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A favored method of preparing fresh crabs is to simply boil them alive. A longstanding related question: Do they feel pain? Yes, researchers now say. Not only do crabs suffer pain, a new study found, but they retain a memory of it (assuming they aren't already dead on your dinner plate). The scientists say its time for new laws to consider the suffering of all crustaceans. The study involved using wires to deliver shocks to the bellies of hermit crabs, which, being hermits, often take up residence in left-behind mollusc shells. The crabs that were shocked scampered out of their...

Lobster to regain his freedom at age 140 01/01/09 NEW YORK (Reuters) - A lobster thought to be about 140 years old will be returned to the ocean after briefly becoming the mascot for a New York City restaurant, an animal rights group said on Friday. The 20-pound (9-kg) lobster was caught off the coast of Canada about two weeks ago and bought for $100 (65 pounds) by City Crab and Seafood to become its mascot, said manager Keith Valenti. "We bought a big lobster, started taking pictures with kids and it worked out real well," said Valenti, adding it...

Industry experts and businesspeople in China say that the industrial chemical has been routinely added to fish and animal feed to artificially boost protein readings. Reporting from Los Angeles and Shanghai--Melamine in Chinese-produced milk powder has sickened hundreds of thousands of children and added to a growing list of made-in-China foods banned across the globe.Now, some scientists and consumer advocates are raising concerns that fish from China may also be contaminated with the industrial chemical. China is the world's largest producer of farm-raised seafood, exporting billions of dollars worth of shrimp, catfish, tilapia, salmon and other fish.The U.S. imported about...

JUST as household trash tells you a lot about a family, so mankind’s rubbish heaps reveal much about the species. One of the best lies in the waters around Manhattan. There, archaeologists have found mounds of oyster shells, known as middens, dating back to 6950BC.

BOSTON - More than 80 years ago, the Hook brothers started trucking their catch of lobsters from Maine and Canada to Boston's fish piers, selling them directly to the city's top restaurants. Ever since, four generations of Hooks have kept their seafood wholesale business in a squat wooden building with a corrugated steel roof, resisting multiple offers from developers as luxury hotels, gleaming office towers and the Big Dig highway project dwarfed and surrounded them. On Friday, a seven-alarm fire gutted their landmark waterfront location, causing $5 million in damage that included the loss of 60,000 pounds of lobster, but...

(WASHINGTON) — In March, inspectors checking Chinese seafood arriving at U.S. ports made some unsettling discoveries: fish infected with salmonella in Seattle and Baltimore, and shrimp with banned veterinary drugs in Florida. Meanwhile, a shipment intercepted in Los Angeles on March 19 labeled "channel catfish" wasn't catfish at all, although records don't say what it was. "A lot of those products coming in from overseas, you have no clue as to what is in them," said Paul Hitchens, an aquaculture specialist in Southern Illinois, where cut-rate Chinese catfish are threatening the livelihood of fish farmers. China has rapidly become the...

Stalin's last army: hordes of gigantic crabs on their way to invade Europe - By Julius Strauss in Kirkenes, Northern Norway Millions of giant Pacific crabs, whose ancestors were brought to Europe by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s, are marching south along Norway's coast, devouring everything in their path.The monster crabs, which can weigh up to 25lb and have a claw-span of more than three feet, are proving so resilient that scientists fear they could end up as far south as Gibraltar. Energised by a mysterious population explosion a decade ago, whole armies of the crustaceans - known as the...

I bought some salmon and would like ideas on how to make it while it is still mostly fresh. Figured we never had a seafood thread before, so it's time to make one.

When ordering seafood, many of Russell Hohnerlein's customers have the same question: Where did it come from? Hohnerlein, manager of The 4th of May at 444 Ocean Blvd, St. Simons Island, never has to check a daily serve list to answer. "All our seafood is local. Always," he said. Should Sen. Ronnie Chance, R- Fayette, have his way, Hohnerlein won't have to field this question much longer. The answer will be visible to the eye – right there on the menu. Senate Bill 533, introduced by Chance Wednesday, would require restaurant menus to carry a label on all seafood items...

It’s an invasive species problem that Alaska would love to have. Millions of snow crabs are on the march in the Barents Sea, and no one knows how they got there or what to do with them – yet. The Barents Sea, which straddles Norway and Russia, is the same source of all of that jumbo king crab – much of it caught illegally'a0– that wreaked havoc on Alaska’s market for the past couple of years. But unlike king crabs, which were purposely introduced by Russia into those waters in 1966, the opilio (snow) crab is a true invasive species....

