Saving Seafood

How New England entrepreneurs are creating skincare from lobsters

April 28, 2024 —  Re-envisioning the fishing industry to make it more sustainable and environmentally friendly. It’s a movement that started in Iceland. And now, it has inspired a similar collaboration here in New England.

The New England Ocean Cluster in Portland, Maine is trying to harness the wonders of the ocean and power the blue economy.

It was spawned by Patrick and Janeen Arnold after a visit to Iceland.

“We found at the Iceland Ocean Cluster something new, something novel,” says Arnold. “An energy where people were sharing principles and values in business.”

The Ocean Cluster brings people with common goals together to spark innovation.

Read the full article at CBS News

MAINE: Maine fishers brought in USD 611 million in 2023

March 30, 2024 — Commercial fishers in the U.S. state of Maine earned USD 611 million (EUR 564 million) at the dock in 2023, a 4 percent year-over-year increase, according to preliminary data from the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR).

“The Maine seafood industry continues to be a powerful economic engine for our state,” Maine Governor Janet Mills said in a statement. “The dedication to sustainability and premium quality by our fishermen, aquaculturists, and dealers is a source of tremendous pride for everyone who calls Maine home.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MAINE: Lobster alliance donates $10,000 to Working Waterfront Support Fund

March 30, 2024 — The Maine Lobster Community Alliance, a non-profit organization based in Kennebunk whose mission is to foster thriving coastal communities and preserve Maine’s lobstering heritage, has announced in a press release that it is donating $10,000 to the Working Waterfront Support Fund.

The fund was established following January’s devastating storms and historic flooding that caused widespread destruction and millions of dollars of damage in communities up and down the Maine coast. According to MLCA’s website, the fund “will be utilized to provide resources and support to fishing businesses and working waterfronts that suffered damages due to the storms.”

Read the full article at Penobscot Bay Pilot

MAINE: Maine lobstermen struggle to adapt to new electronic reporting rules. Their licenses are on the line.

March 25, 2024 — Alice Mayberry and Sue Kelley spend most of their days talking to lobstermen about what they’ve hauled in. Mayberry is riffling through paper logs. Kelley is texting until 9 p.m.

Then, they both log onto the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ database and plug in what the lobstermen did for the day.

Over the last several years, state and federal regulators started requiring more fishermen to report what they caught, and where. A few years ago, only a portion of harvesters needed to submit that information, and it could be sent in on a piece of paper.

Now, all fishermen who harvest 15 species of fish – pogies, scallops, lobster, halibut, mussels, eels and others – have to file their landings, and most must do so electronically.

Fishermen in Maine are gradually learning what they’re supposed to do. For lobstermen, adjusting has been particularly hard.

Regulators used to require a random 10% of lobstermen to report their landings. The weight and value of lobster hauled from local waters were measured and reported primarily by the dealers who first purchased the fish.

Read the full article at centralmaine.com

Luke’s Lobster gears up for an expanded third year of its Lift All Boats program

May 15, 2024 — Saco, Maine, U.S.A.-based restaurant chain Luke’s Lobster has expanded its Lift All Boats program, Luke’s Lobster Chief Innovation Officer Ben Conniff told SeafoodSource at 2024 Seafood Expo North America, which took place 10 to 12 March in Boston, Massachusetts U.S.A.

The program was first launched in the summer of 2022 and was designed to encourage Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) youth involvement in Maine’s lobster industry.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Catch dips as lobster fishers grapple with climate change, whale rules

March 7, 2024 — America’s lobster fishing business dipped in catch while grappling with challenges including a changing ocean environment and new rules designed to protect rare whales.

The lobster industry, based mostly in Maine, has had an unprecedented decade in terms of the volume and value of the lobsters brought to the docks. But members of the industry have also said they face existential threats from proposed rules intended to protect the North Atlantic right whale and climate change that is influencing where lobsters can be trapped.

Fishermen from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and other Northeast states also harvest lobsters with traps from the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean, but about 80% comes to the docks in Maine in a typical years.

Maine fishermen’s catch in 2023 fell more than 5% from the year that preceded it, and the total of 93.7 million pounds of lobsters caught was the lowest figure since 2009, according to data released Friday by the Maine Department of Marine

Read the full article at The Daily News

MAINE: Maine Lobstermen’s Association tallies its victories, future risks at annual meeting

March 6, 2024 — “Every year, there is a new issue facing the industry,” Tristan Porter, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA), said as the trade organization opened its 70th annual meeting during the Maine Fishermen’s Forum on March 1.

