Saving Seafood

State and Local

ALASKA: Increase in observer fees has people in the fishing industry questioning how their dollars are being spent

November 11, 2019 — In Kodiak’s Dog Bay harbor Jake Everich is puttering around the galley of his trawler, the Alaskan. He bought his boat in March to fish for rockfish and pollock around the Gulf of Alaska. It’s just under 75 feet — a relatively small operation.

Everich is among the fishermen affected by a recent decision from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to increase observer fees from 1.25 to 1.65 percent of their catch value. When he sits down at the little galley table with his cup of coffee, he doesn’t seem worried the fee hike will put him under.

“I would say for my own business, no, it’s not that tight that,” he said. “You know, 0.4 percent isn’t gonna put me into bankruptcy.”

He’s clear that he doesn’t speak for all vessel owners when he says that. In an average season Everich’s gross is about half a million dollars, so the bump to observer fees means an extra $20,000 out of his profit margin.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Second Maine lobstering group rejects state’s plan for protecting whales

November 11, 2019 — The state’s biggest lobster trade group will not support Maine’s right whale protection plan, saying it asks the state’s most valuable fishery to make concessions that exceed the risk it poses to the endangered species.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association staked out its position on the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ proposal with a board vote Thursday night. Director Patrice McCarron would not disclose the vote breakdown, calling that a private matter. The group did, however, release a statement about why it couldn’t support the plan.

“It seeks reductions that exceed the documented risk posed by the Maine lobster fishery,” the statement said of the state plan. “The MLA conducted a thorough analysis of fishing gear removed from entangled right whales which revealed that lobster is the least prevalent gear.”

The MLA has decided to come up with its own whale protection plan based on right-sized risks posed by the industry that it will submit to the National Marine Fisheries Service. The federal agency is drafting a new regulation, which is due out early next year, to protect right whales from fishing entanglements.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

CALIFORNIA: Dungeness crab fishing season delayed due to whale and sea turtle entanglement risk

November 11, 2019 — State Fish and Wildlife officials are delaying the start of the Dungeness crab fishing season due to a threat of whale and sea turtle entanglements.

Charlton Bonham, director of the Fish and Wildlife department, issued a decision to postpone the start date for California Dungeness crab fishermen south of the Mendocino/Sonoma County line for one week — from Nov. 15 to Nov. 22. The decision was based on data indicating the prevalence of whales in the area.

Bonham’s decision to minimize entanglement risk follows a court-approved agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity, a Phoenix-based environmental nonprofit that in 2017 sued the wildlife agency, claiming it had fallen short in preventing Dungeness crab fishing gear from killing humpback, blue whales and leatherback sea turtles. Fish and Wildlife is responsible for granting the fishery its permits.

Bonham originally delayed the start of the season until Nov. 23, but moved it up one day after receiving input from the California Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group. The group, made up of commercial and recreational fishermen, environmentalists, members of the disentanglement network, and state and federal agencies explores ways to minimize whale entanglements in crab fishing gear.

Read the full story at The Orange County Register

Maine Lobstermen’s Association won’t support new right whale rules

November 11, 2019 — After a week of hearings on a proposal to implement new rules to protect endangered right whales, a leading group has decided not support the plan.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources held three hearings on the plan, including one in South Portland Wednesday, to take public comments, most coming from lobstermen against the proposal.

On Thursday, the Maine Lobstermen’s Association voted “not to support” the plan “because it seeks reductions that exceed the documented risk posed by the Maine lobster fishery,” the association said in a statement posted on its website.

The plan calls for a reduction of the vertical lobster trap lines in the Gulf of Maine. Maine fishery officials say they would remove 25 percent of the lines, not including an exemption for lobstermen who fish inshore waters.

Read the full story at WPFO

MAINE: Goodbye herring, hello squid: Fishermen’s catch likely to change in warming Gulf of Maine

November 8, 2019 — In a warmer future, Maine fishermen will probably be catching squid or mackerel, not cod or herring.

They will probably have to travel farther and fine-tune their gear to catch the cold-water species that remain in the Gulf of Maine, like lobster and sea scallops, and be ready to fish the new species that will be calling a warmer Gulf of Maine home by then, like black sea bass.

