Dagupan’s fish wardens seize 11 sacks of red-tide infected oysters

DAGUPAN CITY – Fish wardens from the City Agriculture Office (CAO) last week confiscated at the Magsaysay Fish Market some P3, 740 worth of oysters coming from red tide toxin- infected areas of Anda and Bolinao, according to City Agriculturist Emma Molina.
Molina said the confiscation was an offshoot of the latest advisory released by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) that identified shellfish from the said towns were earlier found positive for Paralytic Shellfish Poison (PSP).
“Because of the advisory, our office conducted an ocular inspection of oyster stalls in barangays Tambac and Lucao, sitio Dawel in Pantal and Magsaysay Market,” she said.
She said the fish wardens seized 11 sacks of shelled and 6 plastics of unshelled oysters and a half sack of lukan from 12 dealers in the aforementioned areas, with estimated market values of P3, 310, P300 and P130 respectively.
“We are continuing a 24-hour monitoring to screen merchants from supplying PSP-infected shellfish to vendors here,” she added.
She pointed out that “it is the primordial concern of the city government to protect its constituents and all the traders who buy and sell shellfish in the city.”
Molina added that aside from going over the auxiliary invoice that states where the shellfish emanated, her office went on an inspection to see for themselves if the bivalves being sold were really the Lucao-bred oyster, the red tide-contamination free ones, or the Anda-Bolinao raised oysters transported after the BFAR advisory was released.
For one to distinguish the Lucao-bred shellfish from their Anda-Bolinao counterpart, Molina explained that Lucao-bred oysters are smaller and brownish in color because they adapt to the brackish water and substrate where they are propagated while the Anda-Bolinao raised bivalves are larger and appear greenish as they are grown in the seashores.
She said that BFAR has the sole authority to label which seafood is safe for human consumption or not as they conduct the tests from which result the CAO uses as the legal basis to survey, confiscate and dispatch products.

Molina said that they will be coordinating with the Waste Management Division (WMD) for the proper disposal of the confiscated shellfish as they cannot be thrown anywhere because they might infect the waters here. (CIO)