Thoughts from Chief Fishmonger, Dale Sims

A little more than a year ago while writing about American shad, I took a stab at identifying aquatic species fitting the description heritage seafood. In addition to shad (please recall. George Washington was a shad fisherman), I suggested San Francisco's native Olympia oyster meets the description. The reefnet salmon fishery off Washington's Lummi Island qualifies as heritage seafood - not so much the fish as the fishery and its centuries old way of harvesting. CleanFish offers Shooting Point oysters, grown in Virginia by Tom Gallivan. At the top of their website is the phrase "Hand Crafted Heirloom Oysters." My colleague, Aaron Henry, has offered up striped bass and American sturgeon as examples of heritage seafood. And what would all of those Friday night fish frys in the Great Lakes look like without yellow perch. Certainly a rich heritage there.

I buy heirloom vegetables, particularly heirloom tomatoes. I'm intrigued by the quirky shapes and different colors. I'll buy heritage pork. It's definitely tasty stuff. So, what exactly are heritage foods? With the development of industrial aqriculture, particuly after WWII, with livestock we came to focus on only a few breeds thar provided maximum production of meat or milk. Traditional breeds can become at risk for dying out. Heritage foods come from livestock and crops that are rare or endangered. Historically these animals provided much of the food in America - and across the world. If we lose them we lose a part of our heritage, our culture and ourselves.

One issue with farmed salmon is concern over reducing the gene pool if farmed salmon escape and breed with wild fish. In that regard, Loch Duart salmon deserves consideration as heritage seafood. While other farms in Scotland sourced eggs from Norway and Iceland, Loch Duart took a different approach. Loch Duart's original broodstock were sourced from multiple rivers in Scotland, including the Spey, the Laxford, the Thurso and the North Esk. A recent study comparing 70 genetic markers called SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphism) of wild Scottish salmon established there are no discernible differences between Loch Duart and wild Scottish salmon. The study was conducted by Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland (RAFTS), the Marine Freshwater Laboratory and the Fisheries Management and Ecology Group of Scotland.

In 1949 a research vessel discovered calicos (Argopecten gibbus) off the coast of North Carolina. In 1958 a small fishery sprang up in the Gulf along the eastern Florida Panhandle from Apalachicola to Mobile, but it declined in only one year. The North Carolina calico fishery began in 1959, with calicos being shucked by hand. By the 60's the fishery had expanded south into Florida. Some beds of calicos between St. Augustine and Ft. Pierce was as much as twenty miles wide. Beginning in 1980, when automatic steam shucking production was improved, production quickly escalated The fishery was centered around Port Canaveral where boats could go out for as little as twelve hours and return loaded with calicos. The proximity of the beds to the processing plants was critical in minimizing mortality and maintaining the quality. It was normal for as many as 80 boats to target calicos. At the peak of the fishery 25 docks from North Carolina to Florida off-loaded calicos, and as many as 200 boats were active in the fishery. By 1984 productiion peaked at 40+ MM lbs of scallops were harvested. The fishery declined sharply after that. Many boats began targeting rock shrimp. In 1981 and again in 1986 the SFMAC - South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council- rejected plans to manage the fishery. In 1993, the Gulf fishery declined even further. By 1996, there were no reported landings of calicos.

Although overfishing contributed heavily to the decline in calicos. Disease was even a larger factor. In December, 1988, scallopers began finding many dead and dying scallops. By the end of January 1989, in less than two months,neither the commercial boats or research vessels could find any scallops. The calicos did come back in 1990. But loss due to mass mortality continued. By the end February 1991 harvesting of calicos was suspended again. The culprit was a species of protozoan parasite known as an Ascetosporan.

By 1996 there were no reported landings of calicos. In 1999 federal authorities rejected a plan to manage the fishery. For all intents and purposes, calico scallops were gone. That was 17 years ago.

Today the landscape has changed. Or, perhaps I should say the seascape. Calicos have come back. But, most of those 25 docks that received them are gone. Real estate values saw many of them turned into marinas and condos. What few plants are left are no longer prepared to process calicos.They sold off the equipment years ago.

The lifespan of a calico scallop is two years. They begin spawning after only four months. Having been left alone for more than eight generations, calicos are coming back. A government research vessel recently discovered a large swath of calico beds about thirty miles south of Charlestion, SC. There is one processor in Georgia who has maintined his equipment these seventeen years. We won't see 200 boats harvesting calicos again. We won't see 80 boats. There are only three boats working the beds.The plant's maximum capacity is five boats. The probability for overfishing is gone.

CleanFish is proud to offer fresh, dry-pack, chemical free, domestic calico scallops again. Who knows? They might have the possibility of one day being regarded as a part of America's seafood heritage.

Now available from CleanFish: Fresh Laughing Bird Calico Scallops. Available now.

Thoughts from Chief Fishmonger, Dale Sims

"I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguished . . .Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day . . . " - The Darkness by George Gordon Lord Byron

How in the name of leaping lederhosen can the 1815 eruption of a volcano in the South Pacific, famine in Germany in 1816-1817 and Frankenstein have any connection to the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico today?

The year 1816 has been called "the year without a summer" and "eighteen hundred and froze to death." One year earlier, on April 10, 1815, Mount Tambora, on Sumbawa Island east of Java blew its stack. When the lava stopped flowing and the dust had settled, more than four thousand feet of the mountain top were gone in the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history. Tambora spewed more that 36 cubic miles of pulverized rock and 200MM tons of sulfer dioxide more than 15 miles up into the stratosphere. A cloud of dust circled the northern hemisphere. Over the next year, temperatures dropped as much as 5 degrees Fahrenheit. In June of 1816, it snowed in New England and Eastern Canada. They recorded frost every month that year. Europe was cold and rainy. Volcanic ash mixed with snow. Rivers flooded. Crops failed in New England, Britain, France, Switzerland and Germany. Heavy monsoons, frost and cold temperatures were felt in China and India. Cholera broke out in India. There was famine in China when rice crops failed.