“We face some challenges moving forward that will require adaptation to maintain our vibrant fisheries,” Katherine Mills, a research scientist at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, said in an address Thursday, the fourth day of the five-day Gulf of Maine 2050 Symposium in Portland.

Mills gave the audience a peek at work that GMRI scientists and economists are doing to explore how New England fishing communities will be affected by rising sea temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, which is warming three to four times faster than the rest of the world’s oceans. The Gulf is expected to warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2055.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

CALIFORNIA: Dungeness fleet thankful for Nov. 22 start

November 8, 2019 — For the last several years California’s Dungeness fleet has been trapped between domoic acid delays, slow meat fill, and accusations of whale entanglements that shortened their season on one end or the other (or both, as was the case last year).

Negotiations last week had the start set for Saturday, Nov. 23. That would mean the fleet could drop pots on the 22nd. But it would also put a serious crunch on the Thanksgiving market, which is the most lucrative time of year for the fleet.

Fleet representatives voiced those concerns to Charlton Bonham, director of California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, and won a one-day reprieve to drop pots on the 21st and start the season officially on Nov. 22 for Bodega Bay and points south.

“Losing a week means losing millions of dollars at a key time for the market,” said Noah Oppenheim, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “But the risks baked into the operation of this season under the settlement, not to mention the political risks and the attention focused on this decision, mean the Working Group and fishery managers had to thread a needle. I think we succeeded this time.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Maine Scallop Lottery To Let New People In Lucrative Fishery

November 8, 2019 — Maine fishing regulators are collecting the final entrants into a lottery to participate in one of the most lucrative marine industries in the state.

The state uses a lottery system to give out new licenses for the scallop fishery. Friday’s the final day for fishermen to enter the lotteries.

Maine scallops were worth more than $10.50 per pound at the docks last year. The scallops often sell for more than $20 per pound in grocery stores.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Maine Public

MAINE: Lobstermen weigh-in on new restrictions to protect right whales

November 7, 2019 — Lobstermen had the chance to weigh-in Wednesday night on potential new restrictions, designed to protect right whales.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources held the meeting in South Portland, to get feedback on the current plan, based on data from a federal team.

That plan calls for a reduction of the vertical lobster trap lines in the Gulf of Maine.

Maine fishery officials say they would remove 25 percent of the lines, not including an exemption for lobstermen who fish inshore waters.

The department says they working to find a balance, meanwhile lobstermen say they have done nothing wrong.

Read the full story at WGME

Maine lobster industry, officials push back against federal right whale protection plans

November 7, 2019 — The U.S. state of Maine’s lobster industry, in addition to some state officials, are pushing back against proposals requiring fewer vertical lines in the industry in order to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

At a meeting on 6 November, Maine’s Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher called the state’s counter-proposal – using weaker rope and more traps per line in deep waters – the “line in the sand,” according to the Portland Press Herald. The state has been fighting back against the federal government’s proposal to reduce lines by 50 percent, a proposal that the state’s governor, Janet Mills, called “foolish.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Maine says data will prove lobstermen aren’t to blame in right whale deaths

November 6, 2019 — Calling a state proposal to reduce the amount of rope lobstermen use “a line in the sand,” Maine’s top fisheries official said Monday that he hoped the state plan generates data that absolves Maine’s lobster fishery from blame in right whale deaths.

Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, told a group of fishermen Monday in Ellsworth that the state’s proposal for reducing the risk to whales of getting tangled in lobster fishing gear does not meet federal regulators’ goal of cutting the number of vertical buoy lines in the water by half. But he said the state’s plan focuses its fishing line reductions in deeper waters offshore, where whales are more likely to come into contact with fishing gear.

“The further offshore you go, the higher the [risk] goes up,” Keliher told roughly 100 people, most of them lobstermen, at The Grand Auditorium. “The way I look at it, this is Maine’s line in the sand.”

Monday’s meeting was the first of three the state is holding about its response to expected new federal regulations that would require lobstermen to use less fishing line and weaker rope from which entangled whales could more easily break free.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News