For lobstermen and the commercial lobster fishery, there are three big issues facing the industry: protecting North Atlantic right whales, maintaining a sustainable fishery and the federal leasing in the Gulf of Maine for floating offshore wind energy — plus the myriad of federal and state regulations and public hearings and, at times, lawsuits, that go with them.

Lobstermen had been facing implementing measures to achieve a 90 percent risk reduction to right whales that would have curtailed fishing in 2023, but this was put on pause until 2028 through a federal omnibus spending bill in December 2022.

“You’re fishing now because of the Consolidated Appropriations Act,” Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources (DMR), told the hundreds of fishermen in attendance.

Then, in June 2023, a federal court ruled in favor of the MLA, which had sued the National Marine Fisheries Service, or NOAA Fisheries, regarding the data used to determine the risk of vertical fishing lines to right whales. That risk calculation would further restrict the lobster fishery — possibly out of existence.

“We did not have the money to do this, but the industry stepped up,” said Patrice McCarron, the MLA’s policy director.

Read the full article at Mount Dessert Islander

MAINE: Maine Lobster Harvest Down 5% Amid Warming Ocean, Right Whale Regulations

March 4, 2024 — Last year’s lobster catch in Maine fell more than 5% for a total yield of 93.8 million pounds, new data from the Maine Department of Marine Resource showed Friday, as climate change and regulations put in place to protect a rare whale species continue to impact the fragile industry.

Fishermen in Maine, who are responsible for catching more than 90% of the nation’s lobsters per year, caught 93.8 million pounds of the crustacean in 2023 (the lowest level since 2009) and were paid $4.95 per pound, up significantly from the $3.97 per pound paid to fishermen last year.

The sharp rise in price paid harvesters a total of $464.4 million, almost $72 million more than in 2023 despite the lower catch, indicative of a widely fluctuating value that involved prices spiking to $6.70 per pound in 2021 before falling to less than $4 in 2022.

The lobster industry in the state has been in flux for a decade as lobster populations move north toward Canada and away from the United States in search of cooler waters—the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99% of the world’s ocean surface, according to the University of New England.

New England’s fishermen have also been increasingly impacted by regulations put in place to protect right whales—one of the most endangered species of all large whales—that impact when and for how long fishermen can be on the water.

The decline in catch continues to build on a trend in the Maine lobster industry since harvesters caught a record high 132.6 million pounds in 2016, and 2023 marked the second year in a row the total catch has declined.

Read the full article at Forbes

 

MAINE: Value of Maine lobster fishery rebounds in 2023 despite smallest catch in 15 years

March 4, 2024 — Maine lobstermen raked in $464 million at the docks last year, rebounding from the worst year the fishery had seen in a decade, according to the annual report released Friday by the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

The increase in the value of Maine’s famed fishery comes even as lobstermen reported the smallest catch in 15 years, at 94 million pounds. The jump in value was partly due to the second-highest boat price on record, $4.95 per pound.

The dwindling number of landings isn’t necessarily a surprise, though. State officials and members of the lobstering community say the decrease reflects the impacts of high costs of operating the fishery last year. And the dip in poundage indicates how lobstermen navigated the challenging obstacles.

“Fishermen are now very strategic about how they fish. Expenses are through the roof, so you can’t afford to be out if you’re not making money,” said Patrice McCarron, a lobsterman and policy director with the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “That causes the number of trips to go down and is going impact the amount of lobster that we all brought in.”

Read the full article at the Press Herald

Lobster catch dips to lowest level since 2009 as fishers grapple with climate change, whale rules

March 4, 2024 — America’s lobster fishing business dipped in catch while grappling with challenges including a changing ocean environment and new rules designed to protect rare whales.

The lobster industry, based mostly in Maine, has had an unprecedented decade in terms of the volume and value of the lobsters brought to the docks. But members of the industry have also said they face existential threats from proposed rules intended to protect the North Atlantic right whale and climate change that is influencing where lobsters can be trapped.

Maine fishermen’s catch in 2023 fell more than 5% from the year that preceded it, and the total of 93.7 million pounds of lobsters caught was the lowest figure since 2009, according to data released Friday by the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The figure tracks with the up-and-down year lobster fishermen experienced, said Dave Cousens a fishermen based out of Criehaven island and a former president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

Read the full article at the Associated Press