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The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has joined the industry advisory board of the U.S. Science Center for Marine Fisheries (SCEMFIS) and said it plans to help support its work on marine science.
The certification body said in a release that it will help further SCEMFIS’s mission to identify and fund developments in marine science to support sustainable fisheries.
“The MSC shares the Center’s mission of supporting critical scientific research for economically important fisheries,” SCEMFIS Director Eric Powell, who also works with the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory at the University of Southern Mississippi, said. “Our research has helped our fisheries be better managed and more sustainable, and MSC’s membership will help us expand that work.”
SCEMFIS is also a member of the National Science Foundation’s Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers program, a government program intended to foster collaboration between the fishing industry and marine science academics and identify areas of research that could help fill the needs of the industry. As a member of the industry advisory board, MSC will help SCEMFIS in its goal to identify and fund research that can benefit the knowledge base and sustainability of important finfish and shellfish fisheries in the U.S.
SCEMFIS already has a range of fishing industry partners, including Lund’s Fisheries, Atlantic Capes Fisheries, and Bumble Bee Seafoods.
The center has funded a range of different projects researching fish species in the U.S. such as its recent funding for a project to study menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay. That project will feature scientists from the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and NOAA and will research existing menhaden science to find information gaps in understanding the menhaden stock to form a more holistic picture of the species and improve its management.
In July, one of the studies it funded at the University of Southern Mississippi helped reveal more details of the diets of common predators in the Gulf of Mexico – currently referred to as the Gulf of America by the U.S. government. Researchers with the project said those findings could have direct impact on fisheries management of key commercial species, and study author and Director of the School of Ocean Science and Engineering at the University of Southern Mississippi Robert Leaf told SeafoodSource that the study could provide a roadmap for similar studies in other areas.
MSC Fisheries Outreach manager Anthony Mastitski said the membership is a natural fit given SCEMFIS’s relationship to many sustainable fisheries in the U.S.
“SCEMFIS plays a pivotal role in advancing scientific research across U.S. fisheries, including many that are MSC-certified,” Mastitski said. “Thanks in part to SCEMFIS, these fisheries have maintained their certifications and continue to offer sustainable seafood options to consumers at home and abroad.”
