Saving Seafood

MASSACHUSETTS: Massachusetts gets more than $4 million for new lobster fishing gear to protect right whales, other measures

December 31, 2023 — The feds are shellin’ out millions of dollars to the Bay State for new lobster fishing gear in the hopes of protecting North Atlantic right whales.

The Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game’s Division of Marine Fisheries on Friday announced that it will receive more than $4.6 million from a congressional appropriation to boost DMF’s conservation program for the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

DMF will use part of this funding from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to provide new lobster fishing gear that’s designed to protect right whales.

Massachusetts near-shore waters host up to 80% of the total population of North Atlantic right whales in late winter and early spring — as the whales migrate north and feed in the nutrient-rich waters of Cape Cod Bay and Massachusetts Bay. The two greatest threats for the endangered species are entanglements in fishing gear and vessel strikes, according to advocates.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald

Maine lobstermen say electronic trackers required by federal regulators violate privacy

December 28, 2023 — Some Maine lobstermen say that new electronic monitoring requirements are violating their constitutional right to privacy.

As of Dec. 15, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission requires that lobstermen with federal permits install a monitor tracking their boat’s location each minute that it’s moving.

But the Sustainable Maine Fishing Foundation — a nonprofit arm of the Maine Lobstering Union — is now asking the state to delay the requirements until the next fishing season. The foundation outlined its concerns in a letter sent to the Maine Department of Marine Resources earlier this month.

Read the full article at nhpr

Experts warn future of Maine lobstering marked by increased risks, increased corporatization

December 19, 2023 — Most experts agree, the decline of Maine’s lobster industry is inevitable. It’s not a matter of if, they say, but when.

Exactly what that decline might look like, however – how quickly it will arrive, how severe the drop off will be, or how it might alter the makeup of Maine’s fleet of fishing vessels – remains, if not a point of contention, an unnerving uncertainty.

Researchers at a variety of Maine institutions are working hard to provide some clarity, but while scientists have more information about the life cycle, movements and distribution of Maine’s lobster population, very little is known about how changes to the lobster fishing industry are impacting Maine’s lobstermen.

“My takeaway from the last two years of doing this work is there remains a huge amount of uncertainty about what’s happening,” said Joshua Stoll, an assistant professor in the School of Marine Sciences at the University of Maine.

Stoll is one of a growing number of researchers who think the key to anticipating the trajectory of the lobster fishery might lie not exclusively in the biological data, but also in a variety of shifting socioeconomic indicators, like changes in the sizes of boats being bought and built or slight adjustments in the risk calculations of lobster fishermen.

Read the full article at the Rhode Island Current

Maine gets $5M to support testing of alternative lobster fishing gear to reduce whale entanglement

November 28, 2023 — Maine has received more than $5 million from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to expand the testing of alternative lobster fishing gear.

State officials see the work as a way to get more Maine feedback into the hands of federal regulators, who are looking for ways to further reduce the risk of entanglement and injury to critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources said the funds will support the research and testing of two kinds of emerging technology — gear that retrieves lobster traps from the ocean floor without the use of vertical lines and acoustic geolocation devices that identify traps without surface buoys.

The federal government may eventually require the use of this gear as it drafts new right whale management regulations over the next five years.

Much of the $5 million will directly cover a training and outreach program with a variety of coastal organizations, which include the Maine Sea Grant, the Island Institute Institute and the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, among others.

Read the full article at wbur

New England lobstermen threaten to sue feds over planned Massachusetts fishing closure

November 10, 2023 — New England lobstermen are threatening to sue a federal agency planning to make fishing on Massachusetts waters even more challenging from February until May, when they already face restrictions on where they are allowed to tend to their livelihood.

NOAA Fisheries is looking to permanently add a wedge between state and federal waters to an existing closure that stretches roughly 9,000 square miles off the Massachusetts coast, a measure feds have put in place to preserve the North Atlantic right whale.

An emergency rule prohibited trap and pot fishery buoy lines on the wedge during the past two years, but the feds are looking to make the zone permanent and have the backing of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.

