Taranto, 9,000 tons of mussels killed by the heat

Nine thousand tons of mussels destroyed, economic value of 8 million euros eliminated, loss of 90 percent of the seed, which jeopardizes next year’s fish production: these are the data that summarize the black summer experienced by mussels and mussel farming in Taranto, where prolonged high temperatures, overheating the sea, have “asphyxiated” production. The data emerged in a meeting in the Puglia Region. “We need to test about fifteen different approaches, I mean strategies, to ensure that the Taranto mussel can resist even higher temperatures.”

This is a summary of the study presented by the Government Commissioner for the reclamation of Taranto, Vito Uricchio, on the defense of mussel farming, in the comparison in the Puglia Region. “Some of these strategies are of a practical, empirical nature, suggested by the mussel farmers themselves and we try them, we try everything – says Uricchio -. Others, however, are things a little more refined. They act from a genetic point of view. We select which species are that have been able to resist high temperatures and we try to understand the genetic mechanisms that allow this, given that nature then adapts normally.

In China, for example, where the problem arose before Taranto, there are now thermophilic mussels, which live at 34 degrees. They solved the problem there because he left earlier. The mussels have adapted. They already have them. Certainly – observes the commissioner – even the mussels raised in Italy will adapt, but adaptation can also occur over many years. And we certainly can’t wait that long. So we need to accelerate this process from a scientific point of view.”

“Next Thursday at 12.30 – announces Uricchio – we will meet with the councilor for Agricultural Policies, Donato Pentassuglia, and we will address the topic with concrete projects. Help can come directly from the Department of Agriculture”. It also emerged that the commissioner, appointed last March by the Ministry of the Environment, still lacks both the mission structure and operating funds. Uricchio currently has 52 million euros available from the previous commissioner (the former prefect of Taranto, Demetrio Martino) but subject to limitations, so they cannot be used for the Mar Piccolo, where there is part of the cultivation of mussels. Added to this is that the CIS, the Institutional Development Contract for Taranto, the result of a 2015 law, deemed the reclamation of the Taranto sea not practicable because it was excessively onerous. Roughly 3 billion euros have been estimated.