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Maine's
first aquaculture company
Maine Science and Technology Foundation
June 14, 2002
SOUTH
BRISTOL, Maine – Maine's first aquaculture lease was
issued in February 1974 for a 20-acre T-shaped piece
of ocean in Clarks Cove in South Bristol. That lease
established Abandoned Farm, North America's first mussel
farm, said founder Edward Myers.
Myers
said "mussels were the junk food of the seafood business"
for many years, selling for about 25 cents a bushel
in 1940. He said that Maine held contracts to sell thousands
of bushels worth of canned mussels to Britain during
World War II, shipping them through Halifax.
"It
was a nutritious healthy food item for the British,
who needed the food very badly," he said.
After
the war, though, contracts stopped, and Maine was left
with wild mussels that people didn't want to buy because
they contained pearls.
"A
major drawback to mussels in the United States," said
Myers, "is that people do not like to break teeth."
Pearls
inside mussels are caused by a tiny worm, a parasite
that passes through eider ducks, then finds hiding places
inside mussels. The parasite irritates the inside of
the mussel, which covers it with shell material, forming
a pearl.
Maine's
mussel trade languished until the 1970s when a breakthrough
at the University of Maine's Darling Marine Center,
where Myers worked as an administrator, enabled scientists
to determine mussels' age.
Younger
mussels meant less time battling the parasites, so Myers
said he and his partners were able to guarantee that
even wild mussels contained no palpable pearls. He said
he never had to respond to complaints about pearls in
his mussels or issue a bushel of mussels as a mussel-back
guarantee.
Myers's
mussel farm still produces mussels, but he said conditions
have changed. Warmer coastal temperatures mean nobody
has to spend 17 full winter days breaking ice around
aquaculture gear, as Myers did in 1981. But warmer temperatures
and less ice have attracted eider ducks, which have
settled around the river near Myers's mussels. Eiders
can eat their weight – about five pounds – in mussels
each day, making them a costly predator for mussel farms.
Managing
aquaculture ventures is "a big and important job" that
requires daily attention, said Myers.
The
former Darling Center administrator speaks from experience.
From 1949 until 1972, he worked as a lobster and clam
dealer, shipping clam bakes as far away as Saudi Arabia
and Paris.
Looking
back over a lifetime of innovation and experimentation,
Myers is quick to spot early missteps.
"For
the most part we all went in under-engineered and too
many of us used calculators" rather than constructing
gear to withstand severe coastal conditions, he said
of the pioneering aquaculture efforts.
At
85, Myers is disappointed to see so much debate about
leasing applications for aquaculture companies.
"These
are the public waters of the state of Maine," he said,
and people have fished them for centuries. He added
that in other countries, "if the aquaculture was there
first, there is very very little trouble."
Myers
continues his marine activities as a wharfinger, or
commercial wharf manager, in South Bristol. He also
writes articles about marine issues for publications
including "Working Waterfront."
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