Within the last five decades, northern hard clam, Mercenaria mercenaria, aquaculture has grown into a thriving industry along the east coast and, notably, the Gulf Coast of Florida. Within the Gulf of Mexico, the Cedar Key area is flourishing as a producer of hard clams with about 125 million clams harvested annually. This industry brings $45 million a year into the area's economy and supports over 500 jobs. The purpose of this study is to determine if M. mercenaria can be grown in Mississippi waters and contribute to a new aquaculture product for the state. Clams were ordered from a Florida commercial seed supplier and deployed in July 2020 at three separate sites: Cat Island, Deer Island, and Point Aux Chenes Bay. These sites predominately vary by salinity regime, which is a primary driver of clam survival and growth. The mean salinity for Cat Island is 20.7 ppt, Deer Island is 14.1 ppt, and Point Aux Chenes Bay is 19 ppt; Cat Island being closest to the optimal salinity range. To test the importance of predation at these sites, the clams were placed inside mesh bags underneath crab traps to examine predation at each site where half of the traps were enclosed with mesh to exclude all potential predators and the rest were not enclosed, allowing access to all large predators. Each treatment type (i.e., mesh covered crab trap and non-covered crab trap) was replicated 3 times at each site. Clam mortality and growth will be measured semimonthly until the clams are market size (anticipated to be approximately 12 months). Completion of this work will determine if northern hard clam aquaculture is possible in coastal Mississippi.

Our current aquatic resource management methodology is in dire need of modernization. While many animal rights and animal welfare organizations have seen great success in recent decades regarding certain species of marine life, such as marine mammals used in entertainment, there is still much work to be done regarding animal welfare in the aquaculture and fishery industry. The primary focus of this presentation will be the proposal of an alternative method of fishery management that will accomplish the goals of animal welfare and industry managers to create a modern fishery management method. Many animal welfare experts are familiar with the term “stockmanship” which is a holistic livestock management methodology that focuses on “knowledgeable and skillful handling of livestock in a safe, efficient, effective, and low-stress manner.” (Stockmanship Journal) While this field is not necessarily the standard practice in the livestock industry, it has shown marked growth and proven benefits to both animal health and livestock management. (Cote) One of the primary practices of stockmanship is Low-Stress Livestock Handling, which is a livestock-centered, behaviorally correct, psychology-oriented, ethical, and humane method of working livestock. The cornerstone of this practice is an understanding of the psychology of the animals being managed. This practice has shown great benefit in cattle-herding, and it may be possible to import some of the techniques and outlooks used in this practice into fishery management. While scientific understanding of marine life is still limited in scope, there have been great strides in understanding some fish species’ biology and psychology. (Brown) These developments and understandings in the field could be an opportunity for increasing the welfare and health of fish and other marine life used in aquaculture.

Establishing clear objectives for restoration can help to reduce uncertainty in restoration implementation by aligning actions with measurable outcomes. Several methods exist for developing objectives, such as conducting workshops to elicit and prioritize values from relevant stakeholders or facilitating activities to translate broad goals into measurable objectives. The establishment of these objectives, however, is often constrained to a particular jurisdictional boundary, aligned to a management program or funding source, or scaled to an individual project. Because an ecosystem does not adhere to these boundaries and limitations, holistic ecosystem restoration will require a systematic approach to connect disjointed objectives in order to measure progress at broader scales. Our solution to this challenge of aligning existing objectives for Gulf of Mexico restoration across multiple scales and jurisdictions was to conduct a rigorous synthesis of existing objectives. We began with values implicitly and explicitly described in Gulf Coast state management plans to develop a shared set of themes that reflect the values of stakeholders across state lines. To capture themes across management plans and generate a collective set of cross-boundary values and objectives, we used an iterative qualitative coding process, based on the Grounded Theory method commonly used in social science research. These themes, along with their interactions with stated stressors and strategies, can contribute to holistic development of restoration objectives. This presentation will provide details on the preliminary findings on the synthesized Gulf-wide values, and applicability of the synthesized data and interactive visualizations to a range of restoration managers, scientists, and decision-makers. This innovative approach of aligning objectives has the potential to enhance our understanding of cross-boundary values throughout broad ecosystems, improving our abilities to assess restoration progress holistically.

Several species of sea turtles native to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The capture of sea turtles as bycatch during shrimp trawling has been cited as a significant contributor to sea turtle population declines. However, the impact of shrimp trawling on sea turtle populations has been difficult to ascertain, primarily because it is difficult to estimate turtle relative abundance and turtle bycatch with any degree of accuracy. Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDS) have been required by law in the southeastern United States shrimp trawl industry beginning in the late 1980’s in order to reduce the number of bycaptured turtles taken during shrimp trawling activities. These devices typically consist of a large metal grate that allows the passage of shrimp and small fish into the bag of the trawl, but forces larger animals (particularly turtles) out through a flap either on the top or bottom. Acoustic measurements may provide a method of estimating turtle bycatch by detecting the sound made by turtles impacting the metal TED. As part of his work testing the efficiency of TEDs, Daniel Foster (NOAA) collected visual and acoustic data using a hydrophone and a camera attached to a TED. This acoustic data was analyzed by The University of Mississippi National Center for Physical Acoustics (NCPA) personnel using low-pass filters and band-power calculations. This proof of concept analysis indicated that turtle impacts have acoustic signatures that are distinguishable from other wildlife encountered in the trawl. Larger and more diverse datasets are needed to validate these trends and develop an algorithm to identify turtle impacts on TEDs. Results from this proof of concept data set and analysis will be presented.