Aquaculture, or fish farming, is a $21 million industry in Wisconsin. Wisconsin Sea Grant has a long history of nurturing the growth of aquaculture through research and public outreach. Coupled with Sea Grant efforts related to Great Lakes commercial fishing, these activities help Wisconsin producers offer consumers a sustainable, domestic alternative to imported fish and seafood.

A fresh chapter in this history is the Wisconsin Sea Grant Keillor Fellowship in Aquaculture, created in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point Northern Aquaculture Demonstration Facility (NADF), where the position is based. The Bayfield facility is a national leader in aquaculture research.

Dr. Patrick Blaufuss (submitted photo)

The inaugural fellow, Dr. Patrick Blaufuss, began his two-year position in September. He holds a doctorate in animal physiology from the University of Idaho, where his research focused on nutrition and physiology in rainbow trout. He’s also a graduate of North Dakota State University and Southern Illinois University, where he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in zoology, respectively.

One of his greatest satisfactions, said Blaufuss, is seeing laboratory research provide useful results for fish farmers. “I’m excited to get experience with the aquaculture industry in the Great Lakes region… and to get more experience with commercial producers and the commercial setting, helping them refine what they do. Applying what we do in the lab out in the real world is very important,” said Blaufuss.

One of his top priorities will be analyzing data from past and current NADF projects and preparing manuscripts for publication in scientific journals.

Said Greg Fischer, NADF assistant director and research program manager, “Having Patrick on board as our new Sea Grant fellow will directly impact getting our completed research projects analyzed and published in a timely manner, which allows us to share results with the aquaculture industry and scientific community more rapidly, and to move aquaculture forward with confidence.”

Dr. Chris Hartleb, a UW-Stevens Point professor of fisheries biology and NADF co-director, echoed those thoughts. “Pat’s background and knowledge will assist us with completing past projects, restructuring current projects and expanding our ability to provide assistance to many aquaculturists with new projects.”

Blaufuss’ prior experience includes restoration aquaculture work with burbot in Idaho, where that species was almost extirpated from the Kootenai River watershed due to the operation of a dam that led to increased water temperatures (burbot need very cold water to spawn successfully). The recreational burbot fishery there had been closed since 1992. As part of the restoration work, Blaufuss served as a consultant to the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, which runs a commercial-scale fish hatchery. Employing results from University of Idaho lab research, Blaufuss helped the tribe with its first season of burbot aquaculture. Subsequent years of restocking efforts by the Kootenai Tribe have succeeded in restoring burbot populations to a level that recreational fishing is once again possible for anglers.

Commented Blaufuss, “I came out there [to the tribal hatchery] regularly throughout their first season, since there are multiple steps in burbot culture, and you have to be aware of them.” Burbot are extremely carnivorous, so cannibalization can be an issue, and they also have a longer larval rearing period compared to some other species. “It was very fulfilling to help them through each stage of the culture, and to see how our smaller-scale research data could be applied to a full-size commercial setting.”

Blaufuss kayaking on Lake Erie near Gibraltar, Mich. (submitted photo)

Currently, Blaufuss is writing a manuscript about previous NADF work on commercial diets for larval walleye and saugeye (a walleye-sauger hybrid that also occurs in the wild). “It’s so important that producers know the best diet to feed these larval fish,” he said. (Wisconsin Sea Grant funded this research in its 2018-20 grant cycle; read more about it here.)

He’s also working on a nanobubble oxygenation project, a novel way of introducing oxygen into aquaculture systems. “We’re looking at how it affects fish health, growth and other parameters,” said Blaufuss. The National Sea Grant Office is supporting the nanobubble work; read more about it here.

While much of his work is remote at the moment due to the ongoing pandemic, Blaufuss said that the two-year commitment at NADF gives him a good chunk of time to work with fish species and aquaculture systems that are new to him, as well as boost the facility’s research output.

It’s all part of Sea Grant and NADF’s broader goals to train professionals—from undergraduate students to postdoctoral fellows like Blaufuss—and support sustainable aquaculture that is backed by cutting-edge science. When the public health crisis abates, said Hartleb, Blaufuss will be able to get out to conferences, workshops and farms to enhance connections and share NADF information.

Said Fischer, “Wisconsin Sea Grant has been a great partner in all that we do, and we look forward to the future and continued partnership and cooperation.”

The post Sea Grant aquaculture fellow begins two-year position in Bayfield to boost research capacity first appeared on Wisconsin Sea Grant.

