Contributed by Peter Adame, Director of Communications & Sustainability at Lusamerica Foods Inc.
Petrale sole is a brown West Coast flatfish that’s not particularly sexy. Thousands are caught by US West Coast groundfish trawlers every day, but the crew on the F/V Noah’s Ark caught one that was a complete anomaly. The fish shined a bright yellowy-orange, something none of the crew had seen in their lifetime. The orange petrale sole was landed on Tuesday, January 24, 2023, at Lusamerica Seafood’s dock in Moss Landing Harbor, located in the heart of Monterey Bay, California.
“It’s very rare to catch a fish with this strange pigmentation as it’s a very odd condition and even slimmer odds for it to survive the first couple years of life. You don’t really blend into the brown sea floor when you’re rocking those colors,” sa,id Peter Adame, Lusamerica’s Director of Communications and Sustainability.
In a TikTok video posted by Lusamerica Seafood, crewmember “Big Rick” narrates from the boat how he has been fishing for over 43 years and has never caught anything like it.
The condition is called Xanthochromism, an abnormal skin coloration of yellow to orange-gold. It’s an uncommon phenomenon in nature and xanthochromic specimens are rare. A fish being able to survive to adulthood with that condition makes it even more impressive.
“We’re taking the rare catch as a good omen as it was the first time the F/V Noah’s Ark unloaded in Moss Landing—a harbor that currently had zero active groundfish trawlers until the F/V Noah’s Ark docked on Tuesday. Groundfish fishing used to be the stable fishery on our West Coast ports but there aren’t many groundfish fishermen left after the fishery collapsed in 2000. The fish populations bounced back in 2014 thanks to strict management, but many of the fishermen left the area,” says Peter Adame.
Lusamerica’s been investing in the local seafood economy for several years by adding new infrastructure at their dock in Moss Landing and adding a local fish filleting line at their processing facility in nearby Morgan Hill. But having a larger fishing vessel like the F/V Noah’s Ark join the Moss Landing fishing community is a milestone for the harbor and larger West Coast groundfish recovery.
Lusamerica is the owner of the brand Monterey Bay Seafood and distributes seafood to businesses across the U.S. West Coast. In addition to Moss Landing Harbor, they also work directly with groundfish fishermen out of Fort Bragg’s Noyo Harbor in Northern California.
Source on Xanthochromism: (PDF) First Records of Xanthochromism in Four Marine Fish Species Collected from the Arabian Sea Coasts of Pakistan (researchgate.net)
This piece was prepared online by Panuruji Kenta, Publisher, SEVENSEAS Media