Below I have added links to a segment on coral gardening from the Australia Network (Australia’s international television service) and of coral gardening from reefvideo.com.  I have also included an interesting article on coral gardening, published in July of 2008 in The Independent.  Unfortunately, the episode of Wild Pacific is not yet available on the internet but I am sure it will eventually be on youtube.com or fancast at some point.  The episode was called “Fragile Paradise,” if you can find it I strongly suggest watching it.  This particular episode also had a segment on shark fishing that was rather sad but very informative.

Coral reefs are often described as the tropical rainforests of the oceans. But marine biologists sometimes use another analogy: that of the canary in the coalmine. These birds were used by miners as an early warning for lethal gas; corals, too, are extraordinarily sensitive to environmental change. For Nancy Knowlton, a scientist at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, it’s an apt description: “If that’s the analogy, then the canary has passed out on the floor of the cage. Coral reefs are potentially immortal. They only have to die if we make them.”

And that’s just what we seem to be doing. In the 25 years that Knowlton has been studying the reefs, she has witnessed all the signs of their terminal decline. They are being degraded at a rate of 2 per cent a year. About a fifth of the world’s stock has already gone, and nearly half of the remainder is in danger of disappearing within the next 20 years. And like so many other experts in her field, Knowlton is worried: a lethal combination of pollution, predators, disease, rising sea temperatures, over-fishing and the acidification of the sea have put our coral reefs on the critical list.

Its plight is bad news for all of us, but will horrify anyone who has put on flippers, mask and snorkel to experience its magnificence first-hand. Snorkelling over a reef for the first time, as I did last week off the coast of Florida, is like floating over a brilliantly coloured Garden of Eden landscaped by some maritime Capability Brown. Corals of all shapes and sizes grow in the dappled sunlight. Vast, bulbous species covered with beautifully etched crenulations look like the intricate folds on the surface of a human brain. Others resemble petrified trees, their branches sticking up like fingers, or flat pancakes woven with intricate lacework. Waving sea fans drift back and forth with the gentle pulse of the waves, a hypnotic motion that sends you into a trance-like state of awe.

And then there are the fish – lots of fish. Nothing quite prepares you for the variety of sizes, colours and shapes swimming in and out of the coral latticework. There are iridescent blue ones with fins like a teddy boy’s quiff. There are green ones with metallic scales, each a slightly different hue from the next, like the scaly armour of a Scythian warrior. A much larger fish with camouflaged skin and a big, ugly head spies me with his swivelling eyes and tries to hide, ostrich-like, behind a skinny staghorn coral; a huge ray, five or six feet long, glides effortlessly past, trailing a menacingly spiked tail in its wake.

This scene is repeated everywhere on earth where tropical reefs form – which is just about anywhere on the vast, watery belt around the equator. The biggest of them all is the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, which is some 2,300km long. It took more than 10,000 years to get to where it is today, growing at a rate of a centimetre or two each year.

Coral reefs are the product of tiny animals called polyps, which secrete an exterior skeleton of aragonite, a mineral made of calcium carbonate. Each generation of polyp grows on the dead skeletons of its ancestors, but because they clone themselves they have achieved a kind of immortality. Some grow slower than the rate at which the continents move – fingernails grow faster. But eventually they form massive structures such as the Great Barrier Reef, which is more properly a collection of 3,000 separate reefs and 900 coral islands, divided by narrow channels. They are the only biological structures that can be seen from space.

With so much coral in the world, it is hard to see how they could be at risk of destruction. But they are. Last week, the latest warning came from scientists who warned that an estimated third of all reef-building coral species were in imminent danger of extinction.

The threat had been steadily growing, and has now become a full-blown crisis. The scientists, working on behalf of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, found that 231 reef-building coral species, out of a total of 704 that were capable of being studied, can be classified as either vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered, as defined by the IUCN’s Red List of threatened species.

