the locals’ way of life, Tese asks detailed questions, such as what kind of lines are used to catch which fish? “Certain fish caught on long lines can be bad depending on where those lines are so they don’t catch the wrong animals,” says Tese.“Golden tilefish can only be caught on long lines, but those lines are very deep down so no other marine animals get caught on them.”

Similarly, she says, the majority of seafood processing plants in the country have closed due to the economic development potential of waterfront property and cheaper offshore options. Even if consumers think they are getting “local” fish, that fish is often frozen, shipped to China for processing, thawed, processed, refrozen and returned. “And,” says Tese, “who is to say that you even get the same fish back?”

Rather than take her chances with foreign processors, Tese is determined to stick with local seafood, and she is pleased with the diversity of options. Her Mediterranean-inspired menu will include golden tilefish, black sea bass, which is plentiful around the North Fork, porgy and raw bar items such as whelks, local lobsters, squid and blue claw crabs, as well as local produce and wine.

Amanda Akran curated the bar and cocktail menu for Minnow. Photography by Michelle Colman.

Beyond the sustainable menu, Tese aims to use only reusable or returnable glass to-go containers, mismatched thrifted tableware sets and vintage decor reworked by Lumber & Salt from its local salvage yard.

Tese hopes to host fundraising events and talks to benefit her favorite conservancy nonprofits, such as Oceana and Sea Shepherd, at least twice a year. “That is the way I’ll educate people.”  However, she has no intention of being heavy handed with her conservation message, as she believes the proof is in the pudding. “If I can prove the model works, it will speak for itself.” 

Minnow opened recently on Memorial Day weekend in the waterfront town of New Suffolk. 

The post Meet the Photographer Turned Seafood Restaurateur Dedicated to Conservation appeared first on Modern Farmer.

With a population of approximately 2,700, almost everyone on the island has dulsed. Your parents or grandparents were dulsers, you’ve harvested or you know someone who does. It’s one of the Island’s identifiers. But there have been changes recently. “There are good years and bad,” says Bonnie Morse, mayor of Grand Manan. “Dulse isn’t as reliable as it once was.”

Photography courtesy of Noah Leonard.

Located at the entrance of the Bay of Fundy, the island of Grand Manan is a 90-minute ferry ride from New Brunswick’s mainland. Everything on the tiny 24-kilometre-long enclave depends on the sea. In bad weather, the ferry doesn’t come. When the water is calm, tourists arrive to marvel at panoramic ocean views and tiny hamlets where, like in the old days, no one locks their door at night. It creates a protectiveness in islanders towards what the sea provides — especially the dulse. There’s also lobster, herring, scallops and crab to supply Grand Mananers with a steady ocean diet.

Most people outside of Canada’s maritime provinces have never heard of or tasted dulse, the chewy, umami-tasting purple seaweed with an ocean smell. A 21st-century superfood, dulse contains high concentrations of iodine and is loaded with vitamins B, C and A, potassium and calcium. The purity and quality of Grand Manan dulse is sought after by nutraceutical and vitamin manufacturers. On Grand Manan, dulse is added to chowders, stews and pretty much everything in between. Growing in the lower intertidal zones of the North Pacific and Atlantic oceans, it’s one of the world’s oldest foods. Monks on Scotland’s Island of Iona ate it 1,400 years ago. In Iceland, it’s called söl and is a source of dietary fibre. But ask any self-respecting Grand Mananer and they’ll say their dulse is the world’s best. Matthew Abbott of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick credits the tide. “It gives dulse its Grand Manan edge.”  

Bay of Fundy tides are the strongest in the world. At peak flood, the water rushing past Grand Manan is 25 million cubic meters per second. The sheer force churns up the seabed, feeding the dulse a steady diet of minerals and nutrients. At low tide on the west side of the island, 200-foot cliffs cast shadows that shade the dulse from the sun and bleach out all that tidal goodness.  They’ve been dulse’s secret ingredient — until now. 

Typically harvested between June and October, dulse is a finicky crop. It needs a water temperature of between 5 and 14 degrees Celsius to reproduce. The Bay of Fundy averages between 5 and 12 Celsius. But for how long? Climate change is not only heating the atmosphere but the ocean. In 2021, temperatures in the Bay of Fundy were 2.3 degrees above average. “It’s terribly unfortunate,” says Abbot. “It’s the fastest-warming water on the planet.”  

