Greetings, Spotlight Earth fans.

It's me, Ellen, and I'm here stuffing my face with raw oysters on the half shell.

I love to eat them with a little lemon and some cocktail sauce.

(upbeat music) We're at Catch 31 in Virginia Beach for appetizers in a main course in seafood.

The seafood industry, that is.

It's the topic of today's Spotlight Earth.

(upbeat music) Are we enjoying everything?

Everything is so good.

This is Kevin Gilbert, executive chef here at Catch 31 on the Virginia Beach Oceanfront.

Kevin, can you tell us a little bit about the oysters today?

Absolutely.

Here at Catch 31, we pride ourselves in sourcing as locally as possible.

These particular oysters are coming out of Hayes, Virginia, which is about an hour and 15 minute drive from here.

The farm where they come from actually sits right on the cusp of the Mobjack in York River.

So the freshwater that floods into the bay mix with the saltwater that comes from the Atlantic Ocean is what's bringing you this quintessential oyster.

It's not too sweet, it's not too briny.

It has been described as the best eating oyster.

But with all things here at Catch 31, our produce and all of our seafood, we work with local vendors to try to provide our guests with the freshest and most local products we possibly can.

Thank you so much for the information, Kevin.

The oysters are delicious and the place is beautiful.

Please enjoy them.

Thank you.

What could be better than eating fresh seafood and supporting local oyster farmers?

Well, actually, it's even better than that.

As we will learn today, choosing the right shellfish and seafood to eat can have a positive impact on community development, environmental stewardship, entrepreneurial and economic growth, healthy eating, and honoring Virginia's cultural heritage.

And don't worry, oysters do not have a central nervous system, so they do not experience fear or pain when we eat them.

Let's join Hales in the studio to discover more about Virginia's blue foods.

Thanks, Ellen.

That looks delicious.

You always get the cushiest gigs.

Now you're making me hungry.

Today, we're diving into a sea of blue foods right here in Virginia.

If you're thinking about blue berries or blue cheese, those aren't the blues I'm talking about.

Blue foods refer to foods derived from aquatic animals, plants, or algae that are caught or cultivated in freshwater and marine environments.

And Virginia has an abundance of that.

Our waterways, especially the world famous Chesapeake Bay, are home to a huge variety of seafood, including blue crabs, oysters, rockfish, and much more.

Virginia is the third largest seafood-producing state in the US and the leader on the Atlantic Coast.

Our year-round fishing ports mean a constant supply of fresh and frozen seafood.

And believe it or not, our top-notch transportation systems can get Virginia seafood anywhere in the world within 24 hours.

You know, I bet they could get here pretty quickly if I use one of those delivery apps.

Let's see, we'll do some oysters.

Oh, and a side of hush puppies.

Perfect.

Now, where was I?

Oh, right, shellfish.

The shellfish culture industry is massive here in Virginia with a yearly value of nearly $60 million.

It's an industry that makes both money and sense for the environment.

Our shellfish, especially oysters and clams, are like janitors of the bay.

Oysters are filter feeders, meaning they remove nutrients from the water by filtering it through their gills and then digesting the nutrients.

A single adult oyster can filter 50 gallons of water a day.

The original historic oyster populations filtered the entire Chesapeake Bay in less than a week.

Today, only 1-2% of the oyster population remains, so it takes more than a year for them to filter the water.

Despite the dwindling numbers, they are still a huge boon to the state economy.

In 2016, a staggering 195.4 million cultured clams and 40.2 million oysters were sold.

Oyster reefs also provide a critical habitat for many other species the same way coral reefs do.

So our inshore and offshore watermen and women work across an astounding 630,000 acres of water, harvesting a diversity of seafood from the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, as well as Virginia's coastal waters in the Atlantic corridor.

From oysters to blue crabs, sea scallops to rockfish, we've got it all.

Oh, rockfish.

Okay, I'm gonna update my order.

Virginia is for rockfish lovers.

The Commonwealth Seafood Industry is kept shipshape by state and federal laws and regulations.

Organizations like the Virginia Marine Resource Commission work to ensure our seafood is harvested sustainably for generations to come.

When you enjoy a seafood dish, it's important to consider how the types of seafood you choose to consume will not only satisfy your taste buds, but will also ensure a healthy ecosystem that allow both shellfish and finfish populations to thrive.

Thriving fish populations is just one of the issues that scientists at VIMS, or the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, are working on, and that's where you'll find Jarrell, diving into the deep end of Virginia's blue foods industry.

Hey, Hales.

Yup, I'm in Gloucester Point, and the research being done here will ensure that the shellfish industry will remain robust for generations to come.

VIMS stands for the Virginia Institute of Marine Science where the School of Marine Science is part of William & Mary.