Equally alarming, however, was what happened when they extrapolated back to the situation before 1998, the year when a large-scale “bleaching” episode occurred worldwide. When they back-calculated using the same methodology, they could only find 13 species before 1998 that would have fallen into the same three categories. In other words, the situation now is something like 18 times worse than it was just 10 years ago.

The bleaching episode of 1998 is perhaps the single biggest milestone in the timeline of coral decline. As the name implies, the vividly coloured organisms turned a ghostly white, as a result of a king of marital row between the tiny polyp – the fleshy part of the stony coral – and its brightly decorated partner, a microscopic algae that lives inside the polyp.

Corals may look superficially like plants, but in fact each polyp feeds on passing food parcels floating in the marine plankton. Although technically an animal, the polyp forms a mutually beneficial relationship with photosynthetic algae called zooanthellae. It is a give-and-take marriage of convenience. The polyp offers shelter and possibly other nutritional benefits to the algae, while the zooanthellae provides the polyp with energy-packed carbohydrates left over from its daytime job of converting sunlight into sugar.

But, like many marriages, the relationship is fragile. When the corals are stressed out by something in the environment – in 1998, the trigger was excessively high sea temperatures exacerbated by an El Niño event and global warming – the polyp evicts the algae, and turns white in the process. Often the polyp survives, but it is almost always seriously weakened by the rift. As a result, the coral is prone to disease when some other stress comes along – a one-two punch that so often proves fatal for the reef.

Scientists predict that, as sea temperatures rise, mass bleaching will begin to occur on an annual basis within the next 30 or 50 years. But already there are signs that it is increasing in both frequency and severity on a more localised scale. Douglas Fenner, of the Marine and Wildlife Resources in American Samoa, says that bleaching is now a regular event on his small patch of the Pacific Ocean. In some of the warmer-water coral pools he studies, bleaching has occurred every month or so for the past five or six years. “It’s the thin end of the wedge, and it’s not good,” he says.

But bleaching is just a symptom of the many deep-seated problems. Rising sea temperatures and pollution caused by run-off from the land – along with sewage and sedimentation – are just some of the factors that can either trigger a bleaching episode or kill the coral outright. Rising sea levels are another problem, because some corals are just not able to grow as fast as the sea level is rising.

“Rising temperatures could trigger mass coral bleaching once every couple of years,” says Rich Aronson, of the University of South Alabama. “And corals are going to have a pretty hard time coping with rising sea levels if they are also suffering from chronic bleaching.”

A still more sinister threat, however, is increasing ocean acidity, which is also caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide. Normally, the sea is slightly alkaline, but when carbon dioxide dissolves in it, the water becomes slightly more acidic. This makes it more difficult for the polyp to build its aragonite skeleton. At its worse, an acidic ocean will actually dissolve the coral reef, in the same way that tooth enamel dissolves in a glass of Coca-Cola.

When coral scientists from around the world met last week at the International Coral Reef Symposium in Florida, ocean acidification was high on the agenda as one of the most worrying unknowns. Scientist after scientist warned that acidification was one environmental insult that really could wipe out all reef-building corals. If the oceans do become as acidic as is predicted later this century, coral – and many of the species that rely on it – could go the way of the dinosaurs. As Joan Kleypas, of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, says: “Ocean acidification is the evil twin of climate change. It is the osteoporosis of the oceans.”

With so much doom and gloom, scientists are left wondering what else they can do to alert the wider world to the plight of the corals – some even talk about “compassion fatigue” and “paralytic nihilism”. Is there any hope left within the community of coral researchers?

The answer, surprisingly, is yes. Corals may be on the verge of extinction, but scientists believe there is still a window of opportunity left open and they point to the other common analogy used to describe coral reefs – tropical rainforests.

Coral reefs are often described as the rainforests of the ocean because of the diversity of life that both support. And, like the rainforests, coral reefs are under threat. But until recently, few have thought it possible to regenerate a coral reef in the same way it is possible to regenerate a tropical rainforest. Now, however, many scientists believe it is feasible to talk about a “reforestation” programme for reefs to prevent, or at least slow down, the damage.

