Saving Seafood

Feds won’t challenge pro-lobster court decision

September 11, 2023 — Lawyers from the U.S. Department of Justice have chosen not to appeal the latest court ruling in a legal battle that has pitted North Atlantic right whales against the Maine lobster industry. As a result of the case—Maine Lobstermen’s Association v. National Marine Fisheries Service, et al.—and a regulatory pause put in place by Congress, the government must now wait until the end of 2028 to implement a new set of rules to protect right whales under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammals Protection Act.

The DOJ, which represented federal fisheries managers, had until August 30 to challenge a June 16 appellate court’s decision.

“It’s my understanding that the Department of Justice will not be appealing the June decision in the MLA case,” Maine Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher said in an email responding to an August 31 inquiry from this newspaper. “It’s good to know that we can now focus on the important work ahead, which includes developing and implementing a robust right whale monitoring program and alternative gear testing that can inform much more targeted and effective regulations during the next phase of rulemaking, scheduled for 2028.”

“The Maine Lobstermen’s Association’s uncontested victory at the Appeals Court puts an end to the federal government’s abuse of power and misapplication of the law in its regulation of the lobster fishery’s impact on right whales,” agreed Patrice McCarron, policy director for the MLA. “The MLA is encouraged that the federal government has accepted the court’s decision and can begin the important work of developing a new Whale Rule and Biological Opinion that are not based on worst-case scenarios and pessimistic assumptions.”

Neither the National Marine Fisheries Service nor the Conservation Law Foundation, which sided with the agency, responded to repeated requests for interviews prior to deadline.

Background

A year ago, on September 8, 2022, U.S. Chief District Judge James E. Boasberg issued a ruling that would have drastically restricted lobstering and related fisheries in order to reduce mortality risks to North Atlantic right whales. Citing figures from the NMFS’s “biological opinion” that put the right whale population at 350 or less, and estimates about the number of whales that were being entangled in U.S. based fishing gear, Boasberg essentially ordered the end of rope fishing in six months, in order to reduce the current minimal risk of entanglement by an additional 90 percent. The new goal set a standard that sought almost no risk of gear entanglement in the Gulf of Maine.

Read the full article at Penobscot Bay Press

Is ropeless fishing gear a whale-safe solution for American Lobster?

August 24, 2023 — The following is an excerpt from an article published by Sustainable Fisheries UW:

Ropeless, also called “on-demand” fishing gear aims to reduce vertical lines in the water column for trap fisheries like lobster. These innovations have become a key component of ongoing fishery management efforts to minimize interactions with whales. We have reported on those interactions before, but we have not covered the gear innovations that may provide hope for critically endangered North Atlantic right whales while allowing fixed-gear fishermen and women to stay on the water. In this post, we will review the problems that ropeless fishing gear may solve, summarize the latest technology, and project what it might mean for the future of fixed gear fisheries.

The race to produce ropeless fishing gear has been sparked by the dire circumstances of North Atlantic right whales. With only about 340 left (approximately 80 are spawning females), just one unusual mortality event per year risks the species’ future—and fishing gear has been implicated in at least nine and up to 27 deaths since 2017 (ship strikes have been responsible for at least 11 deaths).

Traditional lobster gear uses metal cages called traps or pots. They are deployed into the water with a buoy attached to a rope, which hangs vertically in the water column until the trap is collected. Whales can entangle themselves if they swim through areas with ropes in the water. The entanglement and extra weight eventually wear them out, and they drown. Maine reported nearly 3 million trap tags in 2018, and Canada estimates 3,000 trap licenses are active each year with each license holder able to deploy up to about 300 traps. While not every single trap is attached to a vertical line, that still puts an incredible amount of hazardous ropes into the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Those lines can be a deadly hazard for marine mammals, especially the North Atlantic right whale.

NOAA estimates that over 85 percent of right whales have been entangled in fishing gear at least once. But Maine has not reported a single right whale entanglement in its lobster fishery since 2004, and recent events suggest right whales are at greater risk farther north in Canada. Conservationists and lobstermen and women have disagreed on the best available right whale science for years.

SFUW first reported on this conflict in 2020 and warned of complicated market reactions if sustainability ratings and certifications changed for American lobster fisheries in the U.S. or Canada based on right whale threats. Sure enough, in September 2022, Seafood Watch downgraded all American lobster fisheries in both countries to red, “Avoid.” In December 2022, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) suspended the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery’s certification because a federal judge ruled that lobster fisheries violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Two recent reports have given some good and bad news to ropeless gear supporters.

