Saving Seafood

US lobster fishery faces delay in gauge-size increase; Canadian harvesters call for government to do more to combat illegal fishing

August 13, 2024 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) Lobster Board has initiated the process to delay a gauge size increase for the U.S. lobster fishery until 1 July 2025.

The ASMFC first delayed an increase in the lobster gauge size in October 2023, after lobster trawl surveys indicated a decline in the population of sub-legal lobsters. The gauge size increase was first initiated in 2017 as a proactive measure to improve the resiliency of the lobster stock in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, but that process was paused to focus on issues related to entanglement of  North Atlantic right whales.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

US capable of achieving seafood independence, study shows

August 13, 2024 — From lobster to haddock and seaweed, seafood plays an important role in the U.S. economy, diet and culture. The nation is one of the top producers of marine and aquatic foods worldwide, but also the second largest seafood importer.

Through extensive data analysis and calculations, University of Maine researchers found the U.S. could achieve  independence, or meet its entire seafood needs through its own production. But according to their new study in the journal Ocean Sustainability, “achieving greater seafood independence would require shifts in , investments in infrastructure and continual adaptation in the face of climate change.”

Becoming seafood independent offers opportunities for the U.S. to improve dietary outcomes as well as individual and national food security, particularly against disruptions in , according to the research team. Despite its capacity to rely solely on the seafood it produces, the nation exports the majority of it and imports 80–90% of the seafood Americans consume.

Read the full article at PHYS.org

U.S. and Canada held talks on lobster gauge increase

August 12, 2024 — This article was first published in Landings, the Maine Lobster Community Alliance (MLCA)  newspaper, in August 2024.

U.S. and Canadian lobster fishery representatives met in Saint John, New Brunswick in late June to discuss the implications of the U.S. gauge increase for Lobster Management Area 1 (LMA 1) scheduled to take effect in January 2025. The meeting was in response to the concerns raised by Maine’s lobster industry at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) American Lobster Board meeting in May.

Background

ASMFC adopted Addendum 27 in May 2023 as a proactive measure which would automatically trigger a gauge increase for LMA 1 if the abundance of young lobster showed a 35% decline. The addendum was developed over five years. It was initiated in 2017 but delayed twice – in 2018 and in 2022 – because the lobster industry was deeply embroiled in management and litigation concerning right whale conservation requirements. Following the Maine Lobstermen’s Association’s (MLA) historic court victory and Congressional action to delay new whale rules for six years, the ASMFC held public hearings in March 2023 and adopted Addendum 27 in May.

Addendum 27 garnered little attention until last fall when, to everyone’s surprise, scientists determined that the abundance of young lobsters had dropped 39% from the historic high, thus triggering the management action just three months after the addendum was adopted. Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner Patrick Keliher urged ASFMC to delay implementation of the gauge increase from June 2024 to January 2025.“I don’t think when we were sitting here in May that we expected to be hitting the trigger as quickly as we did,” he said. He argued that more time was needed to continue discussions with Canada on the implications of having differing gauge sizes between the two countries. The ASMFC moved the date to January 2025.

At the Lobster Institute’s U.S.-Canada Town Meeting in January 2024 in Moncton, New Brunswick, the gauge increase was discussed by an international audience; many in Canada’s lobster industry were surprised to learn about the U.S. gauge increase. They were concerned that a U.S.-only gauge increase would disrupt lobster supply and markets due to the interdependence of the U.S. and Canadian lobster industries.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

New regulations on lobstering delayed amid pushback from Seacoast lobstermen

August 9, 2024 — New federal regulations on the lobstering industry are being delayed after months of pushback from local lobstermen.

The rules would increase the minimum acceptable size for lobsters that can be caught and require bigger escape vents to be added to traps.

Regulators with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission told News9 the goal of the new rules, laid out in policy called Addendum 27, are aimed at protecting the population of younger lobsters and allowing them to grow to a size where they can reproduce and be suitable for harvesting.

“We’re looking at those lobsters that are kind of forecasting that would be available to the fisheries next year,” said Caitlin Starks, Senior Fishery Management Plan Coordinator. Plan Coordinator.

The commission voted this week to delay the start of new rules from January to July.

Starks said the number of those younger lobsters have declined in research counts in recent years, triggering the new regulations.

However, local lobstermen have cast doubt on those studies and railed against the rules laid out in Addendum 27.

Read the full article at WMUR

Lobster gauge increase delayed a second time

August 7, 2024 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) just voted to delay the planned gauge change to increase the minimum allowable catch size in Lobster Management Area 1 until July 1, 2025. The Commission also approved Addendum 30, which clarifies that lobsters imported from Canada under the U.S. minimum size would be banned.

The proposed gauge increase, known as Addendum 27, was a response to a 35 percent decline in juvenile lobsters. This proactive measure, initiated in 2017, was aimed at enhancing the resilience of lobster stock and was initially set to be implemented on June 1, 2024. However, following feedback from the Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioners and others, a compromise was reached, resulting in a seven-month delay and a new implementation date of Jan. 1, 2025.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

The story of how the lobster roll became New England’s most iconic food

July 26, 2024 — Few foods evoke summer in New England like the lobster roll. The sandwiches are as iconic as lighthouses and the dropped r’s of the northeastern U.S. region’s unique Yankee dialects. Once a lowly work lunch for fishermen, the lobster roll is in such demand today that Hannaford supermarkets has announced a $10 version of the coastal classic, available across stores until Labor Day.

