Related Information

 

 

General Seafood Terms

 

Sustainable Seafood

Sustainable Seafood can be defined as the practice of harvesting seafood in such a way that populations are kept at a level high enough to reproduce to enough to sustain optimum levels of abundance.

 

Commercial Fishing Gear

Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS)

VMS technology allows environmental and fisheries regulatory organizations to monitor geographic position, time, course and speed of commercial fishing vessels. The United States National Marine Fisheries Service has required that VMS technology be installed and operated on commercial fishing vessels that actively fish in several fisheries, including the Mid Atlantic sea scallop, Gulf of Mexico Reef Fishery, Pacific Coast groundfish, South Atlantic Rock Shrimp Fishery, Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Pelagic Longline Fisheries and other commercial fisheries. Classifications include MTU and E-MTU.

VMS Links

 

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/ole/nw_complianceguide.html

 

more coming soon...

 

Regulations

Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act

The Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 established a U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ) between 3 and 200 miles offshore, and created eight regional fishery councils to manage the living marine resources within that area. The bill was amended on October 11, 1996 and re-named the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

 

Individual Fishing Quotas

Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) programs are a type of limited access privilege program (LAPP), which provide individual fishermen or corporations the exclusive privilege to harvest a certain percentage of the total allowable catch (TAC) of a fishery. IFQ programs allow individual licenses or "shares" to be bought and sold in the marketplace. Market-based fishery management programs are recognized as as an effective way match the amount of fishing capacity in a fishery with the amount of fish that may be taken by the fishery. A priority of the Bush Administration outlined in the Ocean Action Plan is to double the number of LAPPs by the year 2010.

Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission

The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) is a regional fisheries management organization whose objective is to ensure, through effective management, the long-term conservation and sustainable use of highly migratory fish stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. This convention area stretches across the WCPO from the south coast of Australia to the Bering Sea.

 

Landings

The term landing refers to bringing a harvest of seafood to port. The act of landing occurs when the a vessel secures lines to a dock.

 

Offloading

Offloading is the process of removing a catch from a vessel.

 

Seafood Certifications

 

Marine Stewardship Council

The Marine Stewardship Council is an international non-profit organization promoting solutions to the problem of overfishing. The MSC runs the world's leading independent eco-label for wild-capture fish. It is the only seafood eco-label that is consistent with both UN FAO guidelines for fisheries certification and the ISEAL Code of Good Practice for Setting Social and Environmental Standards. In total, around 80 fisheries are engaged in the MSC program with 26 certified, 41 under assessment and another 20 to 30 in confidential pre-assessment. Together these fisheries record annual catches of over four million tons of seafood. They represent 42 percent of the world's wild salmon catch, 40 percent of the world's prime whitefish catch, and 18 percent of the world's lobster catches for human consumption. Worldwide, over 1,000 seafood products from certified fisheries now bear the blue MSC eco-label. For more information, please visit www.msc.org.

 

Wild American Shrimp Certification Program

The Wild American Shrimp Certification Program, administered by WASI, ensures that warm-water, wild caught shrimp from U.S. coastal waters meet a
high standard of quality and consistency. Shrimp that meet these stringent standards are graded by new standards and labeled with the distinctive
Certified Wild American Shrimp mark. More than 50 approved suppliers provide this quality product to processors, distributors, retailers, grocers and restaurants who rely on the quality and consistency of the certification and the Certified Wild American Shrimp logo to distinguish their product. Participation in the certification program is available to harvesters, processors, distributors, retailers, grocers and restaurateurs.

For more information visit www.wildamericanshrimp.com

Seafood - Related Diseases and Health Issues

Vibrio

Vibrio parahaemolyticus is a bacterium that occurs naturally in coastal waters. It thrives under warm temperatures and is typically linked to oysters and other seafood harvested and consumed raw during the summer months. It can cause illness, especially in people with compromised immune systems. Symptoms include diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps and, less frequently, headache, fever and chills. On rare occasions, an infection in the bloodstream can occur.

Scombrotoxin (histamine) Poisoning

Scombrotoxin poisoning, also called histamine or scombroid poisoning, occurs when people eat fish that have been carelessly handled and permitted to build up biogenic amines such as histamine, cadaverine, and putrescine as a consequence of bacterial spoilage. It is one of the three most common causes of food borne illnesses associated with the consumption of seafood in the U.S. It takes a very small amount of the amines, quantities measured in parts per million (ppm), to cause an illness. Concentrations at or above 50 ppm are not allowed in seafood by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Mycobacteriosis

Mycobacteriosis is a bacterial disease in which striped bass (rockfish) may be disfigured as a result of skin ulcers and internal lesions. The bass may also
be skinny or in extremely poor condition due to the chronic nature of this wasting disease. The total extent to which the disease is occurring along the USA Eastern seaboard is unknown but the disease has been reported from stripers taken from the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. Some of the mycobacteria that commonly infect fishes can cause infections in people and therefore are a human health concern.

 

Related Links

 

North American Saltwater Fish