These researchers believe this is more than a forlorn hope, despite the widespread pessimism about the future for coral reefs in a warmer world. Indeed, if one message emerged from the International Coral Reef Symposium, it was that no matter how dire the threat to corals has become, there is still time to save them – and coral regeneration could provide a critical stop-gap that could allow at least some corals to live through the climatic rigours of the 21st century.

Rebuilding or regenerating a coral reef, even if the environment is right for it, is no simple matter, however. The first problem has to do with coral sex, a mysterious business that occurs just once a year within an hour or so of sunset, and (usually) precisely five days after a full moon. For some unknown reason, many coral species release all their sperm and eggs in one huge ejaculate, communicating their mass excitement to their partners in the coral equivalent of pillow talk.

The resulting microscopic larvae then drift away, with only some of them returning to the reef where they settle down – literally – on the rock to form baby corals. One scientist said that trying to think of a way of managing this process to help with reef regeneration is like trying to manage a herd of deer that produce millions of fawns, which then drift off into the wind like dandelion seeds.

Fortunately, there is another way to regenerate reefs, which is based on vegetative reproduction – cloning. Scientists can take fragments of coral and grow them on a movable substrate in an underwater nursery. Sometimes the fragments are taken from “corals of opportunity” formed, for instance, from the rubble left behind when a boat smashes into a reef.

On other occasions, scientists can take tiny samples of corals from existing reefs, grow them in a nursery and replant them back in the wild on a damaged or degraded reef.

“We can remove fragments as small as between one and 10 polyps, which is equivalent to the bite of a parrot fish. It does no harm,” says Yael Horoszowski, of the National Institute of Oceanography in Israel, who has successfully regenerated reefs in the Red Sea using the “coral gardening” concept.

“The method involves generating and farming large stocks of new coral colonies in an in situ floating nursery prior to their installation into degraded reefs,” Dr Horoszowski explains. “These nurseries liberated coral babies at the site. We intended to restore the coral reef but we ended up restoring all the creatures at the coral site.”

Scientists working in such far-flung sites as Biscayne Bay off the south-east coast of Florida – which is in sight of a nuclear power plant and a landfill site known as “Mount Trashmore” – and the Komodo National Park in Indonesia, where fishermen have taken to using home-made bombs to increase their catch, are now actively engaged with different coral gardening techniques in the hope of regenerating their reefs.

But no one is under any illusion that this is the answer to the coral crisis. Any attempt at regenerating reefs with hi-tech methods of cloning corals, or low-tech methods of re-arranging the local rocks, are doomed to fail if carbon dioxide levels continue to rise.

Rising sea levels, sea temperatures and ocean acidity will not be stopped otherwise. “The thinking behind this is that it’s a stop-gap measure. We’ve got to do other things to address CO2,” says Helen Fox of the WWF, who works on reef regeneration in the Komodo National Park.

Steve Palumbi, a coral scientist at Stanford University in California, says that nothing will stop the demise of the reefs unless the world addresses its addiction to fossil fuel.

“Planting coral has been successful, but it’s really expensive to do, so you can only do it over a given area. The other alternative is to allow them to do it for themselves,” Palumbi says. “I doubt that we can replant all the coral reefs in the world and get them back in a century. It’s a really important concept, but you just can’t rely on that.”

Joan Kleypas probably speaks for the scientific consensus when she says that reef regeneration is just one important – albeit expensive – component in the conservation toolbox. But she says there is no way it will work unless carbon dioxide levels are stabilised at some point this century. “We need to think of things that can buy time so that when we do emerge from the climate crisis we’ll still have some coral reefs left,” Kleypas says.

But would life really be so different if there were no coral reefs left in the world? Aside from the aesthetic loss of one of the most beautiful habitats on earth, corals are a vital source of food and provide a livelihood for a surprising number of the world’s inhabitants – somewhere between 200 million and 500 million people.