Napoleon had only been defeated at Waterloo in 1815. Much of Europe was already suffering from food shortages caused by the war. Horses, dogs, cats and even rats were slaughtered for food. The price of grain shot thru the roof. People began baking bread from sawdust and grass. Food riots and looting broke out in the cities. Robbery and beggars were commonplace. There was an epidemic of typhus. Some 200,00 people in Europe died from hunger and disease. Germany was hit particularly hard.

Justus von Liebig grew up in Darmstadt, Germany. In 1816. He was thirteen years old. He lived thru this year without a summer, and he never forgot it. As a grown man, Justus devoted his life to chemistry. He had a long career as a teacher and is regarded as one of the very best chemistry teachers of all time. He applied chemistry to plant and animal physiology. Von Liebig argued against any chemical distinction between living and dead chemical processes. He argued that "the production of all organic substances no longer belongs just to the organism," declaring "we shall produce them in our laboratories. Sugar, salicin (aspirin) and morphine will be artificially produced." The application of chemical principles had a profound effect on the welfare of mankind. He led the way in promoting science based agriculture. For him, plants were little more than a combination of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. From this chemical approach to plants, he saw the possibility of using chemical fertilizers in place of natural ones-manure. This is his legacy. For it, he has the distinction of being known as "the Father of the fertilizer industry."

What von Liebig didn't see coming was monocropping - the agricultural practice of growing a single crop year after year on the same land. Corn, soybeans and wheat are the three most common crops grown using monocropping techniques. Monocropping produces higher yields in the short-term. But it does nothing for long term land stewardship.

The Mississippi River Basin drains much of the United States, from Montana to Pennsylvania and south down the Mississippi River. The single greatest contributor to the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico is nitrogen runoff from the major farming states in the Mississippi River Valley, including Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Nitrogen and phosphorous enter the river thru upstream runoff of fertilizers, soil erosion, animal wastes and sewage. Remember too, most of that soy and corn is not grown for human consumption. It's grown to feed livestock - cattle, pigs and chickens, that are creating the animal waste. In a natural system, these nutrients aren't significant factors in algae growth because they are depleted in the soil by plants. With an increase in nitrogen and phosphorous from chemical fertilizers, algae growth is no longer limited. Algae blooms develop. The food chain is altered. Oxygen in the water is depleted. Whadda get? Dead Zones like the one in the Gulf of Mexico.

Now, let's go back to 1816. That summer (or non-summer) the English poets, George Gordon-Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and his sister Mary and Byron's physician Dr. Polidiri, along with some other friends, were vacationing on the shore of Lake Geneva, in Switzerland. On the night of June 16th, Percy and Mary were visiting Byron at his Villa Diodati. There was an incredible storm. Unknown to them at the time. This was one of the effects of the Mount Tambora eruption. The storm was so intense, Percy and Mary couldn't return to their own villa. So, they spent the night at Byron's. They couldn't listen to Pandora on their iPhones. They couldn't surf the web on their computers. There wasn't any television. So, they amused themselves by reading out loud. What did they choose to read? A collection of German ghost stories. Byron was inspired. He challenged everyone in the group to write a short story. Dr. Polidori began his story, The Vampyre, the first modern vampire story. Mary Shelley wasn't inspired to write anything that night. The others continued to encourage her, Several nights later, on June 21st, she had a dream she described as a "waking nightmare." That was her inspiration. She'd found her story. She finished writing it in May the next year. It was published January 1, 1818. That story is Frankenstein.

A key defect of industrial monocropping agriculture is it's complete reliance on agricultural chemistry. It demeans nature and has become its own monster. I began this column with a quote from Byron's poem Darkness, also written in 1816 and very much influenced by the weather of that year. The poem ends like this:

"The rivers, lakes, and oceans all stood still, and nothing stirred within their silent depths . . . The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The moon their mistress had expired before; The winds were withered in the stagnant air, And the clouds perished. Darkness had no need of aid from them-She was the Universe."

The Lost River Sucker

Thoughts from Chief Fishmonger, Dale Sims.

"Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting." -- attributed to Mark Twain

There are two fish you won't find at the seafood counter or on restaurant menus anytime soon: the shortnose sucker and the Lost River sucker. There are at least three reasons for this. First, both fish have been on the Endangered Species list (ESL) since 1988. Second, the names of these fish are less than captivating. Lost River has a certain romantic cachet, conjuring up images of unspoiled nature in all of its pristine glory. But sucker or suckerfish is only a couple of rungs higher on the ladder of appeal than slimehead, known today, thankfully, as orange roughy. Third, Lost River and shortnose suckers have been described as all but inedible, bottom-feeding trash fish. So, even if they make it off the ESL and are renamed, they still might not find their way onto restaurant menus or into fish markets.

It just so happens, that shortnose and Lost River suckers are indigeneous to southern Oregon and the northern California, which is to say, the 12,000 square mile Klamath River Basin.

The natural resources of Klamath Basin have offered economic opportunity from fur trapping in the 1800s to mining, logging, fishing, farming, ranching and the development of hydroelectric power. The farmers and ranchers are heavily dependent on water for irrigation. This has meant diverting water from the Klamath and its tributaries. Unintended consequences of this are ongoing water shortages, degraded water quality, and reduced spawning habitat for chinook salmon, coho salmon, steelhead and, yes, suckers. Folks have been arguing about water in the Klamath Basin since at least 1918, when construction of the first dam, Copco 1, began on the lower Klamath River.

This week an article appeared in the Los Angeles Times and was reprinted on seafood.com, that stated in part. : ". . . one of the nation's fiercest water wars is on the verge of happening again. New water rights have given a group of Oregon Indian tribes an upper hand just as the region plunges into a severe drought. Farmers and wildlife refuges could be soon cut off by the Klamath Tribes. . . ."

