If you recreationally fish for bivalve shellfish in San Luis Obispo County, you are urged not to eat them.
“We try and buy as local as possible so anytime there is an advisory, we will reach out to our suppliers and ask questions and make sure all the products we buy are ready to serve to customers,” said Wyatt Mello, owner of The Galley Seafood Grill & Bar.
Local business owners along the Morro Bay Embarcadero, like Mello, who sell seafood, say they pay attention to advisories and, at times, have people asking about them.
“Yesterday I got a handful of calls and DMs on Instagram or chefs calling me wondering, which tells me people are paying attention, which is good,” said Neal Maloney, Morro Bay Oyster Company owner.
“If there is an advisory, there is a reason for it,” said Kenna Morris of Morro Bay.
The latest advisory by the California Department of Public Health was issued Friday due to dangerous toxins found.
Health officials report the toxins can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP), which is deadly and not destroyed by cooking.
The latest advisory only applies to shellfish caught recreationally, not those commercially harvested.
“The commercially harvested seafood goes through a rigorous testing and cleaning process before it makes it to the restaurant,” Mello said.
Morro Bay Oyster Company owner Neal Maloney says commercial fishing is tested weekly for marine biotoxins, whereas recreational fishing is tested once a month.
“When you have a recreational advisory like this, it falls onto the consumer who is going to go out with their fishing license and grab shellfish off the beach, and so you're just removing all that oversight, and so it’s good to have these advisories for people to be aware of,” Maloney said.
He says he never sells products until test results come back.
“We are one of the highest-regulated food industries in the United States. If our product is on your shelf, that means a farm-raised oyster has gone through a tremendous amount of validation to be sold,” Maloney said.
PSP is caused by toxic algae that shellfish consume. Symptoms of PSP include: tingling around the mouth and fingers, loss of balance, slurred speech and difficulty swallowing.
This warning is in addition to the annual mussel quarantine, which already bans recreational mussel harvesting along the California coast.
For more information on the advisory, click here.