Rich Aronson points out that if all the coral reefs collapsed, then there would be broader implications for those of us who have no contact with reefs other than perhaps an occasional diving holiday.

“Coral reefs are an example of the type of ecosystem that, if they go, will produce social consequences that will ripple back to us all,” Aronson says. “If they are lost, it will make the world a more difficult place to live.”

Seven wonders of the world’s oceans

By Rob Sharp

1. Belize Barrier Reef

A 300km section of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, which stretches from Cancun to Guatemala, this is Belize’s top tourist destination, and vital to its fishing industry. Comprising fringing, barrier- and atoll-reef types, Charles Darwin once described it as “the most remarkable reef in the West Indies”.

2. Red Sea Coral Reef

Hugging the shoreline off the coast of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the section in the Gulf of Aqaba has been the subject of intensive studies. This is some of the most northernmost reef found in the world, with 220 species of coral recorded.

3. Madagascar reefs

The south-western coast of Madagascar supports the third-largest coral reef system in the world, known as the Toliara reef system. Its range of marine habitats include barrier and fringing reefs, shallow lagoons and abyssal slopes that fall to a depth of more than a kilometre. Dive there and you might see any one of the 6,000 recorded species swimming past your eyes.

4. Maldives reefs

The Maldives themselves are a spectacular chain of 22 atolls – islands made out of coral – spanning 800km in the Indian Ocean. The population of the islands is dependent on offshore reefs for the success of their economy, a large chunk of which comes from tourism. Some fish dwelling there are taken for local consumption, but much is exported for profit.

5. Tubbataha Reef

More than 1,000 species reside in this reef in the Philippines, many of which are endangered, including manta rays, lionfish, tortoise and clownfish. Rivalling the Great Barrier in terms of biodiversity, tens of thousands of birds rest here during their migrations, and are monitored closely by the coast guard.

6. Great Barrier Reef

The world’s largest, stretching for 3,000km. Fauna include 30 species of whale and six species of sea turtle. Pollution from farms threatens it, and bleaching occurred in 1998, 2002 and 2006.

7. New Caledonia Barrier Reef

Second only to the Great Barrier, this is a 1,500km-long spectacle of ecological abundance, where new species are discovered daily. Animals holed up here include rare crab, green turtle and molluscs.

Article URL – http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/ocean-quest-the-race-to-save-the-worlds-coral-reefs-869589.html

Links:

Corals for Conservation – http://www.coralsforconservation.com

Australia Network, “Coral Gardening” – http://australianetwork.com/pacificpulse/stories/2535866.htm

Coral Gardening – http://www.reefvideo.net/coral-gardening/

As for current events, I found an interesting article on ocean observation systems that I thought I would share:

Keeping An Eye On The Oceans: Scientists Plan Long-term Future Of Ocean Observation Systems

Underwatertimes.com News Service

September 20, 2009 16:46 EST

Jason 2 satellite, operated by EUMETSAT, whose onboard altimeter scans the world’s oceans

DARMSTADT, Germany — In the last ten years, scientists have set up a global observing system to monitor the world’s oceans. The observation system works by combining satellite observations with data from in-water recording devices such as buoys, tide gauges and an array of more than 3000 Argo robots.

Now the initial system is up and running, scientists are meeting next week at OceanObs’09 in Venice (21-25 September) to see how they can expand the system and, perhaps most importantly, secure it for the long term.

OceanObs ‘09 is organized by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA) and will be attended by EUMETSAT and over 580 participants from 36 countries.

EUMETSAT’s role in ocean observations is to establish, maintain and use European systems of operational meteorological satellites, contribute to the operational monitoring of the climate and the oceans – for instance monitoring sea level rise with the Jason 2 altimetry satellite – and establish new ocean-monitoring missions, such as Jason 3.