“As New England tourism has grown, the rise of the lobster roll has gone along with it,” says Evan Hennessey, chef-owner of Stages at One Washington and the Living Room in Dover, New Hampshire. “It’s this incredible, flavorful, quintessential right-from-the-ocean New England food that—and here’s the key part—you can walk around and eat.”

History of the lobster roll

Lobster didn’t always have such cachet. The crustaceans were once so abundant that they could easily be caught in shallow waters. “For a long time, [lobsters] were just local food—stuff you ate if you lived on the coast,” says Boston University food historian Megan Elias.

Branden Lewis, chef and sustainability professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, says that English and Portuguese sailors, shipwrights, and fishermen created the earliest iteration of the lobster roll by tucking the discarded trimmings of tail and claw meat between pieces of bread.

Lobster recipes didn’t gain cultural capital until the country’s nascent elite began vacationing along the East Coast, especially in states like Rhode Island, where they built summer “cottages.” The rolls were a mainstay until the early 1960s, when the country found itself besotted by the “proper” cooking techniques of Julia Child.

New England’s iconic sandwich came back into fashion in the 1990s, with the renewed interest in American regional foods. “By then, lobster is even more expensive,” Elias says. “There are even fewer of them. So it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s regional and it’s also hard to get, so it must be cool.’”

Read the full article at National Geographic

CONNECTICUT: Connecticut lobster industry forces fishermen into new career

July 3, 2024 — The New England lobster industry has played a vital role in generations of fishermen’s lives. Kids as young as six years old are following in their parent’s footsteps, hauling traps to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

Many lobstermen thought they would be on the water until the day they die, but in Connecticut, that isn’t the case.

Poor climate conditions have caused an almost total decline in the lobster population across the Long Island Sound over two decades, ending lobstering careers.

DJ King is a former lobsterman from Branford. His livelihood is still on the water, but not reliant on lobsters.

He says his love for trapping came early.

“I started with ten wooden traps, I was in a small boat, I would go out with my father, we pulled them by hand and caught a few every day,” King said.

What started as just a hobby quickly turned into a lifestyle.

“We did very well with lobsters back then, it was very lucrative, King said. “We would get around 600 or 800 a day usually. like 60-70 per 10 trawl, the guys couldn’t band them fast enough.”

But one day, after years of the good life, the traps came up empty.

“It never rebounded from that ‘99 year when we were catching hundreds daily,” King said. “Then all the sudden the pots were empty, or the lobsters were coming up dead. Even if they were alive, they wouldn’t make it back to the docks.”

Read the full article at FOX 61

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobstermen and Scientists See a Fishery in Flux

May 30, 2024 — This year, May 15 marked the beginning of the lobster fishing season on the Outer Cape. The fishery is not an insignificant one here. There are 42 fishermen on the Outer Cape who collectively land about 830,000 pounds of lobster every year, according to data on the Mass. Lobstermen’s Association website. This represents about 5 percent of the Massachusetts fishery.

While overall the fishery seems stable, some lobstermen are seeing changes that have them worried about its future. Scientists are looking into what role the changing climate may be playing in those changes, but they don’t have definitive answers.

“It’s horrible,” said Mike Rego, a lobsterman and owner of the F/V Miss Lilly who operates out of Provincetown. “Last year was the worst year I ever had.”

Dana Pazolt, another Provincetown lobsterman who owns the F/V Black Sheep, said that the last four years have been slim for lobsters around the Outer Cape. “You’ve got to hunt for them,” he said. “I can’t tell you why that is.”

The surface waters of the Gulf of Maine are warming at a rate of about one degree per decade, faster than 99 percent of the world’s oceans, according to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

Meanwhile, in other areas, warming has already had an effect — it played a major role in causing the collapse of the lobster fishery in Long Island Sound in 1999.

Lobsters do appear to be shifting their range north. From 1985 to 2016, Maine experienced a 650-percent increase in its lobster population, according to data from the Maine Dept. of Marine Resources. This may be due in part to the decline in Atlantic cod, a lobster predator, but it is also likely due to warming temperatures making lobster conditions more favorable farther north.

Read the full article at The Provincetown Independent 

MAINE: Maine’s wharf owners scramble to repair what they can before lobstering season starts

May 1, 2024 — Chris Hole was busy at work on a sunny Friday morning, taking apart his commercial fishing wharf like a game of Jenga.

After pulling up the surface wooden slats, Hole used a fork lift to lower large wooden beams down to the deck. Josh Saxton, Hole’s right-hand man, would then slip between the large gaps in the deck to put the support beams in place.

Hole owns Henry Allen’s Seafood, a wholesaler and retailer with a commercial wharf that was battered by the series of storms in January that swept away many working waterfronts along Maine’s coast. The storms flooded Henry Allen’s historic buildings and wiped out the dock’s seawall. At a quick glance from above, Henry Allen’s wharf doesn’t look all that bad. But most of the repair work is invisible, the pummeled structure hidden beneath the surface of the deck.

Hole is of course familiar with storms.

Read the full article at the Press Herald