But it’s the rock rollers, as Grand Mananers call them, that really do damage. Violent storms cause the sea to overturn the rocks into which the dulse is suckered and ripped to shreds. Climate change has altered weather patterns and once-in-a-decade storms are seemingly yearly now. The slow-growing dulse can’t recover between volleys. 

Abbot’s job is to look for ways to protect the shoreline from the ocean’s powerful churn. “There are environmental impact studies and research to be done, but artificial reefs anchoring the dulse in place and preventing a rock roller from doing harm is one idea.” 

Atlantic Mariculture, a Grand Manan company that provides dulsers with a market for their haul, is also looking for solutions. Jay J. Botes, marketing and communications lead for the company, says that if the natural environment was too inhospitable for dulse, they may be able to grow it indoors. “I would expect to see dulse being cultivated in land tanks that could mimic the conditions of the wild.” 

As conditions change along Grand Manan, Atlantic Mariculture has had to diversify its product line. Popular sea vegetables such as rockweed and nori also cling to Grand Manan’s shores. They are slightly less dependent upon location and water temperature, giving the company a more dependable crop and opportunity for harvesters. 

Photography courtesy of Noah Leonard

Grand Mananers have been through this type of decline before. The herring industry used to employ Grand Mananers, says Morse, but when it declined, it was lobster and dulse that anchored people.

“People stayed. They built a life, had children and retired on dulse,” says Morse. “This generation doesn’t see dulsing as a viable career. They’re turning to the mainland for jobs or the more lucrative lobster fishery. They harvest now to supplement other income.” 

Morse hopes this will be a good year for dulse. There weren’t rock rollers this winter and the water is cold. The dories still come and go from Grand Manan. But for how long? 

The post The Ebbing Tide of Dulse appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Some have claimed that farmed salmon is naturally gray, suggesting they are malnourished, and consumers should avoid eating it for this reason.

These claims are utterly false and perpetuate a myth that can confuse or scare salmon consumers. The truth is that the color of salmon fillets is red due to naturally occurring molecules called carotenoids, such as astaxanthin. This is part of a natural diet of wild salmon, and is added to the food for farmed salmon.

Carotenoids are common in the natural world among different plants and animals. Salmon have it in their diet from eating algae, krill and other small crustaceans. Carotenoids are essential pigments produced by bacteria, fungi, algae and plants. Animals cannot make carotenoids on their own, so those found in animals are either directly accumulated from food or partly modified through their own metabolic reactions.

The color of salmon fillets is from the same pigment that we see in shrimp, lobsters and even flamingos.

The color of wild salmon’s flesh comes from naturally occurring carotenoids in their diet, which need to be added to the feed of farmed salmon. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Why are salmon red?

The red color of salmon flesh — their muscle tissue — is a unique trait in several types of salmon. It’s an evolved genetic trait that likely occurred as an evolutionary mutation and distinguishes salmon from other types of fish.

While the flesh color is a direct result of carotenoids in their diet, there is also a unique genetic component. The gene beta-carotene oxygenase 1 is responsible for carotenoid metabolism, and most likely explains flesh color variation in salmon.

Carotenoids, including astaxanthin, can be manufactured and added to the diet of farmed salmon. These can be produced synthetically on a commercial scale, or from natural sources, such as algae; the freshwater green microalgae, Haematococcus pluvialis, is a popular source. H. pluvialis is an excellent source of astaxanthin for farmed salmonids like rainbow trout.

More importantly, astaxanthin is a health-sustaining molecule that plays a critical role in fish health and survival, and has benefits for humans too.

Health benefits to fish

Astaxanthin is a potent antioxidant, meaning it prevents some types of cellular damage. Antioxidants have multiple health benefits for both fish and humans.

Astaxanthin’s antioxidant activity is 100 times higher than vitamin E, which is a popular antioxidant in human supplements. In fish, it has many important functions related to immunity and reproduction.

Research has shown that astaxanthin has a significant impact on reproductive performance in many different fish species, like egg production and quality, sperm quality, fertilization rate and survival of newly hatched larvae.

Salmon eggs are red or orange in color because of the accumulation of astaxanthin, which plays a beneficial role in protecting the eggs.