So how does the ocean observing system operate?

In the water, recording devices such as tide gauges, mooring buoys, and drifting buoys, monitor aspects of the sea such as tides, water temperature, and currents. Over the last 10 years, scientists have also dropped more than 3000 Argo robots into the sea, and these robots are now methodically rising and falling around the world’s oceans recording temperature and salinity profiles, and transmitting this data via satellite back to scientists every ten days. The Argo robots are also joined by pilot-less ocean gliders which bristle with recording instruments and soar and glide through the oceans – sometimes down to depths of 6 km – collecting data.

Joining the gliders, scientists have also sporadically enlisted the help of marine animals, such as elephant seals, by attaching miniature data loggers to record the temperature, salinity and depth conditions they experience on their daily travels. And even ships and ferries are playing a part in monitoring the ocean, as boats on regular passage around the world tow plankton recorders or pipe-in water to sophisticated on-board FerryBox systems, which are like mini oceanographic laboratories.

Space observations

All this data from the in-water samplers – so called in situ data – provides the detail on conditions in specific locations, but for the big picture of what is happening in the oceans, scientists are relying on satellites. One of the key tools in understanding issues such as global sea level rise is the Jason 2 satellite, operated by EUMETSAT, whose onboard altimeter scans the world’s oceans, recording global sea level to the nearest cm. When this information is combined with information from satellite-based gravity measurements, tide gauges, Argo floats and other devices, it gives scientists the ability to precisely monitor global sea levels. Satellites are also monitoring a host of other ocean variables – from sea surface temperature, to wind, ocean colour and sea ice cover.

One of the most important features of any ocean observing system is that it must be a long-term system if changes are to be understood in the right context. As an example, satellite monitoring of sea levels began in 1992 with the launch of the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite, which was followed by Jason 1 (2001), Envisat (2002) and more recently Jason 2 (2008), which will be joined in 2012 by Sentinel-3, another satellite carrying altimetry equipment.

Dr Hans Bonekamp, Ocean Mission Scientist at EUMETSAT said: “The long-term datasets on sea levels that the satellite altimeters are collecting are enabling scientists to establish how sea levels have changed in the last two decades and understand the effects of global warming at regional and global levels.”

Making sure the existing ocean observation system, both satellite and in situ data, is sustainable in the long-term is one of the key aims of Oceanobs’09, where the ocean observing community will take stock of progress to date and map out the priorities for the next decade – a task that is unlikely to be easy in the current financial climate.

But the benefits that an operational ocean observing system will bring, are an extremely strong justification: the system is already providing data for the International Panel on Climate Change assessments, and it will also provide better data for maritime security, oil spill prevention, management of marine resources, marine meteorology, seasonal and long term weather forecasting, coastal activities, and monitoring of water quality.

Check back soon for a new recipe!  Salt fish or creamy shrimp risotto?  It is so hard to decide.

How does volunteering and community service pertain to seafood?  Well, Saturday, September 19th is the 24th Annual International Coastal Cleanup.  According to the Ocean Conservancy “at last year’s Cleanup, nearly 400,000 volunteers collected more than 6.8 million pounds of trash in 104 countries and 42 US states — the largest volunteer effort of its kind.”  Doing cleanups like this is just one more step that we can all take to helping our oceans survive.  If you aren’t available for a cleanup then I suggest checking out the Ocean Conservancy’s ‘Take Action’ page.  There are so many different things that we can do to help.

Links:

http://www.oceanconservancy.org

I can understand how for some purchasing your seafood online may seem a little daunting but it is not as bad as you may think.  There are many fisheries that now have websites and are offering shipping for customers who are too far away.  My first experience with purchasing seafood online was Christmas before last for crab actually.  But this was for King Crab Legs!  This was my Christmas present for my grandmother and let me just say she was eating crab legs for a few weeks.  I purchased these from a fishery in Kodiak, Alaska.  They were beautiful!!  Huge crab legs!  We actually had to break them in half before recooking them because we could not fit them in our largest pot! My grandmother loves cooking so she has some pretty big pots.  The price was not dirt cheap but considerably cheaper than what I would have paid for them in the store – considering shipping from Kodiak to Virginia that was a big deal!