Hold on a minute. What new water rights? These aren't new at all. Under Oregon law, all water is publicly owned. With few exceptions cities, farmers, factory owners and other users must obtain a permit or water right from the Water Resources Department to use water from any source-whether it is underground, or from lakes and streams. Landowners with water flowing past, through or under their property do not automatically have the right to use that water without a permit from the Department. Recently, after a decade of hearings on more than 700 disputed water rights in the Klamath Basin, in a process known as adjudication, the OWRD agreed that the oldest water rights in the upper basin are tribal, dating to "time immemorial." What's new is the state finally acknowledging these claims.This is important because the Upper Klamath Lake is the primary reservoir for a federal irrigation project serving 1400 farms covering 200,000 acres.

• With the Treaty of 1864, the Klamath Tribes (Klamath, Modoc & Yahooskin) gave up 20 million acres of their ancestral lands in south central Oregon and northern California to the United States. The Tribes kept two million acres and the right to fish, hunt, trap and gather as they always had.

• 1905 The Secretary of the Interor authorizes the Klamath Reclamation (irrigation) Project - It begins in 1906.

• 1912 Lost River Diversion Channel completed

• 1917 Connection of Lower Klamath Lake to Klamath River is blocked

• 1918 Construction of Copco 1 Dam, blocking passage of salmon and steelhead to the Upper Basin
• 1921 Anderson--Rose Dam on Lost River completed
• 1921 Link River Dam completed
• 1925 Copco 2 Dam completed
• 1925 Gerber Dam completed
• 1930 Lost River Diversion Channel enlarged
• 1950 Lost River Diversion Channel enlarged
• 1954 Congress decides the Klamath Tribes are ready to be assimilated and unilaterally passes the Klamath Termination Act, ending federal recognition of the tribes. The Act specifically states: "Nothing in this shall abrogate any water rights of the tribe and its members" and " Nothing in this shall abrogate any fishing rights or privileges of the tribe or the members thereof enjoyed under Federal treaty."

• 1957 Klamath River Compact ratified by CA & OR to ensure equitable distribution and use of water between the two states and the Federal Gov't. Article X specifically acknowledges and confirms Tribal water rights.

• 1958 J.C. Boyle Dam completed
• 1962 Iron-Gate Dam completed
• 1966 Keno Dam completed
• 1967 Lost River sucker listed as "Rare" by Calif.
• 1971 Shortnose sucker listed as "Rare" by Calif.
• 1975 Klamath Basin adjudication proceedings begin in Oregon
• 1984 United States vs Adair - both the District Court and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals uphold tribal water rights
• 1986 Klamath Tribes reinstated as federally recognized tribes.
• 1986 Klamath Tribes voluntarilly close their sucker fisheries for conservation
• 1988 Lost River and shortnose suckers listed as endangered under ESA
• 1995-1997 Repeated summer die-offs of adult suckers in Upper Klamath Lake
• 1997 Coho salmon listed under ESA
• 2001 Klamath Water Users vs Paterson - the federal court ruled that "rights to water in the basin ... are subservient to senior tribal water rights
• 2001 Kandra vs United States - the court confirmed the federal obligation to protect tribal fisheries, confirmed the "time immemorial" priority of tribal water rights confirmed tribal rights "precedence over any alleged rights of irrigators.'

• 2002 Massive die-off of Chinook salmon in the mainstem of the Klamath.
  2005 Commercial salmon harvest restricted
  2006 700 miles of OR & CA coast closed to commercial salmon fishing due to weak Klamath stocks
  2007 Commercial salmon ocean harvest restricted along CA & OR coast due to weak Sacramento River salmon stocks
  2008 California commercial ocean harvest closed due to weak Sacramento River salmon stocks
  2009 California commercial ocean salmon harvest closed
  2010 Reclamation Project water deliveries for irrigation are reduced to reserve water for ESA listed suckers and coho.

The good news is the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement, signed by 42 different parties, including farmers, ranchers and tribal members. No one will get everything they want. But it is the best hope of sharing water in the Klamath Basin and providing protections that give king salmon, coho salmon, Lost River suckers, shortnose suckers and other fish a chance to regenerate. This is the full positive meaning of reclaiming the Klamath.

So, are suckers really inedible, bottom-feeding trash fish? Consider this: Not only did the Klamath and Modoc tribes eat sucker, so did the trappers and settlers. And, oh yes there were lots of other fish at that time, including salmon. At one time, there was even a sucker cannery.

Charles Henry Gilbert (1859-1928) was a fisheries biologist. He was one of the first twenty-two professors at Stanford and Chairman of the Zoology Department. He was the first person to correctly apply the scale method for determing the age of Pacific salmon. He was instrumental in establishing tagging programs for Alaska salmon. He was also the first person to confirm the "home stream" theory for spawning salmon. He was also one of the very first to recognize the need for salmon conservation. In 1898, he made the following observation about the Lost River sucker, "(It's) the most important food fish of the Klamath Lake region." With the passage of time, the taste of this fish is no longer in our memory, a point worthy of deeper reflection regarding fisheries we are focused on today. But listening to some of the past records on these suckers, they don't sound like trash fish to me!

Thoughts from Chief Fishmonger, Dale Sims

The headwaters of the Klamath river are in southern Oregon. Its 263 mile path cuts through the Cascade mountains before emptying into the Pacific in northern California, just below Crescent City. At one time it was the third largest salmon river in the lower 48 states. Only the Columbia and Sacramento rivers produced more.

Four dams on the lower stem of the Klamath, Iron Gate, Copco 1, Copco 2 and and J.C Boyle have blocked passage to the cold water of the upper Klamath and its tributaries for almost 100 years, prime spawning ground for Chinook salmon. Copco 1 was finished in 1922. Copco 2 in 1925. J.C Boyle was finished 33 years later, in 1958 and Iron Gate in 1962. These hydroelectric dams are owned by PacificCorp.

After several years of meetings with a broad base of stakeholders - farmers, tribal leaders, government agencies, conservation groups, PacificCorp and other business interests; and 50 different engineering, scientific and economic reports, a paper was prepared for the Secretary of the Interior that concludes: the four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River that block salmon migration and cause toxic algae blooms in stagnant water should be removed. Now it's up to Congress to fund it. The cost could be as high as $800MM.

