Here's a recap of this week's must-read SeafoodSource news stories and commentaries:
All four units of British Columbia's sockeye salmon fishery are now certified as sustainable and well managed by the Marine Stewardship Council. And that doesn't sit well at all with the David Suzuki Foundation, SkeenaWild Conservation Trust and Watershed Watch Salmon Society, three groups that are now telling consumers to avoid buying the fish. The certification, they claim, was "rubber stamped."
Potentially great news for the beleaguered U.S. territory of American Samoa: Tuna supplier Tri Marine International of Bellevue, Wash., is developing a plan to restart fish-processing operations at a plant that Chicken of the Sea closed last year due to a 2007 law that mandated increases in minimum wage paid to workers. "We will need to do something more, something different," said Tri Marine Managing Director Joe Hambry.
The devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill has changed the atmosphere and the mood at Moe Bader's New Orleans restaurant Oceana Grill. Bader told SeafoodSource contributing editor Christine Blank that the excitement in his French Quarter restaurant is gone, partly because his once-demonstrative chefs don't have enough product to churn out their signature oyster dishes.
Speaking of the Gulf of Mexico, Blank also talked with Harriet Perry, director of the University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Fisheries Research and Development. She said droplets of oil have been found in between the shell and inner skin of blue crabs larvae throughout the region. There may be diminished recruitment for the next season as a result, she added.
If you have something constructive to add about draft standards for farmed salmon released this week, your opportunity is here. The Salmon Aquaculture Dialogues, a collaboration of various industry stakeholders galvanized by the World Wildlife Fund, is now accepting public comment on the standards, which could "change the way salmon is farmed worldwide," said WWF's Katherine Bostick.