We have a three-part mission that we're focused on: research, education, and advisory service.

So I'm the director of ABC.

It's an acronym that stands for Aquaculture Genetics and Breeding Technology Center.

We're a 25-year-old program.

We actually started as a result of a Virginia Legislative Initiative back in the 1990s.

And our primary objective is to produce superior broodstock oysters for the industry.

And by broodstock oysters, we're talking about, you know, genetically superior adult oysters.

What we do is very similar to what's been done with the beef industry, you know, dairy, pigs, chickens, et cetera, but we do that for our beloved bivalve.

So here we are, this is the broodstock room, which is the start of our tour today in the Acuff Center for Aquaculture.

So this is a huge oyster hatchery facility.

So here what we do is we actually make lots of baby oysters for a variety of research, whether it's genetics questions, whether it's commercial grow out questions, et cetera.

So there's a lot going on in a broodstock room.

This is a really state-of-the-art facility.

In these tanks here, we've got roughly 200 adult oysters.

Okay, 200 in here?

Yeah, there's about 200 in here.

These guys are about two years old.

Okay.

We grew these here as babies and now they're about this size.

Wow!

And so in each of these tanks, through a computer system, we can change the temperature to get them to a temperature that we'd like.

You can see this very light green bubbling liquid here.

That's actually algae or microscopic plants that are getting fed to the oysters in this tank.

So that's their food.

These are vegetarians.

They're so cute.

Yeah, aren't they cute?

I know, if only they had eyes.

So the purpose of this room as a broodstock conditioning room is actually to get these adult oysters ready to reproduce.

Okay.

So by manipulating the temperature of the tank water and the amount of food that we give them, we get them to a state that they're ready to make babies.

We'd be remiss if we didn't talk about the oyster lifecycle.

You know, we're here in an oyster hatchery.

You know, we learned a little bit about what broodstock conditioning is and that process.

But once the oysters spawn, their lifecycle is super interesting, at least for me.

They've got a planktonic life stage, so they're broadcast spawners, so the eggs and the sperm from the adult oysters go into the water column.

Fertilization happens in the water column.

And over the course of about six hours, you can go from a single cell, which is about a seventh the size of a human hair, over just a few hours, they'll start dividing, from one cell to two, two to four, et cetera.

But six hours later, you have this stage called the trochophore stage.

Trochophore.

Trochophore.

It's a funny word, so it has cilia, it's swimming.

It doesn't look anything like an oyster at that point.

Okay.

But about 24 hours later, we have what we call D stage larvae.

And they're D stage because they look just like a D. So on this picture here, Jarrell, and up here you can see, the D. So they have a nice straight hinge and they're really round.

This is 24 hours, you say?

24 hours.

So they have their own shell.

Wow.

They have cilia, they're swimming, they're eating.

So you go from egg to an oyster larvae just at 24 hours old.

So given the right water conditions, so nice warm water and lots of food, they go through their whole life cycle in about three weeks.

Okay.

So, you know, they're eating, they're swimming, they're growing.

Right.

So this is actually to scale 'cause it's hard sometimes to think about really small measurements.

So this is your poppy seed.

This is a poppy seed that's like on your bagel.

By the time they're ready to set, meaning they completely metamorphose to a sessile stage or one that just sticks to the bottom or sticks to another oyster or to a reef, they're about this size.

So it takes about two and a half weeks to get to this size.

They set, they grow into about a millimeter, which at this point we actually think they're pretty big.

And then after that, you know, they don't swim anymore.

If you were an oyster farmer, you would let them grow a little bit longer and then you would bring them out to your lease.

So here, Jarrell, these are some that they're not living anymore.

I know it just looks like grains of sand.

Those would be about six weeks old.

So each of those if left to their own devices would've grown into something like this after just a couple of years.

Whoa!

I don't actually know how many are in there.

I would hazard to guess probably about 150,000.

Whoa!

And then if you were to leave them to grow a little bit more, you can see each one here, they're about a quarter of an inch across, so those would be about, you know, four months old.

This is awesome.

(upbeat music) That's just a critter that grows on it.

Sometimes there's certain sponges that grow into the shell.

If anybody shucks...

I'm lucky enough to be the coordinator of VIMS Shellfish Aquaculture Program.

That means I get to work with a lot of great people that are working with all different aspects of shellfish aquaculture.

That is a soft shell spider crab.

My work in particular focuses on the production end.

I work a lot with clam growers and oyster growers.

Anyone who wants to grow shellfish, helping them figure out what are the best ways to do that, how can they maximize their production and also be the most sustainable practice possible in terms of the environment.

I think that we look at shellfish aquaculture as something that is good for the environment.

It's good for the economy and it's part of our culture.

I think the science shows that the bay is better off with more shellfish in it.

