Tag: Seafood

Closing Thought–19Mar24

I live on the Gulf Coast and part of our economy is that of seafood….the industry down here has taken many hits in the past twenty years….Katrina crapped on our seafood, then came Deepwater Horizon oil spill another dump on our seafood….then there is the Spillway that when opened screws our oyster industry then there is the influx of foreign seafood flooded the markets….like I said many hits and then came one last shot at killing our seafood industry……

A new report from researchers at the Cooper University Hospital in New Jersey suggests that necrotizing fasciitis may no longer be as rare as previously assumed, no thanks to climate change and global warming

Necrotizing fasciitis (NF) is a rapid-spreading, life-threatening bacterial disease that destroys the fascia, the tissue under the skin surrounding muscles, fats, and blood vessels. It is caused by a species of bacteria known as Group A streptococcus, also called “flesh-eating bacteria”, and Vibrio vulnificus. These bacteria thrive in warm salt and brackish waters, alternatively entering the body through open wounds or oral ingestion. 

Recent statistics show that necrotizing fasciitis affects about 1 in every 250,000 people in the United States per year [2]. In some other parts of the world where the climate is warmer, it may affect as much as 1 in every 100,000 per year. NF has been termed a “very rare” disease due to these low frequencies of occurrence, but global warming may be causing the increase. 

This recent report published in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that those statistics may be on the verge of going higher as world waters are getting warmer [3]. Flesh-eating bacteria species (especially Vibrio) thrive in unusually warm waters, and according to the report from the CUH, the few cases of necrotizing fasciitis studied have mostly arisen from the Southeastern U.S coast, the Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico. 

Experts Warn That ‘Flesh-Eating’ Bacteria May Be Spreading To Seafood, Beaches Due To Climate Change

It just does not pay to be a fisherman on the Gulf Coast anymore….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–31Aug22

If you visit many buffets these days one of the big draws is crab….Dungeness, King, Snow, Blue and Stone….all you can eat for 19.95….but sadly like the Atlantic Cod the King and Snow crabs are getting scarce….

Where did the Alaskan king and snow crabs go? The tasty crustaceans have all but vanished from their usual haunts within safe range of Alaska’s crabbing fleet. Per the Washington Post,king crabs—by far the larger of the two species—have been in decline for years, but the industry was unprepared for the sudden collapse of the snow crab population. Commercial crabbers, including many small business owners, went deep into debt in anticipation of a great 2021 snow crab harvest. Those expectations were based on 2018–19 surveys showing record populations of juveniles; but when 2021 rolled around, the stock of mature snow crabs was down by some 90% compared to prior years.

The state sharply reduced the allowable snow crab harvest from 45 million to 5.5 million pounds, but fishers didn’t even get that much. Many now face bankruptcy or are looking for creative ways to make ends meet. Meanwhile, there was no 2021 season for king crabs, and the state will announce what’s in store for 2022 on Oct. 15. Per the Anchorage Daily News, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council is also developing a “snow crab rebuilding plan,” which it is on track to unveil in December. In any event, the outlook seems grim, not only for crabbers but also for dozens of remote, indigenous villages in western Alaska, where crab processing is the only economic game around.

The Bering Sea has experienced several straight years of above-average temperatures, and while scientists aren’t sure of the exact reasons for the mass crab die-off, temperature seems to be key. Higher temps could make crabs more vulnerable to parasites or predators like cod, which shy from frigid waters. In any case, the decline is dramatic in both scale and speed. Mike Litzow, director of the National Marine Fisheries Service lab in Kodiak, refers to it as the “borealization” of the Bering Sea, which, like the nearby boreal forests, is rapidly transforming due to climate change.

Climate change claims another victim….

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Sushi On The Plate

Let me continue this Sunday with a post about a fad…..a fad that has moved from a delicacy to an everyday fad you can find in supermarkets and stop and rob gas stations……..Sushi.

And while I am bitching about this I shall throw in a bit of history as well….

Years ago there was a Mexican Eatery on every corner…then Starbucks appeared and recently the fad is Japanese and the every popular Sushi

To me it is a plate of bait….I mean I do not eat cooked fish so raw squid is out of the damn question all together.

This trend has become extremely popular and every Japanese eatery has a Sushi Bar as a national pride thing……

The truth is that Sushi is NOT Japanese in origin…..nope it is Vietnamese……….

On the morning of 5 January 2019, gasps of amazement rippled through Tokyo’s cavernous fish market. In the first auction of the new year, Kiyoshi Kimura – the portly owner of a well-known chain of sushi restaurants – had paid a record ¥333.6 million (£2.5 million) for a 278kg bluefin tuna. Even he thought the price was exorbitant. A bluefin tuna that size would have normally cost him around ¥2.7 million (£18,700). At New Year, that could rise to around ¥40 million (£279,000). Back in 2013, he’d paid no less than ¥155.4 million (£1.09 million) for a 222kg specimen: a lot, to be sure. But still a lot less than what he’d just paid. 

It was worth paying over the odds, though. It was, by any standards, a beautiful fish – ‘so tasty and fresh’, as a beaming Mr Kimura told the world’s press. It was also a rarity. Though not as critically endangered as its southern relatives, the Pacific bluefin tuna is classified as a vulnerable species and, over the past six years, efforts have been made to limit the size of catches. Most of all, it was great advertising. By paying such a colossally high price for a tuna, Kimura was telling the world that, at his restaurants, the sushi is made from only the very best fish.

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/historians-cookbook/short-history-sushi

Funny how that worked out……

Learn Stuff!

Enjoy your day.

Closing Thought–25Sep18

Our Dear Leader has been waging his trade war for a little over 2 months…..some are happy with the events……while others are finding it difficult to earn a living with the tariffs and stuff…..

Farmers are needing help…..and another industry is finding these tariffs a bit hard to swallow……

The American lobster industry is starting to feel the pinch of China’s tariff on US seafood as exporters and dealers cope with sagging prices, new financial pressures, and difficulty sending lobsters overseas, the AP reports. China is a major buyer of lobsters, and it imposed a heavy tariff on exports from the US in early July amid trade hostilities between the two superpowers. Exporters in the US say their business in China has dried up since then. Wholesale prices for live lobsters have also dipped a bit as dealers have lost markets. Prices in July and August were both slightly less than the same month in the previous year, business publisher Urner Barry reported.

One exporter, The Lobster Co. of Arundel, Maine, resorted to laying off four people, which constituted 25% of its wholesale staff, says Stephanie Nadeau, the company’s owner. “I can cut my variable costs and tuck my head in and see if this storm passes,” she says. “What they’ve done is made it so everybody is fighting over the remaining customers. Price goes down, margins go down.” China applied the tariffs to a suite of American seafood products, including tuna and crab. It made the move at a time when many Chinese are acquiring a taste for American lobster. China’s American lobster imports grew from $108.3 million in 2016 to $142.4 million last year, and the country barely imported any American lobster a decade ago.

Lagging prices may help the consumer but does little for the struggling fisherman……

Keep that in mind when you make that trip to your local Red Lobster”….who I am kidding….Americans have NO social conscience any more…it is all me,me, me!