off topic?  NO NOT AT ALL.

 The ridiculously colored bay scallops from China  are offered cheaply
 on the shell auctions on the internet. Scallop collectors get them
for the pastel colors  (I  bought some from fish markets when they
first went on sale in NY City years ago)....These  "farmed" bay
scallops in Massachusetts have "hybridized" with the local populations
 in some areas in Massachusetts, for me its hard to tell what is a
natural bay  scallop  anymore in terms of color (which adds to the
hybridization already present when scallop stocks were moved around in
years past between New England and NY to try and reestablish the local
bay scallops in NY decimated by brown tide years ago).

If, for example, you look at the bay scallops collected on long island
in the 1970s or earlier they look pretty distinct from what you see
know in shape and color patterns.

The farmed bay scallops are noticeably thinner shelled, and they
blister very noticeably as they get larger. Whether this can backfire
and have any negative  impact to locally surviving "wild" scallops is
certainly possible.  I imagine some marine biologists might have been
studying this? but I don't really know.

On 6/22/14, John Wolff <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Not entirely off topic.
>
> John
> Lancaster, PA
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/22/opinion/sunday/why-are-we-importing-our-own-fish.html?hp&rref=opinion
>
>
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