Category: Fisheries

The Press Herald has a report on the Seagriculture Conference that took place in Portland this week.

Johnson was among 300 attendees at “Seagriculture,” the second annual International Seaweed Conference USA, held this week at the Westin Portland Harborview Hotel. The two-day event featured presentations by global leaders in seaweed innovation exploring its production and various uses, including food, bioplastics, medicine and sustainable economic development.

Here’s a link to the program for the conference.

The Times Record has a report on new oyster farming operation in Bath that’s using a novel approach to raise oysters to market-size at an accelerated pace.

The City Council last week approved the sale of a city-owned building on Town Landing Road along the Kennebec River to Matt Nixon, owner of Muddy River Farm Aquaponics. Nixon designed the world’s first 3D-printed, closed-loop, oyster-farming tank made from sustainable materials. It will be the city’s first business specializing in aquaculture, the production of aquatic life like shellfish or salmon under controlled conditions.

Eater has published an article about Togue Brawn and her work developing the Maine dayboat sea scallop market.

Brawn slices each plump, ivory-colored cylinder into thinner disks she lays on a platter. “The texture is what you should really notice, and the flavor is good and not fishy,” she says, then a confession: “I am obsessed with scallops.” She wants everyone else to be obsessed with scallops, too. And since the pandemic caused a swell of enthusiasm for mail-ordered foodstuffs — including Brawn’s scallops — that time may well be nigh.

The New York Times has published an article about scallop aquaculture in Maine.

You certainly couldn’t tell that, just below the waves slapping against the hull, there were hundreds of thousands of sea scallops, swimming, squirting and cavorting in a series of nets, all part of Mr. Brewer’s aquatic farm.

Mr. Brewer and his son, Bob, pulled up a long algae-covered net and scooped scallops into a bucket of seawater, where they zipped around, moving a whole lot faster than you’d think bivalves could. Most would go to Glidden Point Oyster Farms. The rest were about to become lunch.

Eater has published an video feature on Bangs Island Mussels.

The Press Herald has published a report on Maine’s sea urchin fishery, and efforts to develop an sea urchin aquaculture industry.

Though sea urchins may seem an unlikely focus for Maine’s burgeoning aquaculture industry, “uni,” also known as urchin roe or gonads, is considered a delicacy in many Asian and some European markets. Steve Eddy, director of the University of Maine Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research, believes urchin could become a valuable economic driver for the Northeast region.