Original Article

News Releases – Wisconsin Sea Grant

News Releases – Wisconsin Sea Grant

https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/news/sea-grant-aquaculture-fellow/

Jennifer Smith

A burbot. Image credit: Titus Seilheimer, Wisconsin Sea Grant

Shark Week, Aug. 9 -16, is a cherished annual tradition. In what I am hoping will also become a cherished tradition, Sea Grant presents a counter-Shark-Week look at a denizen of the sweetwater seas. A previous blog post regaled a number of Wisconsin fish. This 2020 edition offers five facts about the burbot.

The scientific name for this fish in the cod family is an onomatopoeia dream: Lota lota. It’s got other common names in addition to burbot, including lawyer, eelpout and lingcod.

The Grumpy Burbot (the alter ego of Sea Grant Fisheries Specialist Titus Seilheimer) has its own Twitter handle.

The fish is a bottom-dweller. Maybe this elusive home is why some of us Sea Grant staffers couldn’t eat them even though they were on the menu when we visited KK Fiske and The Granary in 2017. We had heard they were good eating but restaurant owner and commercial fisher on Door County’s Washington Island Ken Koyen hadn’t caught any that day. Burbot is not a target species and most that show up in whitefish and lake trout nets are discarded. Broiled and served with butter, however, the fish are said to taste like Poor Man’s Lobster.

Sea Grant funded a study about the birds and bees of burbot to better understand the entire Lake Michigan food web. Researcher John Janssen said, ““Burbot interact with many other fish. They like to eat a lot of sculpins, which are eaten by lake trout, and sculpins eat lake trout eggs. Knowing more about when and how burbot spawn adds more information to figure out the interactions between species.”

Much more burbot intel is available on the Eat Wisconsin Fish website. Details on the burbot study can be found here.

Original Article

Blog – Wisconsin Sea Grant

Blog – Wisconsin Sea Grant

https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/blog/lota-facts-about-the-lota-lota-a-counter-shark-week-tale/

Moira Harrington

I’m a memoir junkie and also a fan of cooking shows (though I don’t cook much myself—go figure). These interests dovetail in books written by chefs, food critics and others chronicling their personal journeys to and through the professional world of food.

Along these lines, I greatly enjoyed Amy Thielen’s 2017 book “Give a Girl a Knife,” her tale of growing up in the small town of Park Rapids, Minnesota, and, for the latter part of high school, the Twin Cities suburbs. After finishing college in St. Paul, she headed to New York for culinary school and spent several years in the trenches of high-end restaurants there, eventually returning to her home state and the even smaller town of Two Inlets.

More precisely, though: even during her New York years, Thielen and her artist husband bounced between Brooklyn and the Northwoods, where, over the years, they improved on a rustic home he had begun building. Eventually, they found their nomadic lifestyle too unwieldy—and the lure of home too strong—and committed full-time to Minnesota.

I first became aware of Thielen from her former Food Network program, The Heartland Table, and later stumbled upon her blog post about the joys of eelpout (aka burbot or lawyer, an often underrated fish) after finally getting to try some at a fish market in northern Minnesota.

Not only is Thielen a vivid and engaging narrator whose willingness to follow her passions has paid off, I appreciate her resolute pride in the traditions and flavors of the Upper Midwest. While there is some truth to the jokes about gloppy casseroles and Jello salads, the Midwest does have rich and varied food traditions of its own—including many surrounding the freshwater fish found here—that reflect the heritage of its people, from original inhabitants to immigrant populations.

Baskets of crispy coated whitefish and eelpout on a summer’s day in northern Minnesota, 2019. (Photo: Jennifer Smith)

Here at Wisconsin Sea Grant, one of our efforts is the Eat Wisconsin Fish project, which encourages consumers to think local when they buy fish, whether that means wild-caught in the Great Lakes or sustainably farmed by Wisconsin fish farmers. (And, of course, we support those who like to catch their own fish!)

As someone who eats fish often and prefers it over many other proteins, I have found that Eat Wisconsin Fish has nudged me to shop more carefully and seek out Wisconsin (or other Great Lakes states’) products when possible. I even find that I now try more carefully to buy other local food products, too, from eggs to local coffee roasters. Especially in a volatile economy, I like knowing my choices are supporting regional companies and jobs.

In “Give a Girl a Knife,” Thielen offers a thoughtful approach to the flavors and landscapes of the Upper Midwest. Even better, she’s just plain entertaining to read. (For more from Amy Thielen, check out her James Beard award-winning cookbook, “The New Midwestern Table: 200 Heartland Recipes“, or find some of the recipes from her Food Network show online, like this one for Crispy Trout with Kitchen Butter Sauce.)

Happy reading and eating!

Original Article

Blog – Wisconsin Sea Grant

Blog – Wisconsin Sea Grant

https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/blog/amy-thielens-give-a-girl-a-knife/

Jennifer Smith