California's commercial salmon season opened on Wednesday (May 1). The season will stay open until October 15th in some areas. Not too long ago, for several years, California didn't have a commercial season or one that was severely limited. Last year, we had as pretty good season. More than 214,000 salmon were off-loaded on California docks. If the projections for this year are close to accurate, we could see twice that many salmon. Boy, that's great news. The three years that fishing for king salmon in California was severely restricted had a huge impact on our coastal fishing communities. Consider too, the native tribes who live in the Upper Basin of the Klamath. Since the completion of Copco1 Dam 93 years ago, in 1922, they have not had a salmon fishery at all - ninety-three years.

Removing those four dams will open up more than 420 miles of spawning salmon habitat. Salmon is far more than an economic driver for the Klamath tribes. Salmon are a fundamental part of native culture and religion.

The water in the reservoirs behind the dams is listless. In the summer months, high water temperatures can be lethal to salmon, particularly when the oxygen is low. This has resulted in toxic algae blooms. Since 2005, health warnings have been posted against water contact with the reservoirs behind Copco 1 and Iron Gate. We won't go swimming in that lake!

Parasites now thrive in the warmer, slower moving water. The parasites carry two diseases, P. minibocornis and C. shasta. About 80% of the juvenile fish in the Klamath become infected and most die from these diseases (klamathrestoration.org). Removing the dams will allow the natural flow of the water to flush out the algae and parasites.

Low oxygen levels just below Iron Gate that are generated by the lack of water movement in the reservoir will be be eliminated.

These dams are not used for irrigation for farming. That comes from two dams further north, the Keno and Link dams.

The reservoirs behind the 4 dams have a limited capacity to catch flood water. They provide virtually no flood control.

PacificCorp needed to renew its licenses to operate the dams. They determined that removing the dams would be cheaper than installing fish ladders, as any new license would require. FERC and the California Coastal Commission agree!

With the return of a wider spawning area with colder water, biologists predict that fish diversity will improve. And, that as early as 2028, Iron Gate Hatchery will probably not be needed to augment Chinook, coho or steelhead trout populations.

Reclaiming the Klamath will allow the Kamath tribes to reclaim a piece of their cultural heritage. It also offers hopes that Californians and our Oregon neighbors can reclaim the essential and almost mystical presence of truly wild salmon.

Will those GE salmon be bigger than bluefin tuna?

Thoughts from Chief Fishmonger, Dale Sims

"And the three men I admire most / The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost / They caught the last train for the coast / The day the music died" - American Pie, Don McLean

Galileo (1564-1642) has been called the "Father of Modern Science." Rene Descartes (1596-1650) has been called the "Father of Modern Philosophy." These two guys, have both been dead more than 350 years. How could either of them have any influence on the making of genetically engineered salmon? Actually, the connection is straightforward. Not only that. It's a connection that envelops and permeates our daily lives. It's a world-view. And in the case of GE salmon, a world-view run amok. It speaks to the meaning of husbandry and artisan practices vs industrial practices.

During the Inquisition, Galileo was accused of heresy against the Church. What was his crime? He supported the idea put forth by Copernicus that the earth revolves around the sun. Well, the Pope wasn't putting up with that nonsense. So, the Church pressured Galileo to change his tune. Finally, on June 22, 1633, under threat of death, Galileo made a quasi-renunciation. So, they didn't burn him at the stake. But, he remained under house arrest for the rest of his life. Not just the "Father of Modern Science", more than the "Father of Modern Observational Astronomy" and "The Father of Modern Physics", Galileo became the symbol of enlightenment, martyred by the forces of superstitution.

Yet, Galileo, the mathematician, also believed the only way man can discover truth is thru objective, quantitative measurement. Historian Lewis Mumford describes him like this: "Galileo committed a crime far greater than any dignitary of the church accused him of; for his real crime was that of trading the totality of human experience for that minute portion which can be observed and interpreted in terms of mass and motion. . . . In dismissing human subjectivity Galileo had excommunicated history's central subject. multi-dimensional man." Creation, for Galileo can only be explained empirically by mathematics and mechanics. Shades of Dragnet, "Just the facts, please."

"Cogito ergo sum" - I think therefore I am. Here comes Rene Descartes the Father of Modern Philosphy. In his writing, Descartes proclaimed animals to be "beast machines" and all of their functions "neither more nor less than the movements of a clock or other automaton." Life is nothing more than a machine.

Over time, the ideas of Galileo and Descartes have devolved into something different. We have divorced ourselves from Nature and principles of stewardship. We succumbed to the view that the purpose of nature is to serve man and that our natural resources are to be exploited for the sake of maximum production. We stopped viewing agriculture as a way of life and as a practice of animal husbandry, replacing it with agriculture as an industry, driven by efficiency to achieve maximum production. It is this very cold objectivity that has led to genetic engineering of animals, including fish.

Consider pig #6707 and the work of USDA researcher Vern Pursel. With a belief system rooted in the certainty of objective science and values seeking maximim efficiency in production, Vern set out to create a super pig - #6707. Vern's pig would be larger than animals raised using traditional animal husbandry practices. His idea was to permanently inject animals with human growth genes. He planned to engineer "Super Pig." The question is, super for what? A far cry from Wilbur in Charlotte's Web, the sole purpose of Super Pig #6707 was human consumption. A pig with more meat. a pig with the perfect pork chop. Vern replaced the history of husbandry with modern animal science.

Vern injected the human growth gene into a pig embryo. Yep, that pig was born and quickly developed a larger than normal body. It was also nearly completely blind and had arthritis. Pig #6707 weighed so much it was crippled, bowlegged and couldn't hold its own weight to stand. To photograph his scientific creation, he had to prop it up with a piece of plywood. Vern stated he was simply trying to make livestock more efficient and profitable. After he retired, Vern was inducted into the USDA Agricultural Research Service Hall of Fame (henceforth renamed the Hall of Shame). I don't know if Vern attended the induction ceremony. Rumor has it he was at his retirement villa on the Island of Dr.Moreau!

