Last week, I posted this picture of two lobster tails and asked if anyone could identify the species. I’m not surprised that only one person responded because I missidentified the lobsters in my setup, calling them spiny lobsters, only to learn later, when I went back to the store and looked at the box that they were small American lobster tails (Homarus americanus) from Canada, distributed by ORION Seafood International in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA. Information: ORION Seafood International, 20 Ladd Street, Third Floor, Portsmouth, New Hampshire 03801, USA (email info@orionseafood.com, webpage http://www.orionseafood.com/contact/index.shtml). Source: Bob Rosenberry, Shrimp News International, May 24, 2010. United States Washington DC—Shrimp Imports Down in the First Quarter of 2010 USA shrimp imports were down 4.4 percent in the first quarter of 2010, according to figures released by the National Marine Fisheries Service on May 12, 2010. Indonesia and Ecuador were the

Prior to shipping they were chilled down by 10ºF over a period of a few hours to reduce their metabolism and bring down their core internal temperature. I still use this technique today when air shipping live Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) from the Caribbean to Hong Kong and China. Inside the box, I would place a one-inch layer of dry expanded excelsior (wood wool, wood shavings) on the bottom of the Styrofoam box. American Excelsior is the only company that sells this product. Its fiber comes from the aspen tree, is non-toxic and has no chemical residues. The compressed bales come in two sizes, full bales and pony bales, and need to be fully expanded before use. You just pull them apart by hand. Next, I would add a layer of chilled shrimp and then cover them with another layer of expanded excelsior that had been dipped in chilled seawater and shaken out to remove any excess water. I would continue this process for several layers (depending on the size of the box), topping

After getting his master’s degree, he went to the Virgin Islands, and did a yearlong study on spiny lobsters and their migration patterns. From 1972 to 1974, he was enrolled in a Ph.D. program at the University of California, Davis, in aquatic ecology. Tony Schuur, currently an aquaculture/shrimp farming consultant, was in the same program. Steve never completed the Ph.D. program. He felt that he just didn’t need it to do what he wanted to do. Later, however, after he left Solar Aquafarms, he thought about restarting his Ph.D., but didn’t, and later said that that was a mistake. In grad school, he worked with lobsters, but shifted to freshwater prawns when he realized that lobster farming was not going to be feasible. He started Solar Aquafarms in 1973 with Dominick. The seeds of SAF had been planted in 1969-70, down in San Diego, when Steve moved into Dominick’s “Huron Labs” house, where they built their first miniscale backyard greenhouse and closed-system, multitrophic-