Saving Seafood

A dead whale raises a fresh question: Should you eat lobster?

February 16, 2024 — The young whale never had it easy.

Only 1½ years old, the whale struggled to swim nearly from the start. A rope corkscrewed around the base of its fluke in 2022 dug into its skin and made every fin stroke punishing. Researchers knew the whale would eventually die of exhaustion if nothing was done.

When scientists spotted the female whale — dubbed #5120 — in Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts last winter, they wanted to intervene. But bad weather made any attempt at disentangling it impossible.

By this winter, it was too late. Its carcass washed ashore on Martha’s Vineyard last month. That’s when scientists were able to pinpoint where the trouble started.

Purple markings on the rope around the whale indicated it came from Maine waters, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service, also called NOAA Fisheries. It is the first time a North Atlantic right whale, one of the most endangered marine mammals on Earth, was found dead while entangled in rope from the state’s famed trap pot fishery for lobster and crab.

 

MAINE: Lobstermen sought for ventless trap program

February 15, 2024 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources, in cooperation with the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation, seeks four industry participants for the Regional Ventless Trap Program through a competitive bid process. This is an opportunity to participate in a cooperative research project between industry and scientists from Maine through Rhode Island.

Read the full article at Mount Islander

US seafood preference ranking reveals strong regional differences

February 5, 2024 — Catfish, lobster, haddock, pollock, and crab each have regional strongholds in the U.S. But a few species have broken through to national popularity, with shrimp, salmon, and cod leading the charge.

Shrimp was ranked the most popular species of seafood in every region of the U.S. for 2023. Salmon also made an appearance in the top five seafood species in all nine regions of the U.S., as identified by a Circana SupplyTrack survey done over 52 weeks ending June 2023. The data was presented at the Global Seafood Market Conference on 25 January 2024 in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

New round opens for testing pop-up lobster gear

February 3, 2024 — A new series of testing ropeless lobster gear got underway Feb. 1 in waters off Massachusetts and Rhode Island, a cooperative effort with up to 30 commercial lobster crews working with the Northeast Fisheries Science Center.

The fishermen are testing  on-demand (also called ropeless) fishing gear  in state and federal waters that are otherwise closed to lobster and Jonah crab fishing with static vertical lines, seasonal closures aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales from danger of entanglement.

“Participating vessels will fish trap trawls without any surface gear marks in the ‘potential on-demand testing areas.’ The fixed gear involved in this research will not be visible at the surface since it has no surface buoys,” according to a NEFSC advisory.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

MAINE: January storms nearly wiped out Maine’s lobster industry. Now comes the hard part.

January 30, 2024 — When back-to-back storms hit in mid-January, almost nothing in this picture postcard of a New England harbor was spared. In the heart of the state’s iconic lobster industry, the docks and leggy piers that lent Stonington harbor its scenic charm were destroyed, and the infrastructure that supports a vital industry took a massive hit.

The devastation felt by Maine’s lobster industry was an alarming warning that climate change is happening so fast, and with such seemingly cruel precision, that the scale of recovery may need to be greater than anyone had realized.

“It just came up shockingly high,” said Allison Melvin, of Greenhead Lobster, who watched as the ocean surged several feet in what seemed like a matter of seconds, buckling a conveyer belt that normally extends from its wharf down to the dock below, inundating forklifts, and lifting a tractor trailer truck used for refrigeration.

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

Lobster sales surpassed pre-pandemic levels in 2023

January 25, 2024 — Stable supply and a hungrier Asian market provided the basis for a solid year for the North American lobster industry.

North American lobster landings are expected to be down 5 percent in 2023 once totals are released, but the resource is in excellent shape and continues to be reliable, according to a panel of shellfish experts speaking at the 2024 Global Seafood Market Conference in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A. on 23 January.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

North Atlantic right whale concerns impact the lobster industry. Here’s what to know.

January 18, 2024 — Concerns over the possibility of North Atlantic right whales becoming entangled in lobster traps are leading to efforts to protect the lobster industry from negative economic impacts.

With survival of the species the goal, efforts are underway to reduce the risk of North Atlantic right whales getting tangled up in lobster traps.

A group of six large seafood processors, including New Bedford-based Northern Wind, LLC, a global producer of high quality fresh and frozen seafood products, is seeking to assure retail customers and food service clients concerned about the risk of entanglements that they are committed to protecting the endangered right whale.

According to a press release, this effort is supported by retailers and working in collaboration with fishery non-governmental organizations, fishery experts and have developed a Fishery Improvement Project to reduce right whale entanglements in the U.S and Canadian lobster fishery.

Read the full article at SouthCoast Today

Lobster industry project to use whale tracking, reduce entanglement risk

January 13, 2024 — A group of Northeast seafood processors have developed a project to help reduce the danger of endangered North Atlantic right whales entangling in the U.S. and Canadian lobster fishery.

In a Jan. 10 statement, backers of the new “Fishery Improvement Project (FIP)” said they have support of retailers and are working in collaboration with fisheries experts and non-government organizations. Their newly formed Fishery Impact Fund was approved by FisheryProgress, an online organization drawn from the seafood industry, environmental and social NGOs. Their website “provides information on the progress of global fishery improvement projects, and serves as a resource to retailers and other seafood buyers to evaluate the credibility and robustness of FIPs.”

One key backer is Northern Wind LLC, a New Bedford, Mass., producer of high quality fresh and frozen seafood.

“Our retail and food service clients are committed to supporting the North American lobster industry, but expressed concern that the fishery addresses whale entanglement risk,” said Ken Melanson, the chairman and founder of Northern Wind. “This fishery improvement project will give participants in the lobster fishery the information they need to avoid setting traps in areas where whales are known to be, or expected to be. This puts our industry ahead of the curve to maintain lobster harvesting, while addressing entanglement concerns.”

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Maine lobstermen sue over federal monitor requirements

January 10, 2024 — Maine lobstermen are making a last-ditch push to scuttle a federal monitoring program seeking to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, lawyers for five lobstermen argue that new federal fisheries monitoring rules violate the Fourth and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The restrictions, which went into effect on Dec. 15, require Maine lobstermen with federal lobster fishing permits to install 24-hour electronic tracking devices on their vessels.

The lobstermen allege the feds are collecting the monitoring data for purposes unrelated to commercial fishing, such as mapping potential areas to develop offshore wind power, which is “improper and a manifest violation of their constitutionally protected privacy rights.”

Read the full article at the Center Square

US lobster project to use tracking data to avoid right whale entanglements

January 10, 2024 — A group of seafood processors and sellers, working in collaboration with fishery NGOs and fishery experts, have developed a fishery improvement project (FIP) to reduce North Atlantic Right Whale entanglements in the US lobster fishery.

The plan involves using data from the New England Aquarium’s publicly available WhaleMap web application, which pinpoints the location of right whales during their annual migration, according to a statement released Wednesday (Jan. 10).

“This fishery improvement project will give participants in the lobster fishery the information they need to avoid setting traps in areas where whales are known to be or expected to be,” said Northern Wind founder and chief executive officer Ken Melanson in the press release. “This puts our industry ahead of the curve to maintain lobster harvesting while addressing entanglement concerns.”

Melanson said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Modernization Act mandates electronic traceability, and this project will address that.

“The approval of this project will provide buyers and processors with a pathway to develop internal sustainability policies, and to develop programs and procedures that foster and encourage sustainability,” he said. “It will allow large retail and food service buyers to continue to source from the fishery while the fishery is working to add additional protections beyond management measures in the overall effort to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.”

Read the full article at Undercurrent News