Now, what is the difference, you ask, between buying seafood online and buying it at the store (besides the obvious)?  In my experience (as little as that may be), purchasing seafood online can be significantly cheaper, cleaner, and of a higher quality than in some stores.  When you go to the grocery store to purchase, let’s say salmon, you expect for the salmon to be clean and fresh.  Most of the time, if you are shopping at a reputable store, the salmon will be clean and fresh but take into consideration that even if that fillet you just purchased was freshly caught when the store purchased it for selling it was still shipped to that store, most likely thawed out, and placed in the case.  Now I do not expect that there is a whole lot of time between the catch and it being sold in the store but that is still longer than I particularly like when it comes to purchasing seafood that is not something you would find in your area.  Aside from getting the fishing gear and your rubber pants on and going fishing the next best thing, I think, it doing some online research.  The majority of the time when you purchase your seafood online your purchase was most likely recently caught, vacuum packed, frozen, and shipped to you – therefore the fish skip the store and come right into your kitchen.  Keep in mind that as with a lot of online purchasing you get what you pay for.  Don’t start researching places to buy seafood online with the basis of what is the absolute cheapest.  The price reflects the difficulty of obtaining the product.  Remember that in some places, like Alaska, many of these fishermen (and women) are putting their lives on the line for their product.

There is a definite downside to purchasing your seafood online – you can’t actually see the specimen that you are about to buy.  This can be a little disconcerting for some people.  Just remember that if you are buying from a reputable company with a good track record the seafood that you buy has been thoroughly picked through for quality and freshness.  Call or email the company to ask questions you do not feel entirely assured.

In my search for MD blue crab I have found that many companies will more than gladly ship live crabs…..Seems a little sketchy, right?  I thought so at first but then after reading through a lot of these sites I realized that the owners emphasize that there is no guarantee that every single crab in that bushel you bought will be alive when it gets to your front door.  I have found that the really good companies do not give a percentage of crabs that will be alive and they specifically state in one way or another that purchasing and shipping live crab is a risk.  With that said, many of these companies do not have a price difference between live and steamed crab.  Many online seafood merchants will go into great detail about how they operate including information on when and how their seafood is caught, the size differences between specimens, how they ship, when they ship, and so on and so forth.

On to the crab!

With all of this said it is time for the main point of this post – my recipe for corn and crab bisque!  This stuff is amazing and addictive.  The first time I ever tried corn and crab bisque was in Slidell, Louisiana at a store/cafe called Bayou Country.  It was to die for.  And it was obvious that the crab was fresh.  How do I know?  I found some crab shell in my bisque.  I know, not something you want to be finding in your soup but when you use whole crab and clean it yourself it is a little difficult getting every single piece of shell.  A nice big bowl of crab bisque and some crusty bread or crackers and you are set!  My recipe is in no way a recreation of what Bayou Country offers but it is close and pretty darn good, if I do say so myself.

Ingredients

• ¼ cup butter
• ¾ cup green onion, chopped
• 3 (14 oz.) cans low-sodium chicken broth*
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 bay leaves
• ½ tsp. cayenne pepper
• ½ tsp. white pepper
• 1 tsp. liquid crab boil*
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 4 ears of uncooked corn, kernels cut from the cob*
• 2 cups of heavy cream
• 3 tbsp. all-purpose flour
• ½ cup of whole milk
• 1 pound of fresh lump crab meat, shell removed*

Directions

Heat butter in a large pot over medium heat [when I say large, I mean the largest pot you have].  Stir in onion; cook until soft and translucent.  Pour in chicken broth, and bring to a boil.  Stir in garlic, bay leaves, cayenne pepper (or Old Bay seasoning), crab boil, white pepper, salt, and pepper.  Stir in corn into boiling broth.  Simmer about 10 minutes.  Reduce heat to medium low.

