Steve Bittenbender works as a freelance journalist based in Louisville, Kentucky. Besides working for SeafoodSource.com as a contributing editor, Steve also works as an editor for Government Security News and as the Kentucky correspondent for the Reuters News Service. He also works as a sports writer for The (Louisville) Courier-Journal and The Associated Press. He has received awards from the Kentucky Press Association and the Louisville Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for his on-going and enterprise reporting work.
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NaturalShrimp, Inc. announced on Wednesday, 18 March, that the company’s production building at its La Coste, Texas, U.S.A. headquarters was destroyed in a fire the previous day.
The company announced the news Wednesday afternoon, after trading of the over-the-counter stock finished for the day. It said that the fire occurred at its pilot production plant, where its working on a way to grow food-quality shrimp in aquaculture tanks using
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Tuesday, 10 March, it will suspend most foreign inspections through April due to the coronavirus pandemic ...
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia
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A second lawsuit has been filed in a U.S. federal courthouse against a rule, scheduled to take effect Monday, 9 March, that would require Atlantic herring fishermen to pay for independent monitors aboard their vessels.
Seafreeze Fleet LLC and two vessels it owns filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and NOAA Fisheries in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island last week. It
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Gulf shrimpers started 2020 on a good note. According to data from NOAA Fisheries’ Southeast Fisheries Science Center Fishery Monitoring Branch, the total January harvest from commercial fishermen rose for the second consecutive year.
Fishermen in four states – Mississippi did not report data – harvested …
Photo courtesy of Bonnie Taylor
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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced on Thursday, 5 March, it will release 35,000 additional H-2B visas over two phases for the second half of the 2020 fiscal year.
The number is down slightly from the 45,000 H-2B visas The Wall Street Journal reported last week would be issued to address widespread labor shortages in the United States.
“This year’s supplemental allocation was determined after extensive consultation
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Omega Protein officially announced on Monday, 2 March, that it completed moving its corporate headquarters from Houston, Texas, U.S.A., to Reedville, Virginia.
The company, a division of Canadian-based Cooke Inc., has a history in the Chesapeake Bay community dating back more than 100 years. As part of the effort to move corporate operations to Reedville, Omega Protein invested USD 1.3 million (EUR 1.2 million) in restoring the 1930s-era
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A group of New Jersey fishermen have filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to block a ruling that would require them to pay to carry independent monitors on their vessels during their fishing trips.
The suit, filed on Wednesday, 19 February, in the District of Columbia, came after the U.S. Department of Commerce approved an amendment sought by the New England Fishery Management Council to improve clarity regarding landings data in the
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The U.S. seafood industry is on the verge of getting some good news as the Wall Street Journal has reported that the Department of Homeland Security plans to authorize an additional 45,000 H-2B visas.
H-2B visa allow non-agricultural businesses to fill seasonal jobs with immigrant labor. The program is vital for seafood processors, who claim they cannot find enough domestic workers to handle their needs.
The federal government had established a
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The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Atlantic Menhaden Management Board have accepted findings from a pair of studies that sought to assess the stock’s viability …
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia
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State and federal officials in Kentucky traveled to the western part of the state on 17 February to see firsthand a pilot program designed to control the invasive Asian carp population.
Throughout February, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources is working with several federal agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to remove the invasive species from Kentucky Lake, a large man-made resovoir, using an innovative
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