The first report came from the Northeast Fishery Science Center and provided one of the first widespread measurements of ropeless gear retention. Ten lobster fishers set ropeless gear with EdgeTech technology in the Massachusetts Restricted Area and nearby federal waters. 527 traps were set, and 89.5% were retrieved on the first attempt without malfunction. Some of the 11.5% traps that did not return on the first attempt were recovered on subsequent attempts, so the study estimated the actual percentage of lost gear to be equal to or lower than the 5-15% average lost gear rate per season associated with traditional buoy lobster gear.

Each trap had an active acoustic modem sending alerts to all GPS devices in range, which successfully signaled to other vessels and mitigated any conflicts during the study. No gear conflicts were reported with traditional lobster harvesters, scallop dredgers, or other overlapping fleets.

But a second, more recent report from the State of Massachusetts found the expected costs of switching to ropeless fishing gear to be unviable. Currently, Massachusetts lobster harvest profits roughly 15 million per year after expenses. Switching to ropeless gear would eliminate any profit—the study estimated the state would lose 24 million in revenue per year, “and that’s with a 15-year loan to buy the on-demand gear with favorable interest rates.”

If all lobstermen were given ropeless gear for free, profits would still drop to 2 million per year due to the extra time required to harvest.

The disadvantage of using ropeless lobster gear would also be felt harder by smaller, more independent operators. Smaller boats usually fish with fewer traps per line, meaning a higher proportion of traps would directly use acoustic buoy deployments. According to the study, this would almost double the time it takes to retrieve all lobster gear for smaller boat operators.

Ropeless fishing gear is simply too expensive for widespread adoption in American lobster fisheries in the near future. Massachusetts has led the way in new gear testing, but only a fraction of the state’s lobster harvesters have handled the gear on the water. These fishers have been more willing than their counterparts in Maine to test gear because their Massachusetts fixed gear fisheries have been canceled or severely limited to avoid right whale interactions.  

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

Pop-up lobster gear may present daunting operating costs, study predicts

August 17, 2023 — A full transition to on-demand or ‘ropeless’ lobster gear in Massachusetts could cost fishermen as much to use the new equipment as buy it, according to a report recently completed for the state Division of Marine Fisheries.

Titled “Estimating the Costs of Using On-Demand Gear in Massachusetts Lobster Fisheries,” the paper is “a deep dive into the financial impacts of using the gear onboard lobster fishing vessels,” according to state officials.

Ropeless gear would eliminate vertical lines between lobster traps and marker buoys on the surface, with the goal of reducing the danger of entanglement with highly endangered North Atlantic right whales. “On-demand” refers to technologies that enable lobstermen to summon buoys anchored on the seafloor when it’s time to retrieve the gear.

The study was written by Noah Oppenheim, a natural resources consultant and owner of Maine-based of Homarus Strategies LLC; professor Robert Griffin of the School for Marine Science & Technology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth; and professor Andrew Goode of the University of Maine.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobstermen Face Hypoxia in Outer Cape Waters

August 17, 2023 — Alex Iacono, a lobsterman who says he favors lobsters and ocean solitude over people, is worried about the future of his business. Iacono, who lives in Truro and fishes out of Provincetown on the F/V Storm Elizabeth, says his catch has significantly dwindled in recent years.

He’s not alone; other lobstermen working across Cape Cod Bay have noticed a downward trend. They believe that hypoxia — dangerously low levels of oxygen in the water — is to blame.

On Aug. 11, local lobster fishermen were advised by the Div. of Marine Fisheries (DMF) that low levels of dissolved oxygen had been recorded in two areas: at the southern end of Cape Cod Bay near Barnstable and here, in the waters between Provincetown and Wellfleet.

Hypoxia first came to fishermen’s attention in 2019 when it caused a catastrophic lobster die-off in the bay. After that, the DMF started affixing sensors to buoys and traps to monitor oxygen levels, and they have consistently observed mild hypoxia since then.

Tracy Pugh, leader of the Invertebrate Fisheries Project at DMF, pioneered a “stoplight” color-coded hypoxia mapping system: green indicates areas with over 6 mg. of dissolved oxygen per liter of water; water with under 6 mg/L is coded yellow on the DMF map; orange signals mildly hypoxic water with less than 4 mg/L; and red indicates severely hypoxic water, with less than 2 mg/L of dissolved oxygen.

Read the full article at the Provincetown Independent 

MAINE: Fishermen’s Alliance Highlights Offshore Wind Threat to Haddock, Lobster Fisheries in Gulf of Maine

August 8, 2023 — An alliance of groups representing New England’s fishermen is highlighting scientific research that suggests offshore wind development could have “population-scale effects” on key fish and crustacean species in the Gulf of Maine, including electromagnetism-induced deformities in lobsters.

The New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) on Monday released an “Offshore Wind Research Summary” summarizing the existing scientific research on the environmental impact of offshore wind power development.

The scientific evidence, they believe, shows that offshore wind development would have unpredictable and potentially harmful consequences for key marine species, such as lobster and haddock.