Remove 1 cup of soup, and set aside to cool slightly (this is important!).  Once cooled, pour into food processor.  Add half-and-half (or heavy cream) and puree for 30 to 45 seconds. S et aside.

In a small bowl, stir together the flour and milk.  Slowly stir the flour and milk mixture into the simmering soup.  Stirring constantly, simmer for 1 to 2 minutes.  The stir in puree mixture.

Reduce heat to low, stir in crab meat, and cook until warmed through about 5 minutes.

* I am not big on salt so I use low-sodium chicken broth but use what you like.   You could also use vegetable stock.

* The first time I made this I had the hardest time finding liquid crab boil.  It was ridiculous.  I ended up using Zatarains “Crawfish, Shrimp and Crab boil – in a bag” which is pretty much grains like pepper corns and what not.  But I found out recently, at Smart & Final (like Costco), that Zatarains makes a liquid crab boil.  Either work.  If you use the crab boil – in a bag I suggest tossing it in the food processor for a bit just to grind it all up.

* I have found recipes that call for frozen corn kernels or canned corn.  I prefer fresh corn (if it is in season).

* This part of the recipe is entirely up to you on how you obtain your crab meat.  You can do one of three things:

1. Buy lump crab meat.  Many stores offer crab meat that is already picked and cleaned.  With this you can purchase the exact amount that you need but you miss out on all of the fun of cracking your own crab.
2. Buy whole crab, clean it and pick it yourself.  The problem with this is that you don’t know how much to get it.  If you chose this route I suggest getting a little extra then you think you will need.  You can always use the extra for crab cakes or to just nosh on.  You can always ask one of the fishmongers how much he/she thinks you will need.  If you do not want to clean and pick them yourself but still want to purchase whole crab some places like Whole Foods will crack, clean and pick them for you at no extra cost.  Now the downfall with buying whole crab would be that you may end up with some shells in your bisque.
3. Buy live crab, cook it, clean it, and pick it yourself.  Some people are not so fond of doing this because of the screaming (i.e. the steam forcing its way through the shells of the crab).  Plus the chance of shells in your bisque.

Personally, I like buying whole crab and doing it myself.  If you chose this route you will need the following: newspaper…lots of newspaper, a mallet of some sort (I suggest wood)-  you may need it you may not need it, picks, crab crackers – you can find these at Williams-Sonoma and most any grocery store that sells crabs, two bowls (or one bowl and the trash can nearby) one for the crab meat and one for the shells [if you use the trash can make sure to double the bag, the shells are sharp and you do not want to cut yourself taking the trash out], instructions on how to clean and pick crab, and bandaids (trust me on this one).  I suggest removing all rings, bracelets, and watches. I also suggest wearing old clothing or an apron.

I have included a video on how to pick blue crab.  This is generally the method I use.

If you’re planning on having a lot of people over I suggest making a lot of this.  It is a hit and people will love it.  Accompaniment suggestions: salad, crostini or another crusty bread like batard, cocktail shrimp.

Remember when buying seafood online it is all a matter of research and preference.  If you aren’t sure where to start try googling “Best Places to Buy Seafood” or “guides to buying seafood online”.   Don’t be afraid to call or e-mail the company to ask questions.  Don’t just pick the first site that looks good – look around, keep a list of the companies you are interested it with their URL and contact info.  The end result is really worth the research – especially if it is for something that is not common or easily found in your area (i.e. blue crab or flounder [which is an Atlantic fish] in San Francisco).

Happy Crabbing!

