Here's a recap of this week's can't-miss SeafoodSource news stories and commentaries:
• Perhaps the most controversial story of the week came as a boon to British Columbia fishermen and processors and a shock to environmentalists — the Fraser River sockeye salmon fishery is set to receive Marine Stewardship Council certification after an independent adjudicator rejected an objection filed by three environmental groups. The David Suzuki Foundation, SkeenaWild Conservation Trust and Watershed Watch Salmon Society claimed that the fishery does not meet the MSC's criteria because Fraser River sockeye populations are threatened by overfishing. But the adjudicator disagreed, clearing the way for Fraser River sockeye to join Barkley Sound, Nass and Skeena sockeye in being eligible to carry the MSC eco-label.
• The disease ravaging juvenile oysters in France has not reached the United Kingdom. But its impact on the marketplace has. The Shellfish Association of Great Britain and Association of Scottish Shellfish Growers are warning buyers of a major oyster supply shortage, as French farmers source juvenile oysters from UK hatcheries to restock their beds, making it more difficult for UK growers to access juvenile oysters.
• Japan's Kinki University Fisheries Culture and Nursery Center was the first to successfully breed Pacific bluefin tuna in 2002. Now it is harvesting the product and exporting some of it to the United States. This week, SeafoodSource Contributing Editor Chris Loew took a look at the center's accomplishments to date.
• Who's Pulpo Paul? Perhaps no other seafood species has garnered more publicity this month than octopus thanks to Paul, who resides in a German aquarium and correctly predicted the winner of eight World Cup matches, including Spain in the final. Everyone from Andrés Iniesta, the midfielder who scored Spain's winning goal against The Netherlands, to Spanish Fisheries Minister Elena Espinosa has gloated about the psychic octopus, raising the seafood species' profile across Spain and Europe.
• The Gulf of Mexico oil "spill" is more appropriately categorized as a "hydrocarbon hemorrhage," explained SeafoodSource Contributing Editor Lisa Duchene in her "Hydrocarbon hemorrhage" commentary this week. The invisible methane is quietly sucking oxygen from the water, resulting in areas of low oxygen, over an unknown total area, to an unknown degree, for an unknown length of time. Duchene cites Samantha Joye, a University of Georgia oceanographer.