"If reason and morality are what set human beings apart from animals, then reason and morality must always guide us in how we treat them." - Matthew Scully, Senior spechwriter for George W. Bush

We have created a new religion from our misguided ideas about the meaning of Progress. Progress has become our Salvation. Andrew Kimbrell describes the Holy Trinity of the religion of Progess: Science, Technology and the Market. Science is God. It has its own rules for the universe, understood only by the priesthood of scientists. Technology is is the Son - it is thru technology that we can know Science, and the miracles it manufactures. And, the Market promotes the Spirit of consumerism. Science will let us know everything. Technology will let us do everything. And, the Market will let us buy everything.

Progress? Where is this Progress taking us - to pig 6707? To genetically engineered salmon? By replacing husbandry with science we are losing. Science is a part of husbandry. It doesn't supersede it. To husband is to use carefully and to conserve. Wendell Berry says it like this: "Husbandry is the name of all the practices that sustain life by connecting us conservingly to our places and our world; it is the art of keeping tied all the strands in the living network that sustains us."

When Canadian company AquaBounty applied for FDA approval to sell its GE salmon in the states, FDA refused to consider any environmental impacts beyond the Canadian and Panamanian facilities proposed in the application, as those were the only two facilities listed in the application. However, newly released documents obtained thru the Freedom of Information Act reveal that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has already received multiple requests to import AquaAdvantage Salmon eggs into the U.S. for commercial production. Not only that, scientists at US F&WS questioned both FDA's ability and authority to review the impact of genetically engineered animals, including fish. Something is rotten in Denmark, and you can smell it in the halls of FDA.

Husbandry defines artisanship. Plants, livestock and fish genetically engineered for greater efficiency in the drive for industrial scale production is something something altogether different. I cannot help but wonder what Galileo and Descartes would think about the world today.

Yes, young ones, I do recall the first Earth Day in 1970.
Earth Day was aspirational, a celebration from my generation to mark some
recognition for an entire body of young people who had demonstrated a
willingness to take to the streets en masse. Yes the same group of wild young
folks that brought you Woodstock. This celebration flowed naturally from the
Anti-War Movement, and the Civil Rights Movement to include yet another
category of generation gap that was palpable.

This generation gap was profoundly felt, mostly because the military draft made
the Viet Nam war a reality that touched many more homes and families and
college classrooms than the current multiple wars seem to on a daily basis. Yes,
we are still with troops and young men and women in harms way in Afghanistan,
and Iraq and many other regions and activities of military action known and
unknown to the civilian population.

What we did not know until the information age data banks and simulation
capabilities of the 1990’s was that at the same time that Earth Day was taking
place, dramatic changes in our planet’s ecosystems was also turning, and not for
the better.

There was put forth then, and true still the storied and continuing analogies -
- the hoped for lessons of the French lily pads on a given closed pond; or the
means by which one can cook a frog to describe the simple realities of changes
that take place hidden in plain sight because they take place over time that
obscures humans from simply observing the cause and effect consequences of
natural systems by human interventions.

Indeed, with the Anti War sensibilities, added to the Civil Rights questioning
of conditioned thinking, and the assumptions of waste and throw away
consumption patterns of our consumer socioeconomics it was easy to sense
intensely that something was going terribly wrong in the early 70’s. While not
able to pinpoint each cause, there were effects that were just beginning to be
seen by some. The some were not always so good at articulating this feeling of
wrongness, of dread, of deep questioning.

Labels such as “Tree Huggers” dismissed or deflected the potency of the critiques
being made in 1970. It seemed even then that the cynics were saying, ”Just allow
some teach-ins, some demonstrations, or some music in the parks and this
sentiment of taking greater care of the environment will have had its a day…”

Well, the Environmental Movement continues to grow, to build awareness, to
call on science, and politics and society to take notice of the damage being done
and the restorations that are essential. So, it is the market that has resisted so
long that is, and must now dramatically come around. Why has it taken the
fast-moving markets, the street savvy markets, the spending and lending, and
investing power of the markets so long?

From my view, the adversarial labels thrown at The Movement, we allowed stick.
Very simply we’ve been living through a slow motion emergence from denial.

The denial is that those of us forming “The Movement” allowed for, and largely
accepted the definition that positive economic activity that is crucial to our
individual and collective livelihoods was at odds with environmental values and
goals.

While the market has moved a good deal, that simple equation of Business
against the Environment and vice versa, still holds power; far, far too much
power.

Economics is the art of house holding. Caring for our home is good business.
Waste is not good business. Attending to the cycles of our home planet is wise
and most efficacious for solid economics. We spend money as consumers. We
invest in companies as part of our hope and faith in our systems of economics.
How we invest and spend our money creates or disrupts our future. How we
eat and live together creates or disrupts the likelihood we can live at all on this
planet.

We are what we eat; think; do; believe. We are connected to all things on this
planet as Earthlings. This is, then, our Day to celebrate home base.

As a simple fishmonger I do hasten to point out that this planet is more water
than land. Let’s create the awareness that Earth Day is also Ocean Day. The seas
are the last open spaces for hunting and gathering. We need the water places of
earth as much as the land we live upon. We must stand for what we stand on. We
must vote for restoring and regenerating, and healing the damage that has been
done. No throw away forests, fish, lands, seas, or people

The call is for voting. The call is for healing. An economy based on healing, rather
than growth for growth’s sake will paradoxically be a healthier growing and
living planetary and local economy.

I am this day grateful for the chance to participate, to speak out, to lend my voice,
my work, my commitment to join the next generation’s effort to honor, restore,
and heal the Earth. I am proud to be part of the Circle Dance of the Movement
alive and celebrating all living things. When the stars dance and twirl above us in
the night sky, “they long for our ability to change…”

Eat good fish, sing new songs, breath more deeply, dance the seasons in and out,
and enjoy the Earth/Ocean Day we have like all life we know depended on it. It is
all we have, today, and ever after this day.