Salmon eggs in the Adams River, B.C.—the carotenoid astaxanthin gives the eggs their distinctive color. (Photo: Shutterstock)

New Canadian research is underway to investigate the role of dietary astaxanthin in inflammatory control and immunity in Atlantic salmon. Overall, studies have consistently found that dietary astaxanthin is an important nutritional factor in stimulating growth and maintaining health and survival of aquatic animals.

Health benefits to humans

In humans, astaxanthin’s antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects have been shown to protect against stress-associated and inflammatory diseases. There are also potential effects on various diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and obesity.

Additionally, pre-clinical trials predict that astaxanthin may regulate intestinal microbiome and glucose metabolism. People can get astaxanthin in their diet by eating salmon or other salmonids like trout as well as shrimp, crab, krill or supplements.

Astaxanthin in farmed fish feeds is not only for pigmentation, but is also a necessary nutrient for health and reproduction in fish. In turn, it increases the nutritional value of the fish fillets for consumers.

Stefanie Colombo is Canada Research Chair in Aquaculture Nutrition at Dalhousie University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post The Color of Farmed Salmon Comes from Adding an Antioxidant to Their Feed, with Benefits for Everyone appeared first on Modern Farmer.

The Long Island-based nonprofit organization works to raise awareness of sustainable marine aquaculture through public oyster gardening and other sea farming activities. Oysters are one of the most environmentally friendly and sustainable protein sources. They help filter out pollutants in the water, keep the population of phytoplankton in check and create habitat for other marine life. South Fork Sea Farmers helps the waters off of Long Island reap all those benefits, while connecting people to a food source and teaching them about oyster farming.

“A single oyster filters 50 gallons of water a day,” says Jeff Ragovin, a board member with the South Fork Sea Farmers. “The oyster gardens are really amazing for the marine environment, providing habitat to shrimp, crabs, sea bass and black fish. While the oysters aren’t for sale, the people growing the oysters get to harvest them for their friends and family.”

Board member Jeff Ragovin. Photography courtesy of South Fork Sea Farmers.

Program participants pay a yearly fee of $200 for the equipment, and, in return, South Fork Sea Farmers asks for 200 oysters back from each plot, allowing it to continue seeding the public gardens. Participants can expect to grow up to 1,000 oysters, ready to eat, over the course of the season.

“It’s a super-sustainable, good-for-the-earth program,” says Ragovin.

Since it started, the program has grown to five harbors off the coast of Long Island. Last summer, with several partner organizations, it started a new reef in the waters off of Accabonac Harbor. South Fork Sea Farmers had students from East Hampton, NY schools sign up to help build the reefs, using bags of recycled oyster shells upon which spat will settle and grow. Those students will continue to monitor the reef’s progress as part of an educational project.

“We wanted to build a reef for years, but it took time to get the permit and do the shell collection,” says Ragovin. South Fork Sea Farmers purchased biodegradable bags from the Netherlands and filled them with used oyster shells collected from local restaurants to form the foundation of the new reef. 

After the shells were collected from restaurants, they had to cure for about six months before they were ready to be placed on the reef. While this reef is built from oyster shells, the waters off New York are also home to several artificial reefs built out of hard structures such as clean, recycled Tappan Zee Bridge material and jetty rock.  As those artificial reefs, the first of which was built in the 1940s, tend to collapse over time, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which builds and maintains those reefs, adds materials back to them every few years. The state hopes that, in addition to creating habitats for marine life, the reefs stimulate a productive aquatic ecosystem, increasing marine biodiversity as corals, mussels, snails, crabs and larger fish start to call them home. They also protect the shoreline from flooding and erosion and can decrease the energy of intense storms, and the Accabonac Harbor reef will provide space for more oyster gardening.

Photography courtesy of South Fork Sea Farmers.

South Fork Sea Farmers hopes that, in addition to building more oyster reefs locally, it can help inspire other municipalities and organizations to start their own public oyster gardens.

“We get people all over the country reaching out and asking how they can do something similar, so we’re working on putting together a guide of how to do it,” says Ragovin. “It’s been really a fun and exciting opportunity to see people in the local community be stewards of the environment.

The program has grown to an expected 150 families for the 2023 season, from an initial 15 pilot families, with many families including the original 15 coming back year after year.

If your local town isn’t quite ready for such a program or you don’t live along the coast, you can still witness some of South Fork Sea Farmers’ work when it live streams the oyster spawn next week. 

The post Meet The Modern Farmers Creating Public Oyster Gardens appeared first on Modern Farmer.