Links:

Crab Boils – http://www.zatarains.com/Zatarains/Search/SearchResults.aspx?type=Product&query=crab+boil

Blue Bayou Country – http://www.bayoucountry.com/index.html

Island Seafood, Kodiak, Alaska – http://www.islandseafoods.com/

Williams-Sonoma, seafood tools (including picks and crackers) - http://www.williams-sonoma.com/shop/Cooks-Tools/Meat-Seafood-Tools/CtlMetSea/index.cfm?bnrid=3213401&cm_ven=NBSearch&cm_cat=GoogleC2B_Test&cm_pla=CooksToolsMeatSeafoodToolsSeafoodTools&cm_ite=crab+crackers&OVMTC=Exact&site=&creative=3917871072&OVKEY=crab%20crackers

Like so many of you out there, I love seafood.  If I could I would live off of seafood.  The amount of absolutely delicious and amazing seafood recipes and restaurants out there is endless.  So I see this as a great opportunity to place my print on the seafood world.

What shall you find in this blog of infamous seafood possibilities?  Well, the ocean is the limit so to speak.  Every week you shall find a new seafood recipe, articles on seafood and fishing,  great resources on safe sources of fish and the like and anything else that you wonderful readers would like to see more of.

So let’s get started!!

I think one of the most important things to do before even contemplating what seafood dish you’re going to fix for dinner is to research your fish.  I know it doesn’t sound appealing.  Fixing dinner (especially if it is for multiple people) is already trying as it is and the last thing you want to do is research it; but it is an important and crucial step to take both for your own health and safety as well as for the environment.  If we want to be able to continuously reap the benefits of what our oceans and water-masses have to provide then we have to ensure that we aren’t inadvertently destroying their environments.

There are several amazing resources made available on the best choices of seafood that are updated repeatedly throughout the year.  One such resource is FishWise.  Located in Santa Cruz, CA “FishWise was founded in 2002 to enable consumers and grocery retailers to support seafood sustainability and thereby protect ocean ecosystems.”  There are many retailers and distributors around the country that are partnered with FishWise in their programs and mission to ensure seafood sustainability.  For instance, for those of you on the East Coast MOM’s (My Organic Market) is partnered with FishWise as well as Nugget Markets and Andronico’s Market on the West Coast.  FishWise also keeps a blog for consumers to stay up to date on studies, reports and news concerning ocean ecosystems.

If you are fortunate to have a Whole Foods Market nearby this would also be a great source of educational information on your seafood choices.  Whole Foods ensures that their employees behind the fish counter are manned with the most current information on purchasing, preparing and cooking seafood.  Whole Foods makes it a point to know where their fish came from, what they were fed, what they were not fed, etc.   They are also “the first U.S. retailers to offer varieties of Marine Stewardship Council certified seafood.”  The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is a global non-profit organization based out of London whose mission is to find solutions to the overfishing problems in the world and to ensure a stock of seafood for future generations.  “The MSC has developed standards for sustainable fishing and seafood traceability. Both standards are based on independent third-party assessments by accredited certifiers. They meet the world’s toughest best practice criteria and are helping to transform global seafood markets.”

Next time you go to the grocery store ask if they have printed information on seafood and the varieties they carry.  One such piece of information that I have been using is the latest version of the Seafood Watch distributed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  Seafood Watch offers pocket guides for the West Coast region, Hawaii, Southwest region, Central U.S., Southeast region and Northeast region as well as a National Guide and Sushi Guide.  Not only do they publish pocket guides that are distributed in grocery stores and the like but they also have valuable information available on their website through a search engine that allows you to research a particular type of fish that you may be interested in fixing.  The search will give you information on the seafood type’s rating, its’ market name(s), where it is caught and how it is caught.  And if you forgot to do your research before you left for the grocery store Seafood Watch also has a mobile guide.

Another good piece of adviced: test your grocery store fish mongers.  If they do not know the answer to your question(s) and are not willing to go the extra mile to find someone who does I suggest fish shopping elsewhere.

Happy Seafood Hunting!!

Links:

http://www.fishwise.org

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/products/seafood.php

http://www.msc.org/

http://www.seafoodwatch.org