Thoughts from Chief Fishmonger, Dale Sims

I happened to pass by my neighborhood elementary school the other day, just as classes were letting out for the day. Boy was I surprised. This fellow was standing right in front, next to a large table covered with baskets filled to overflowing with fresh fruit. He was holding up a sign that read "FREE APPLES." I looked a little closer. I knew this man. It was none other than that defender of the faith, protector of motherhood, friend to the farmer and spin doctor for the agro-chem companies, Snively Toxikoff.

Snively usually looks sickly, with a sallow complexion that's close to jaundiced. But not that day. He was sporting a deep suntan, and looked surprisingly healthy. I stopped next to the table and spoke, "Snively, what are you doing here and where'd you get that suntan?"

He reached into the basket, pulled out a bright, mouth-watering apple and tossed it in my direction. "Hey, I'm giving away these new apples. Go ahead, take a bite. It's free. And, I just got back from South America. I spent the last three months in the Amazon. It was time for the farmers to do their spring planting. You know us agro-chem GMO guys, we'll do anything we can to make a sale. The farmers didn't have enough room to plant all the GMO soy they wanted for livestock and aquaculture feeds. So, I went to Brazil to help chop down the Amazon rainforest. Last year we chopped down more than 10,000 acres of the rainforest in Brazil, just to make room for crops of GMO soy. I may not look like it, but I know a thing or two about chopping down trees. My daddy and grandaddy were lumberjacks in the Pacific Northwest. They helped the big lumber companies clear-cut all those old-growth redwood trees. Why I grew up, chopping trees down. After helping those farmers plant our GMO soy seeds, I felt like Johnny Appleseed. Me, Snively Toxikoff, spreading GMO seeds all over the world. And today, by handing out free samples of our newest GMO, I'm practically Johnny Appleseed reincarnated. See how good this apple looks. Take a bite. Boy oh boy! We sure hit the nail on the head with this one. This isn't just any old apple I'm giving away. This is the new GMO Arctic Apple. You can take a bite out of it. You can slice it into pieces. It never turns brown. NEVER. This is slicker than gassing tuna with carbon monoxide so it always stays red. We don't have to treat Arctic Apples so they won't turn brown. These apples treat themselves. Pretty clever, huh! We do this by using a different kind of genetic engineering called RNA interference (RNAi). Fortune Magazine calls RNAi 'Bio-Tech's Billion Dollar Breakthrough.' And, it's my job to make sure that as many of those billions as possible flow into the coffers of the agro-chem companies. That's why I'm giving these apples to school kids. I'm taking a page fromn the work I did for big tobacco - hook'em when they're young and you'll have lifelong customers. Go ahead. Take a bite. It won't bite back."

I started feeling dizzy. The kids were beginning to look like dwarfs. A voice in my head whispered, "Snively Toxikoff may be the wicked witch, but you ain't Snow White." With that, I placed the apple back on the table and made a hasty retreat for home. Snively walked toward the Principal's Offices whistling Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.

Most genetically modified crops are based on injecting or inserting DNA from one organism into another. Aquabounty developed its genetically modified salmon by inserting a growth hormone regulating gene from a Chinook (king) salmon and a growth promoter gene from an ocean pout into the gene structure of an Atlantic salmon. Genetic modification using RNA interference (RNAi) acts differently. It is also a function that occurs in nature, in single-celled organisms, plants and human beings. In fact, scientists believe humans have more than 200 micro RNAs which may regulate as many as one third of our genes. RNAi may prove to be an important and invaluable medical tool. Essentially, it's a mechanism that turns off, or silences, the activity of specific genes by destroying the molecular messengers that carry genes coded with information to a cell's protein factories. Researchers have stopped the growth of HIV, polio and hepatitis C in laboratory-grown human cells. This is monumentally important stuff.

But, introducing this into our food supply is not the same thing. You don't need a prescription to buy apples. One risk of RNAi genetic modification is the potential for what is called "off-target" effects, or unintended consequences.A gene whose sequence happens to be similar to the targeted gene, might also get silenced or shut-off. One study of liver disease in mice reported that 23 out of 49 distinct RNAi protocols resulted in death. Add to that, the fact that the RNA in plants can be absorbed thru food. We simply don't know what the risks are. Just like every other GMO food ingredient or product sold in the United States, the Arctic Apple will not undergo independent safety testing by the FDA or USDA. Instead, we will simply accept the assurances of the company that developed it. Maybe I'm a stick-in-the-mud. But wouldn't it make sense to require testing to actually determine whether or not this is safe. Those pesky little unintended consequences have a way of presenting themselves when you least expect it.

Don't get me wrong. I like apples. I eat apples. Today, I buy organic apples. Why? Because conventionally grown apples rank #1 on the list of fruits and vegetables with the highest levels of pesticide residue. Conventional apples have tested positive for 42 different pesticides. How in the world did we reach the point that it takes as many as 42 pesticides to grow apples? Can you say "industrial agriculture," "mono-culture" and "depletion of the gene pool?" Heck, we even treat apples with pesticides and fungicides after we harvest them! It increases the shelf life.

No doubt about it. Taking apples that are already saturated with pesticides and genetically engineering them for cosmetic purposes using a process not fully understood and not subject to any safety tests makes all kinds of good sense. Or, in the case of the agro-chemical companies, "good cents."

Just as I turned the corner away from the school, Snively shouted to me, "Relax buddy, thanks to these beauties GMOs and pesticides are becoming as American as apple pie!"

My business card bears the title “Education and Sales,” so called because at CleanFish we place a lot of emphasis on the connection between the two terms. We learn from one another and from our producers, and realize that to get clear about the difference we seek to make, real education is essential. This means starting at the source, building real trust with the people who produce our products, and getting to know those products first-hand.One of my earliest conversations with CleanFish founder, Dale Sims began when Dale posed an open question on the Web: “Which fish do you regard as heritage fish?”

