From The Boulevardiers Founder & Publisher…Kim Steele
I have been a passionate aquaculture conservationist for years, having grown up in Seattle. I grew up at Oyster Bars with my Dad, and developed a life long passion for crabs — which I have eaten world-wide! A recent meeting with former Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, was a disappointing end to the life of a vital oyster farm (Drakes Bay Oyster Company) in Inverness, CA. Fortunately, Secretary Salazar’s decision against renewing the lease of Drake’s Bay Oyster Company is not the full voice of sentiment around the world. The Ninth Circuit just stayed the order for the time being!! And we have hopefully a more enlightened Secretary, Sally Jewell, the ex-CEO of REI!
The embers are glowing…
The body of my work dedicated to this subject takes many different forms, written and photographic:
We have already experienced many closures of fisheries. The abundant backbone of the Northeastern U.S. fisheries, the almighty Cod is albeit gone. Several years of cessation of Dungeness Crab catching in Northern California have become necessary. The once abundant Salmon in the Northwest is almost gone, and the cost of wild salmon reaches $25 a pound, all destined for the fancy restaurants back East. How much more warning do we need? Yes… fishermen are hurting, but over-fishing brought this pain about.
The tuning fork that is the Monterrey Bay Aquarium’s — list of sustainable fish is a bellwether of what we can comfortably consume…they even offer a wallet-sized card to give gastronomic guidance in the field!