Those can be wild shellfish, those can be restored shellfish, it can also be shellfish that are grown on farms 'cause it turns out that the shellfish farmers that are growing shellfish are giving a lot of public benefits.

Now, of course, they wanna harvest those and send it to market and that's a benefit.

They have jobs and they're feeding people and that's important, but it turns out that that's also helping the environment.

We think that when you go to shellfish farms, you see a healthier environment that's got more fish and crabs and different species in it than without.

(gentle music) Really great stuff happening in Gloucester Point.

Equally amazing research happening here in Hampton.

This is the Virginia Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center where researchers are doing a variety of work to make sure you are getting the best and safest seafood.

And that's just the start of what they do.

(upbeat music) Hey Mike, how's it going?

Jarrell, nice to meet you.

Welcome to the Virginia Seafood AREC.

Come on in and let's take a tour.

Awesome.

Looking forward to it.

Okey-doke.

The mission here at the Virginia Seafood AREC is effectively service to Virginia seafood industry and all of its stakeholders.

The program has been here since 1975, and we tried to provide all of the support to be a one-stop shop for the Virginia seafood industry.

All the way from the fishermen to the aquaculturists, to the processors, to the consumers, all the way to food safety and handling at home.

We have multiple program areas.

We work in seafood quality, safety, and consumer education.

We have an aquaculture program that works freshwater, saltwater, shellfish, finfish.

We have a bioprocessing program and value added programming that again works with the seafood industry as well as a new seafood economics and marketing research program.

Wow.

Look at this place.

All right, so welcome to one of our recirculating aquaculture system rooms.

These are 500 liter production tanks.

So if these were in production right now, right now we're between trials and this tank would be full of either hybrid striped bass, tilapia, Atlantic salmon, depending upon the species that we're working.

So the fish would be in these tanks.

The water drains from these tanks into our filtration system.

So we got a large biological filter, solids removal, we have temperature control, we have re-aeration and degassing, and then that water comes back in through this pipe.

This tank continually receives water from the recirculating system at a flow rate based upon the size and density of the animals that are in here.

We're using this system to optimize the water quality, the water chemistry, the environment for the animal.

So we can adjust anything we need over here to give the animals whatever they need.

Wild caught, of course, is fishery-based.

Farm raised is produced.

On the fishery side, we have faculty that are engaged with fisheries management.

So we are engaged in catch limits, quotas, those types of things to keep the wild fishery sustainable.

And then on the farm raised, basically helping enable the technologies to expand that sector, maintaining product quality and product safety.

The goal of both programs is to enhance sustainable seafood supplies.

Ellen, I see you enjoyed your oysters.

Oh, they were so great.

So can I make a recommendation for your entree?

Absolutely.

So we just got our fish delivery in and we just got some wild sustainably caught rock fish.

It's caught in the Chesapeake Bay, so it's going to have that quintessential flavor of just slightly sweet and slightly briny.

It is served with wild rice pilaf and asparagus.

That sounds great.

I'll take it.

I'll get that going for you.

Perfect.

I am so spoiled.

The seafood is so yummy.

But as consumers, we need to be conscious about what we are consuming.

As we've learned today, it's important that the seafood populations remain sustainable, not only for our own consumption, but for the health of our marine ecosystems as well.

Let's head back to Hales with more on making good choices about the seafood we eat.

Enjoy your rockfish, Ellen.

Meanwhile, my delivery driver is pulling up now.

Lunchtime!

But before I go, it's important that we pay attention to where our seafood comes from, how it's harvested, and whether or not what we consume is being appropriately monitored and regulated for a thriving, sustainable population.

Luckily, it's easy to be responsible with the Virginia Seafood Guide.

Here you'll see a list of recommended crabs, finfish, and shellfish to consume with information about when they're in season.

There's even a section on rockfish.

Rockfish are a very popular fish caught up and down the East Coast and in the Chesapeake Bay.

In fact, most of the rockfish population uses the bay for spawning and as nursery grounds.

So many are born right here in our local waters.

Their population plummeted in the 1970s and early '80s due to overfishing.

But conservation efforts helped the population rebound and they came back to better numbers in the early 2000s.

This rebound is an example of successful fisheries management in the Chesapeake Bay.

So through a combination of government regulations, species management by organizations like VIMS and VSAREC, and consumers making sustainable choices, we can keep enjoying the bounties of the bay and beyond.

Ah, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It smells so good.

Five stars for you, good sir.

Enjoying the bay responsibly keeps the food coming, keeps the bay clean and productive, and keeps marine ecosystems, the economy, and the Chesapeake Bay way of life thriving for us and local communities throughout Virginia, and make responsible local choices about the seafood you consume like this.

Uh, these hush puppies are calling my name.

Catch you next time on Spotlight Earth.

(upbeat music)