A heritage fish is a fish with a history and a legacy, an inextricable connection to a place and a culture. Coming from a place with a rich, regional fishing history and lore, I immediately thought of several species long documented in the annals of Virginia seafood: Atlantic sturgeon, shad, striped bass, yellow perch, and although not technically a fish, Crassostrea virginica, the eastern oyster.

To call eastern oysters a heritage fish, or heritage seafood rather, is almost an understatement. Whereas the regional fishes named above are certainly ancient by any human standard, oysters are even more ancient still. As one of the more rudimentary life forms inhabiting the seas, oysters date back hundreds upon hundreds of millions of years. The oysters that found themselves along the banks of the eastern seaboard by the time the first humans appeared there would have literally evolved with the surrounding land itself.

Enjoyed by the first humans to inhabit the Atlantic coast to those living there in the present day, there is hardly a specie that can more rightfully claim the title “heritage food.”

But in the last several decades, many oysters along the east coast have lost some of their local flavor. While only one specie is traded in any real commercial volume, oysters are commonly marketed under any number of names bearing their place of origin. The idea here is simple: oysters grown under different conditions present varying results, so the shape, texture and flavor of an oyster is a direct result of where it was grown and harvested. In the case of oysters, what’s in a name is often a differentiating hallmark of quality and taste.

With such a premium put on place, one might assume that oyster growers would be particularly protective of their local spat, but that is not necessarily so. At least, not always.

Although the oyster you eat at your favorite local shellfish bar may bear the name of the place where it was grown, that doesn’t necessarily mean that your oyster is actually from that place. Today, oysters from any point along the coast, from the Gulf of Mexico to Maine, might be grown at any other point. So the oyster you’re eating out of New England might actually have originated in Louisiana.

It’s rare indeed these days to find a truly home-grown oyster. While it may be argued that oysters generally are a viable heritage food, only an oyster with a direct connection to its stated place of origin truly deserves the further distinction of a true “heirloom.”

Just as heirloom vegetables are grown from seeds that date back across generations, decades, and in some cases even centuries, heirloom oysters should bear a direct link back to a specific place, time and ancestry.

CleanFish’s heirloom oysters offer just that. Our producer, Tom Gallivan, has spent years cultivating local oysters from a collapsed, historic bed by hand, right here in the local waters of my beloved Chesapeake Bay. The product of these efforts is an oyster with a unique link to the past.

Throughout the late 19th century and early to mid 20th century, the Bayford Oyster House produced some of the finest, wild oysters in the world. Today, the old oyster house still stands quietly overlooking Nassawadox Creek, the home of the Shooting Point Oyster Company.
While the wild oyster stock dried up decades ago due to overharvesting and diseases introduced through non-native species, thanks to Tom’s diligent, passionate work, we can still enjoy these marvelous oysters of a bygone era today.

CleanFish now proudly represents two distinct heirloom varieties: Shooting Point Salts, and Nassawadox Salts, both products of the Shooting Point Oyster Company.

Grown in their natural setting, these oysters are identical to those sold during the Chesapeake’s golden era. And with reproductive oysters being grown on the farm, the operation is one of an increasingly few that adheres to a truly regenerative practice—placing nearly four million, local, native, and reproductive oysters back into the waters each year.

Shooting Point Salts and Nassawadox Salts—two heirloom oysters that are several millennia in the making, with more than a century-long commercial history, brought to you today as they have existed throughout the ages. Eat slowly and savor.

The work, once again, of artisanal effort and intention; enjoy the timeliness of this timeless offering for your gustatory pleasure. Another fish you can trust, brought to you by CleanFish.

-AH

Thoughts from Chief Fishmonger, Dale Sims

The headwaters of three rivers in North America originate east of the Cascade Mountains and flow west, emptying into the Pacific Ocean: the Fraser River in Canada, the Columbia River that winds thru British Columbia and four states before emptying into the Pacific, and the Klamath River running thru southern Oregon and northern California. Historically, the Klamath has been the third largest producer of wild salmon in the lower 48 states, behind the Columbia and Sacramento rivers.

Native Americans have lived in the Klamath Basin for more than 7000 years. The complete basin covers roughly a 12,000 square mile area. In the 1820s, the first Euro-Americans to enter this region were fur trappers from the Hudson's Bay Company, the oldest commercial corporation in North America. It wasn't long before beavers on the Klamath and its tributaries were almost completely wiped out. Since that time, almost 200 years ago, the natural resources of the Klamath have experienced enormous strain from human activity - fur trapping, mining, timber harvests, farming, ranching, hydroelectic power, water diversion, over- fishing and even recreation. Most of the development and diversion of water from the Klamath has taken place in the Upper Basin of the Klamath.

Between 1908 and 1962, six dams were built on the Klamath. What was once the third largest salmon producing river below the Canadian border, today supports only a fraction of its historic runs. It is estimated that excluding hatchery salmon, fall-run Chinook (king) salmon have declined 92%-96% and that spring-run Chinook have declined by 98%. Klamath coho are on the Endangered Species List (ESL).

Beginning in 1963, two other dams, the Lewiston and Trinity dams on the Trinity River, the largest tributary of the Klamath, have been used to divert 90% of the Trinity's water flow to the Sacramento Valley. In the 1960s a proposal to divert the entire Klamath River to Central and Southern California was, fortunately, defeated.

There have been competing interests for water use in the Klamath Basin for more than 100 years. This came to a head during a drought in 2002, when Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton allowed full water deliveries to farmers for irrigation, ignoring the treaty rights of area native tribes. The low water flow resulted in a huge dieoff of Klamath salmon. The official report lists an estimated loss of 34,056 fish. But it goes on to state that this number is low and the real loss could have been twice what was reported. Also, since 2005, growth of toxic algae behind two of the dams, Copco1 and Iron Gate, has resulted in posted health warnings against water contact in the two resevoirs and the Lower Klamath River.