(LONDON) — Walking at the Brixton market among the parrotfish, doctorfish and butterfish, Effa Edusie is surrounded by pieces of her childhood in Ghana. Caught the day before far off the coast of West Africa, they have been airfreighted to London for dinner. Ms. Edusie’s relatives used to be fishermen. But no more. These fish are no longer caught by Africans. On the underside of the waterlogged brown cardboard box that holds the snapper is the improbable red logo of the China National Fisheries Corporation, one of the largest suppliers of West African fish to Europe. Europe’s dinner tables are...

Oahu Ocean Fishermen's Catch Of The Day: Pork Men Say Feral Pig Swam Straight Out To Sea KAAAWA, Hawaii -- It is a fish tale that is easy to scoff as a more of a tall tale. Three friends landed some fish off Kahana Bay on Thursday and a 40-pound feral pig that was swimming near their boat. As the small fishing boat headed for shore at Kahana Bay, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. However, on closer inspection, the catch of the day was not seafood. It was pork. "We just hooked up with a fish. As soon as...

The Bohus county lobster has one, as does the oyster. Now the humble shrimp has one too - its own academy. The institute will have the remit of spreading knowledge about the little sea beast's splendid qualities. reported local newspaper Bohusläningen. Strömstad will be the home of the academy. It was from here that Sweden's first commercial shrimp trawler departed at the beginning of the last century. Today the industry is worth more than 100 million kronor a year. The academy will be inaugurated on the Shrimp Day, July 21st. The board of the academy will consist of 12 people....

How to Buy Shrimp Even people that hate fish seem to love "Gulf Shrimp". Here are some great tips on how to buy the best gulf shrimp. Just smell them! They should have little odor, just a hint of the sea, clean, and bright. Steps: 1. Avoid gulf shrimp that has already been peeled and deveined - most shrimp is frozen and then thawed, and the gulf shrimp is less protected against the freezer without its shell. 2. Look for ***gulf shrimp*** with firm white meat and a full shell. 3. Do not buy gulf shrimp with black spots or...

China calls U.S. blocking of its seafood imports indiscriminate and unacceptable The Associated Press Published: June 29, 2007 BEIJING: China called a U.S. block on its seafood 'indiscriminate' and 'unacceptable' and urged closer cooperation on food safety between the two trading partners, state media said Saturday. "China cannot accept the indiscriminate and automatic detention of four kinds of Chinese seafood by the United States," Li Changjiang, the head of China's top quality watchdog, was quoted as saying. Li made his comments late Friday during a telephone conversation with U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, the official Xinhua News...

Shrimp, catfish and other seafood farmed in China will be banned immediately from entering the U.S. because they contain harmful chemicals, the Food and Drug Administration said today. The agency stressed that the contaminated fish are not being viewed as an immediate health risk and said consumers should feel comfortable eating fish currently being served in restaurants, grocery stores or their homes. However, a nationwide industry alert was issued over China's seafood because the FDA continues to find traces of carcinogenic chemicals in fish imported from China. During targeted sampling from October 2006 through May, the FDA repeatedly found that...

US: Chinese Seafood Detained for Safety By ANDREW BRIDGES (Associated Press Writer) From Associated Press June 28, 2007 2:27 PM EDT WASHINGTON - Farmed seafood joined tires, toothpaste and toy trains on the list of tainted and defective products from China that could be hazardous to a person's health. Federal health officials said Thursday that they were detaining three types of Chinese fish - catfish, basa and dace - as well as shrimp and eel after repeated testing has turned up contamination with drugs unapproved in the United States for use in farmed seafood. The officials said there was no...

Oldest lobster fossil uncovered in Mexico REUTERS May 4, 2007 MEXICO CITY – Mexican scientists said they have identified the world's oldest lobster fossil, that of a creature alive when Africa was only just breaking apart from the Americas about 120 million years ago. The fossil is 4.7 inches long, and its shell and legs are immaculately preserved by the mud in the southern state of Chiapas, where it was found. It is dated as 120 million years old, about 20 million years older than previous lobster fossils. “This lobster that we found in Chiapas belongs to the genus that...

December 22, 2006—Like pulling a shadow from the darkness, researchers in Japan have captured and filmed a live giant squid—likely for the first time—shedding new light on the famously elusive creatures. Tsunemi Kubodera, a scientist with Japan's National Science Museum, caught the 24-foot (7-meter) animal earlier this month near the island of Chichijima, some 600 miles (960 kilometers) southeast of Tokyo (see Japan map). His team snared the animal using a line baited with small squid and shot video of the russet-colored giant as it was hauled to the surface. The squid, a young female, "put up quite a fight"...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Clambakes, crabcakes, swordfish steaks and even humble fish sticks could be little more than a fond memory in a few decades. If current trends of overfishing and pollution continue, the populations of just about all seafood face collapse by 2048, a team of ecologists and economists warns in a report in Friday's issue of the journal Science. "Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging. In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems," said the lead author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University...