PCSGA Tidings

Bei­jing, Aug 4 (IANS) Chi­nese sci­en­tists have drawn the world’s first genome sequence map of oys­ters, open­ing new pos­si­bil­i­ties for increas­ing oys­ter pro­duc­tion and devel­op­ment of indus­trial mate­ri­als.
The map was also the first of its kind for both shell­fish and marine life, said Zhang Guo­fan, chief sci­en­tist of the Oys­ter Genome Sequence Map Project and researcher with the Insti­tute of Oceanol­ogy, Chi­nese Acad­emy of Sci­ence (IOCAS).

The project team jointly set up by Zhang and Guo Xim­ing, of the State Uni­ver­sity of New Jer­sey more than two years ago, found the oys­ter genome com­prised 800 mil­lion DNA base pairs, includ­ing around Con­tinue Reading »

Begin­ning July 1, 2010, a Euro­pean Com­mis­sion Reg­u­la­tion allow­ing import of ANY mol­lus­can shell­fish and cer­tain marine inver­te­brates (not only live and fresh prod­uct) from the United States expired.  As a result, imports of live, fresh, frozen or processed prod­ucts con­tain­ing mol­lus­can shell­fish, echin­o­derms, tuni­cates, or marine gas­tropods from the United States are no longer accepted for import into Europe at this time.

http://​www​.seafood​.nmfs​.noaa​.gov/​N​e​w​s​_​N​o​t​i​c​e​s​_​1​0​.​h​tml

Marks & Spencer’s sus­tain­abil­ity pledge, click below.

http://​plana​.mark​sand​spencer​.com/​a​b​out

I am pleased to announce the appoint­ment of Will Stelle as the North­west Regional Admin­is­tra­tor effec­tive June 1, 2010.

Many of you may recall that Will served at the North­west Regional Admin­is­tra­tor in the 1990s dur­ing the early stages of the Pacific salmon list­ings under the Endan­gered Species Act.  He was key to build­ing foun­da­tions and processes that have evolved into the part­ner­ships that are work­ing today.  His expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge of these issues will help NOAA con­tinue its mis­sion to rebuild these resources Con­tinue Reading »

By Wal­ter Alarkon and Kevin Bog­a­r­dus — 05/05/10 08:33 PM ET

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) is posi­tion­ing him­self to become the new chair­man of the House Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee while keep­ing his spot as head of the Appro­pri­a­tions Defense subcommittee.

Dicks said Wednes­day that he intends to suc­ceed Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), who announced his retire­ment. He also said he wants to keep his spot as chair­man of the Appro­pri­a­tions Defense sub­com­mit­tee, the most pow­er­ful of the 13 Appro­pri­a­tions sub-panels.

If Dicks heads the full Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee, the panel that over­sees fed­eral dis­cre­tionary spend­ing, and retains the top defense spot, he will be the most influ­en­tial dis­penser of money Con­tinue Reading »

POINT REYES National Seashore has some con­tro­ver­sies that need to be resolved. Cicely Mul­doon, the new super­in­ten­dent, brings a promis­ing back­ground to the park’s top job, which can be a hot seat.

Mul­doon, 44, grew up in Marin and is a 25-year vet­eran of the National Park Ser­vice, which includes serv­ing as deputy regional direc­tor of the National Park Ser­vice Pacific West Region since 2005.

As a Sausal­ito res­i­dent, she is no doubt aware of the brouhaha Con­tinue Reading »

Dig­ging for clams in shal­low waters of a Texas bay File photo April 23, 2010 - In its news release today, the Texas Depart­ment of State Health Ser­vices (DSHS) announced that it had tem­porar­ily closed most Texas coastal waters to the har­vest­ing of oys­ters, clams, and mus­sels due to an algal bloom.

This clo­sure is of impor­tance to per­sons in the Hous­ton area who are in any way involved in har­vest­ing shell­fish in the bays and along the Texas coast.

The affected area extends along the Texas coast from Galve­ston Con­tinue Reading »

By Seafood­Source staff
4/8/2010 8:22:37 AM — The National Oceanic and Atmos­pheric Admin­is­tra­tion on Tues­day began accept­ing pub­lic com­ment on a new marine aqua­cul­ture policy.

The pol­icy is not a law but rather a guide that would steer NOAA’s deci­sion mak­ing with respect to open-ocean fish farming.

Cur­rently, there is no fed­eral reg­u­la­tory frame­work in place for open-ocean aqua­cul­ture. But in Decem­ber, U.S. Rep Lois Capps (D-Calif.) intro­duced leg­is­la­tion that would estab­lish one. The bill, accord­ing to Capps, is designed to bal­ance the envi­ron­men­tal, social and eco­nomic facets of open-ocean fish farming.

Advo­cates of open-ocean aqua­cul­ture say a reg­u­la­tory frame­work is needed to accel­er­ate the per­mit­ting process, which can be ardu­ous and lengthy, and pro­vide the cer­tainty needed to attract the invest­ment community.

A panel of key indus­try play­ers will dis­cuss what’s needed for open-ocean fish farm­ing to flour­ish in U.S. waters at a question-and-answer webi­nar hosted by Seafood­Source on Thurs­day at 2 p.m. EST.

NOAA is host­ing six meet­ings nation­wide in April and May to solicit pub­lic com­ment on the pol­icy, begin­ning with Nar­ra­gansett, R.I., on 14 April. That’s fol­lowed by New Orleans on 19 April, Seat­tle on 22 April, Hon­olulu on 27 April, Menlo Park, Calif., on 29 April and a national call-in on 6 May.

After the meet­ings, NOAA will ana­lyze the pub­lic input and develop a draft pol­icy, which will be sub­ject to pub­lic com­ment. Once the process is com­plete, the agency will issue a new policy.