But things may be changing. In 2010, after two years of meetings and negotiations that included the farmers, tribal leaders, government agencies, conservation groups and other business interests, an agreement was reached on sharing the Klamath's water. This included Pacifcorp, re-affirming its 2008 non-binding agreement to remove four of the dams on the Klamath - with ratepayer and taxpayer assistance. In October, 2012, The Klamath Dam Removal Overview Report for the Secretary of the Interior was completed. This report summarizes 50 different engineering, scientific and economic reports. The report was then sent for peer review.

Finally, last week, the 420 page report was released. The recommendation:The four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River that block salmon migration and cause toxic algae blooms in stagnant water should be removed. Some of the benefits from removing the four dams are:

Over 420 miles of habitat would be available to anadromous salmonids including cold water refuge in the upper basin
By 2028 fish diversity would increase without augmentation from the Iron Gate Hatchery because of the wider area for salmon to spawn, rear and return

Now it's up to Congress. The price tag for this restoration could be as much as $800MM.

Bluefin tuna in the Smithsonian Ocean Hall, Washington DC.  Jean-Luc Machi photographer.

Thoughts from Chief Fishmonger, Dale Sims

"It feels as if it's melting in my mouth . . . " - Eric Asimov

writing about maguro sushi in the New York Times

I have often said, the two most controversial fish in the ocean are menhaden and bluefin tuna. At opposite ends of the spectrum, and the food chain, they are both symbols, if not poster fish, in the efforts to achieve sustainability with our global fisheries. The longtime struggle to save menhaden on our Atlantic coast appears to have taken a positive turn with the Atlantic States Fisheries Management Council (ASMFC) decision to reduce the menhaden quota, over the protests of Omega Protein, the Virginia company that controls roughly 80% of the menhaden landings. Take note - Omega Protein owns boats. Those boats fish exclusively for menhaden. But Omega Protein is not in the seafood business. They are in the extraction business through fishing. They used menhaden to make lubricant, linoleum, ingredients for the cosmetics industry, fertilizer, livestock feeds, and eventually fish feeds too. I'm okay with fish feeds. But linoleum and lubricants. I'm sorry, but give it a rest. Omega is now reinventing itself as a nutracuetical supplements company selling Omega-3s.

We aren't chasing bluefin tuna to make a linoleum floor or lube machinery. We eat bluefin. And, that's the problem. We like bluefin tuna so sooooo much, we've severely overfished it. The Japanese, in particular, prize bluefin, particularly for sushi. American commercial fishermen did not pursue tunas in the western Atlantic until about 1960. Instead this was an eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean fishery. In Trends in Bluefin Tuna Catches in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, Frank J Mathers III of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute,1974, reported that in 1973, fishermen off the coast of New England received slightly more than $1.00 a pound for bluefin. I used to buy yellowfin tuna out of Panama City, Florida from Bill Craighead. At the start of the 1985 bluefin season in the Gulf, one of Bill's boats caught the first bluefin of the season. He sent it to the Tsukiji market in Japan, and got $25,000 - for one fish. I bought two giant bluefin from him, for a lot less money than that, and flew them to San Francisco. I didn't know it at the time - the Gulf of Mexico is where our bluefin go to spawn. Just thinking about that today makes me cringe. In 2012 a 593# bluefin sold for $736,000. This year, on January 5th, a 222kg (489.22 lb) bluefin caught near the town of Oma in the Aomori prefecture in NE Japan fetched a whopping $1.76 million smackaroos. Is this insanity or what!

Historically tuna played a key role in the growth of civilization. Many towns and cities across the Black Sea, and the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas began as lookout posts for schools of tuna on coastal cliffs. The overfishing of bluefin tuna means far more than the loss of a great and wondrous fish. By overfishing bluefin we lose a connection with the history of civilization.

As sushi becomes more popular in America and around the world, the demand for luxurious bluefin tuna will only increase. We must not allow ourselves to eat bluefin into extinction. Thankfully, after more than 34 years of research a 100% completely farmed from egg to harvest bluefin tuna is available. This is the Kindai bluefin developed by researchers at Kinki University in Japan. They figured out how to get bluefin tuna to spawn in captivity. The Japanese first successfully hatched and farm raised bluefin tuna in 1979. In 2002, researchers at the Kinki University Fisheries Laboratory artificially bred bluefin tuna fry from artificially incubated mature tuna. Finally, in 2007, they successfully completed a third generation, fully closing the loop on the production cycle. These bluefin were first raised exclusively by the university. But, that has changed. CleanFish is now proud to offer bluefin tuna raised by Dainichi of Japan. Dainichi is one the few companies that works with Kinki University to provide a fully sustainable, farm-raised from egg to harvest, bluefin tuna.

The Kinki University Fish Nursery Center provides Dainichi with bluefin fingerlings. In about three years, the fish are ready for harvest. Dainichi is located in the Ehime prefecture They bring these Kindai tuna to market as himemaguro: Hime refers to the prefecture and also means little princess. Dainichi's farm site is ideal for raising tuna. There is a steady current of 7 knots, slighty more than 8 mph with a water depth of 130+ feet. They have the benefit of the Kroshiro current that moves 50 million MT of water per second along the coast of SE Japan. The stocking density never exceeds 2kg/m3. Numerous pearl farms in Ehime also act as a natural bio-filter. The tuna are hand fed both fresh pilchards and a specially formulated pelleted feed. When the university first began farming bluefin, the feed conversion ratio was very high, at 22:1. Today, that has improved to 8:1.

The fish are harvested one at a time, strictly to order. They are are caught by pole and line. They use percussive stunning, after which the fish are immediately bled, gutted, and rapidly cooled in an ice slurry.

Today we can benefit from the many years of work by researchers at Kinki University, and now, their cooperation with Dainichi of Japan. A 100% farmed from egg to harvest bluefin tuna is available. Bluefin can be the most exquisite of tunas. The fattiest part of this tuna, is both rich and sweet, with a soft buttery texture. Prepared as sashimi, it might be described as cascading like raindrops falling on the tongue. CleanFish is proud to join with Dainichi to offer a farmed bluefin tuna that has no impact on wild blue fin stocks. This year's harvest season is limited. Fish are available until early June.