The proposed permanent expansion to the Massachusetts Restricted Area has caught lobstermen by surprise.

Dustin Delano, chief operating officer of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, took exception to the “recklessness” of the proposal after an amendment was included in this year’s $1.7 trillion federal spending bill that looked to delay protections for the North Atlantic right whale by six years.

Read the full article at Boston Herald

New England lobstermen say they’ll likely sue if NOAA expands fishing restrictions

November 8, 2023 — The New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) has promised it will challenge NOAA in court if the administration finalizes an expansion to the Massachusetts Restricted Area (MRA) – a region of the ocean off the coast of the Northeast U.S. that prohibits lobster fishing.

NOAA is proposing modifications to the MRA that will add the temporary “wedge” closure area to the permanent closures, which last from 1 February to 30 April. The “wedge” is an area of approximately 200 square miles in between two of the existing closures that remain open to fishing.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Weakening Gulf Stream could cause decline in Maine’s lobster fishery

November 7, 2023 — Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution confirmed with 99 percent certainty that the Gulf Stream is weakening, and with it the future of seafood species like lobster off the U.S. East Coast is uncertain.

The Gulf Stream transports warm water north from Florida along the East Coast of the U.S., influencing everything from water temperature to weather in Europe. According to a recent study, the Gulf Stream has slowed by 4 percent over the past four decades, and there is 99 percent certainty that the weakening is from more than just random chance.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

A ‘whole way of life’ at risk as warming waters change Maine’s lobster fishing

October 30, 2023 — Lobsterwoman Krista Tripp doesn’t need a scientist to tell her the normally cold waters off the coast of Maine are warming. The submersible thermometer she takes on every fishing trip proves that.

But it’s not just the warmer water that’s changing fishing here on the rocky coast of northern New England. Heavy rains are lowering the ocean’s salinity. And warm-water fish that don’t belong keep showing up.

“You can tell the water’s changing, and we’re getting new species,” says Tripp, 38. “People are posting fish they catch on Facebook and asking ‘What’s this?’ And they’re tropical fish.'”

Tripp started lobstering at her grandfather’s knee, where she learned to bait traps. She still tries to fish some of his old favorite spots near to shore, but increasingly she’s plumbing the waters right at the edge of where her permit allows, three miles offshore.

Her grandfather trapped lobster his whole life, and now Tripp, like her father before her, carries on that legacy. For generations, lobstering has helped define this slice of northern New England, where the cold Atlantic waters have been home to the species that helped build a young United States: cod, whales, lobster.

But what Tripp sees from the Shearwater’s wheelhouse is just one part of a larger problem facing the United States, as climate change warms the world’s oceans and transforms the creatures that live in them. As the oceans get hotter, sea life adapts, and many species that used to be easily fished close to land are fleeing to colder, deeper waters.

Read the full article at USA Today

MAINE: Lobster dealers hope for a fall surge

October 26, 2023 — Steamed, boiled, broiled or baked under hot coals and sand or shipped to restaurants and processors hundreds or thousands of miles away, lobster remains a major driver of Maine’s economy, contributing more than $1 billion each year.

And lobstermen’s earnings accounted for more than a third of that amount last year — $388 million, according to preliminary data from the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) — bolstering local communities up and down the coast.

This year, boat prices are high but the catch is down, dealers say. Supply is meeting demand but the demand is lower than last year. While at least one local seafood retailer had a great summer, wholesale dealers’ reports are unenthusiastic. Both lobstermen and dealers are keeping fingers crossed for a big fall surge in catch.

With the state’s commercial fishery granted a six-year reprieve in December from new federal regulations that many industry voices said would decimate the fishery, the 2023 season has focused on traditional concerns, such as supply, demand, prices and bait.

“The price is up but the catch is down, and we’ve had horrible weather,” said Susan Soper, general manager of Winter Harbor Lobster Co-op. “Our retail sales were almost 60 percent down.”

Read the full article at the Ellsworth American