Saving Seafood

New England lobstermen win favorable ruling from appellate court

June 20, 2023 — New England lobstermen have won a favorable ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which reversed a lower court decision and has granted relief.

In a decision Friday afternoon, Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg – the senior justice – wrote that the court was reversing a summary judgment of the District Court for the National Marine Fisheries Service and awarding a summary judgment to the Maine Lobstermen’s Association and the State of Maine Department of Marine Resources.

In the decision, the court ruled that the “federal government went too far” in its regulatory process “when they sought to impose significant restrictions on New England’s lobster industry, according to a release.

Read the full article at the The Center Square

Appeals court grants Maine lobster industry an “overwhelming victory” in right whale rules fight

June 16, 2023 –A U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled in favor of Maine lobstermen in ordering the National Marine Fisheries Service to vacate a 2021 biological opinion regarding North Atlantic right whales that led to more stringent rules being implemented for lobster fishing.

The unanimous 3-0 ruling, filed with a majority opinion written by U.S. Senior Circuit Judge Douglas Ginsburg, found the service went too far in its analysis of the lobster and Jonah crab industries’ potential harm to the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MAINE: Mills, delegation urge feds to remove lobster fishing grounds from offshore wind consideration

June 15, 2023 — Maine’s congressional delegation and Gov. Janet Mills are urging federal officials to remove an area of prime lobster fishing ground from consideration as a site for potential offshore wind development.

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is soliciting feedback on some 9.8 million acres to site potential commercial projects in the Gulf of Maine.

In a letter to federal officials, Mills and the delegation said the fishing territory in question — known as Lobster Management Area 1 that encompasses much of the Maine and Massachusetts coastlines — should be taken off the table.

Read the full article at Maine Public

MAINE: Maine bill to pay lobstermen to test new gear gets initial Senate approval

June 8, 2023 — A bill to help Maine lobstermen test new gear in preparation for potential federal restrictions meant to protect endangered right whales gained unanimous bipartisan approval in the Senate.

The bill seeks to set aside $1 million a year for the next two years to help lobstermen comply with federal regulations that could kick-in within six years.

The industry has faced intense pressure in recent years as federal officials have instituted restrictions to try to save the whales, which are believed to number fewer than 340.

Following the Senate vote on Tuesday, bill sponsor Sen. Eloise Vitelli (D-Arrowsic) said federal regulators have “targeted Maine’s lobster industry as a scapegoat.”

Read the full article at Spectrum News

North American lobster industry confronts ‘ropeless’ traps after whale entanglements

June 7, 2023 — An emerging technology to fish for lobsters virtually ropeless to prevent whale entanglements is exciting conservationists, but getting a frigid reception from harvesters worried it will drive them out of business and upend their way of life.

Injuries to endangered North Atlantic Right Whales ensnared in fishing gear have fueled a prominent campaign by environmental groups to pressure the industry to adopt on-demand equipment that only suspends ropes in the water briefly before traps are pulled from the water.

Since the start of the year, four North Atlantic Right Whales have been injured after getting entangled in fishing rope, according to government data, including one filmed in North Carolina trailing a pair of lobster traps that U.S. authorities believe came from the Canadian province of Nova Scotia hundreds of miles away.

Such entanglements have killed at least nine North Atlantic Right Whales since 2017, making it the second biggest cause of death behind strikes from boats and ships, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

That is a large number, given there are fewer than 350 North Atlantic Right Whales remaining, including just 70 breeding females, say regulators, researchers and conservationists. North Atlantic Right Whales who live off the eastern North American coast stretching from Florida to the Canadian Maritimes provinces are now on the verge of extinction

Read the full article at Reuters

MAINE: Rare orange lobster caught off coast of Maine

June 5, 2023 — A rare orange lobster was caught recently off the coast of Maine by a Scarborough fisherman.

The lobster, which has one claw, was caught in Casco Bay by Capt. Gregg Turner and his crew, Sage Blake and Mandy Cyr while fishing on the boat Deborah and Megan, according to a statement by Cyr.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen one and the second time Captain Gregg has,” Cyr said. “It’s pretty exciting.”

The orange lobster is not destined for a pot of boiling water. It has been kept at Turners Lobsters on Pine Point Road in Scarborough while awaiting transfer to its new home at the University of New England’s Arthur P. Girard Marine Science Center in Biddeford. Turner and his crew caught a Calico lobster last winter and also donated it to UNE. Students named that lobster “Sprinkles.”

Read the full article at The Press Herald

MAINE: Don’t make this mistake about Maine women who catch lobster

May 30, 2023 — When Ali Farrell was doing press for her book, “Pretty Rugged: True Stories From Women of the Sea,” reporters would often ask her why she used the “wrong” word when referring to women in the lobster industry.

“One hundred percent of the women I talked to called themselves lobstermen, and some people asked me why I used what they said was an inappropriate word,” Farrell said. “I had to explain to them that female lobstermen aren’t lobsterwomen, or lobster fishers. They are lobstermen.”

Across the board, lobstermen is the preferred term for anyone who works on a lobster boat in Maine. It doesn’t matter what age, background, sexual orientation or gender you are: If you’re working on a boat, you’re a lobsterman. Same goes for sternman, if you’re prepping bait and sorting through the day’s catch.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

Commission adopts new lobster rules to avoid overfishing

May 15, 2023 — The American Lobster Management Board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has approved new measures that could be used to provide additional protections to spawning lobsters. Addendum XXVII establishes a trigger mechanism that would automatically put into place annual gauge and escape vent sizes to increase the proportion of the population of lobsters that are “able to reproduce before being harvested, and to enhance stock resiliency by protecting larger lobsters of both sexes,” the board reported in a press release following its vote.

The vote on adoption came at the ASMFC’s 2023 Spring Meeting on May 2 in Arlington, Va.

According to Caitlin Starks, Senior Fishery Management Plan Coordinator at ASMFC, if lobster surveys register a decline in “recruit” stock of 35 percent or more from a reference level (equal to the three-year average from 2016 to 2018), a multi-year series of incremental changes to gauge and vent size will be initiated in the following fishing year.

Currently, the minimum gauge size for a lobster in Maine is 3-1/4 inches. This means that a lobster must be at least 3-1/4 inches from eye socket to edge of the carapace at the tail in order to be kept. Lobsters that are smaller than this size must be thrown back into the ocean.

The first change, coming in the spring following the year in which the trigger is reached, increases the minimum gauge size to 3-5/16 inches, up 1/16th inch. The next year’s (Year 3) change would increase that to 3-3/8, representing another 1/16th inch increase. In Year 4, required escape vents would increase in size as well.

Patrice McCarron, policy director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said her group opposed Addendum XXVII because it would create a size disparity with lobsters caught by Canadian fishermen and exported to the United States.

Read the full article at Penobscot Bay Press

MAINE: Maine lobstermen facing another rule that may affect their catch

May 9, 2023 — An Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission board has enacted new rules that could change the size of lobsters Maine fishermen can legally harvest in the hope that the changes will ultimately preserve the fishery.

The American Lobster Board has passed a policy that will put new size limits in place if data shows a 35% decrease in the local lobster population compared with counts from previous years.

If the fishery reaches that trigger point, the regulations would increase the minimum size of lobsters that lobstermen can keep.

The board has passed the policy in order to “improve the resiliency” of the lobster population in Maine waters by increasing the number of younger, breeding lobster that go unharvested. The policy comes amid data showing that warming waters related to climate change, which were at first a boon to Maine’s lobstering industry, could soon be its downfall.

Read the full article at the PRESS HERALD