Lifting of Complete Shellfish Harvesting Ban on South Coast

The shellfish harvesting ban that had been in place for 152 days along the South Coast, including the coastal areas of Gamcheon-dong in Saha-gu, Busan, as well as Geoje, Tongyeong, Goseong, Namhae in South Gyeongsang Province, and Yeosu in South Jeolla Province, has been completely lifted. The National Institute of Fisheries Science announced on the 16th that it has completely lifted the shellfish harvesting ban due to paralytic shellfish toxins along the South Coast. Shellfish toxins are toxins that accumulate in the body when shellfish (bivalves) or tunicates (sea squirts, sea pineapples, etc.) consume toxic plankton, and while paralytic shellfish toxins primarily occur in South Korea, the timing and maritime regions of occurrence vary somewhat each year. The institute had initially prohibited shellfish harvesting on January 13th in some coastal areas of Gamcheon-dong, Saha-gu, Busan, after natural mussels were found to exceed the permissible limit (0.8mg/kg) of paralytic ...