November 18, 2022 — Maine lobster industry officials told business leaders Thursday that they will continue to fight what they see as unfair and unnecessary federal rules meant to protect endangered right whales.

“We are well over a $2 billion industry to the state primarily operating in communities without other job prospects,” Patrice McCarron, head of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association said. “It cannot be overstated.”

McCarron’s comments to the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce came just one day after the industry suffered the latest in a series of setbacks.

On Wednesday, the Marine Stewardship Council said it is suspending the Maine lobster fisheries sustainability certificate in mid-December because they don’t think federal laws are strong enough to protect the whales.

That followed an announcement in September that the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch had issued a red rating that directs consumers to avoid eating Maine lobster, also because of concerns about whale protections.

Read the full article at Spectrum News

November 17, 2022 — The line at Red’s Eats, in Wiscasset, snaked around the corner on a warm Saturday afternoon this fall. Many of the customers had queued up even before the iconic stand had opened, and all were eager enough for one of its famous lobster rolls that they were prepared to wait an hour or more. No one confessed to knowing that, just a few weeks before, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, an agenda-setting program for sustainability-minded seafood buyers and chefs, had shocked the industry by placing Gulf of Maine lobster on its “red list” of species to avoid.

Not Dodie Neo, an Ohioan retiree who’d been in line for 45 minutes when I approached her. Knowing about the red-listing, however, wouldn’t have stopped her from ordering. “The aquarium has a right to put lobster on whatever list it wants,” she told me. “And I have a right to eat it.”

Way down the road, at Highroller Lobster Co., in Portland’s Old Port, the crowd skewed younger and hipper, but wait times were just as long and customers just as surprised to hear about lobster getting canceled. After some discussion, most in line seemed to agree with Rick Conlin, visiting from western Massachusetts, that it didn’t much matter. “I vote for the lobstermen,” he said.

If you follow the news of New England, ignorance of the Seafood Watch censure might seem surprising. When the Monterey Bay Aquarium announced in September that it was red-listing American lobster because of the fishery’s impact on critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, national media outlets jumped on the story. In Maine, the red-listing was covered breathlessly, not least because lobstering seemed to be an issue politicians from every party could rally around during a heated midterm election, with opposing candidates standing shoulder-to-shoulder at rallies in defense of lobstermen and Maine’s whole congressional delegation cosponsoring a bill to block federal funding for the aquarium (the “Red Listing Monterey Bay Aquarium Act” would deprive the institution of some $10 to $25 million in federal grants it receives annually).

So how did a California aquarium come to cause such hue and cry in Vacationland?

Monterey Bay founded its Seafood Watch program in 1999, at a time when the then–15-year-old tourist attraction was increasingly branching out into advocacy and conservation policy. What began as a pocket guide to take along to the fish market is today an extensive set of buyers’ guides that rate fisheries and farms using a color-coded system: Green signals a “best choice,” while blue indicates certification for sustainability from a trusted third party. Yellow suggests “okay, but some concerns,” and red means “avoid.”

Read the full article at Down East