Thursday, March 7, 2013

Sustainable Seafood



Weighing the shrimp off the boat.
To say the Lowcountry of South Carolina is famous for its Southern and Gullah inspired cuisine is nothing short of an understatement. Open the pages of any gourmand magazine or flip to the cooking channel and you are likely to see a segment on the gastrointestinal delights to be had in our coastal home.  We are very fortunate to have an abundance of locally caught seafood available to our restaurants and home chefs alike. There is simply nothing like eating oysters and shrimp fresh off the boat, and if you haven't experienced a Lowcountry Boil or an Oyster Roast yet, well... you just haven't lived!

So we were especially happy to hear that the Waddell Mariculture Center, which serves as a a field experiment station for marine chemistry, fisheries management and supports recreational and commercial fishing and the local seafood industry, is headed toward a record year in funding. One of Waddell’s key concerns is how to encourage more sustainable production as a way to reduce the nation’s dependency on imported seafood.

Hot Oysters!
The facility, which sits on 1,200 acres at Victoria Bluff and welcomes more than 3,000 visitors a year in addition to its operational duties, is badly in need of repair. Intricate systems of tanks, pumps, ponds and drains are ailing, as are skylights, walls and ceilings.The facility’s large garage doors also need to be replaced.

State budget writers are on track to send the research facility $1.2 million, a $903,000 emergency jolt to fix the most severe structural problems, and a recurring $353,000 for operations.

To us, that sounds like a tasty investment in our local & national economies, as well as sustainability.

Read more in the Island Packet HERE

Top photo by Doug DuCap Food and Travel via Flickr Creative Commons.

Bottom photo by thelxepeiakat via Flickr Creative Commons.