“The studies featured in the Research Summary indicate that there is no scientific consensus as to the effects of offshore wind on ocean ecosystems and marine life,” said Jerry Leeman, NEFSA CEO and a longtime commercial fishing captain.

“We cannot industrialize the Gulf of Maine until we understand how the wind industry interacts with the fisheries that wild harvesters have stewarded responsibly for decades,” Leeman said.

The interaction between wind power development and marine species is generally understudied. That means there could be massive unintended or unforeseeable consequences from an unprecedented industrial project in the Gulf of Maine.

Read the full article at the Maine Wire

MAINE: Maine approves lobster innovation fund as study reveals high costs of ropeless gear

August 4, 2023 — The U.S. state of Maine recently passed an act to create a Lobster Innovation Fund to provide financing to commercial fishermen to test new lobster fishing technologies, just days before the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) released a report finding a full transition to ropeless lobster gear would cost the fishery in more ways than just higher equipment costs.

The new fund, created through a law signed by Maine Governor Janet Mills on 27 July, would pay lobstermen to test new gear to learn how the gear would impact their fishing. The testing would add to the growing body of scientific data obtained through studies of alternative in both Maine and Massachusetts.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Ropeless Lobster Gear Study Released: Could Cost Industry $40 M in Annual Revenue

August 2, 2023 — The second phase of a multi-year project evaluating the operational, technological, and socioeconomic impacts of ropeless lobster gear was released yesterday by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF). If the gear had been deployed fleet-wide last year, the loss of annual revenue was estimated to be $40 million and the foregone harvest was pegged at 3.5 million pounds less. An overall recommendation was to explore further using more variables.

Alternative or ropeless lobster gear consists of submerged buoyancy devices that are activated using time-release mechanisms or acoustic signals transmitted from the surface. This innovative design would replace traditional vertical buoy lines, which can result in entanglements with marine mammals including North Atlantic right whales.

Estimating the Cost of Using On-Demand Gear in Massachusetts Lobster Fisheries  authors Noah Oppenheim of Homarus Strategies LLC, Dr. Robert Griffin of SMAST, and Dr. Andrew Goode of the University of Maine, took a deep dive into the financial impacts of using the gear onboard lobster fishing vessels. They present a new model that can be used to estimate these operational costs, providing important information that will assist in the consideration of fishery management scenarios involving entanglement risk-reducing fishing gear.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Costs of using ropeless fishing gear could sink MA lobster fishery: new report

August 1, 2023 — PATRICK FLANARY: Experts often say the lobster fishery will have to move to innovative “ropeless” fishing gear to protect North Atlantic right whales from entanglement. There fewer than 340 of the critically endangered whales left. But a new report says Massachusetts lobstermen may be headed for troubled economic waters if they make the switch.  Eve Zuckoff has the details and she joins us now. Hi Eve. 

EVE ZUCKOFF: Hi Patrick!

PATRICK FLANARY: Eve, remind us how “ropeless” or “on-demand” fishing gear is different from traditional trap/pots.

EVE ZUCKOFF: Well, let’s start with the way traditional gear works. At its most basic, lobstermen connect 5, 10, even 50 traps and toss them onto the sea floor. And then then at the surface they’ve got their buoy, which is connected with a long rope down to those traps. The problem is that those static lines will sit in the ocean as whales swim by and they’ve been connected to entanglements. These critically endangered right whales are really struggling with this: some 80% appear to have been wrapped in rope at least once in their lives.

Now, the idea is that “on-demand” or “ropeless” gear gets rid of the rope that runs from sea surface to seafloor. Instead, fishermen put their line of traps on the sea floor, and then when they head out to collect the lobsters some days later and haul up the traps, they push a button and a balloon gets inflated or a buoy in coiled rope gets released, and these pop up at the surface. So that’s why it’s called “on-demand” gear, which is a more accurate term than “ropeless,” so I’ll keep calling it that from here out.

PATRICK FLANARY: These balloons really intrigue me. I’m trying to envision how this will actually look. The gear, Eve, is undergoing testing but it has been controversial. Lobstermen have raised concerns about cost, how safe it’s going to be. So the state wanted to understand: what would it take to fully convert roughly 800  Massachusetts lobstermen to fully on-demand gear. What did they just find? 

EVE ZUCKOFF: Well the state did a really interesting thing, which was to basically operate from this place that says time is money for a lobsterman. Because the modern lobster fishing business is about hauling up gear quickly to bring in large volumes of lobster. So the question becomes: how long would take to do everything you need to with on-demand gear to catch lobsters versus traditional gear?

Read the full article at NHPR

Favorable lobster, crab prices land them bigger share of US restaurant menus

July 12, 2023 — Many U.S. restaurants are taking advantage of recently declining crab and plateauing lobster prices by featuring them on summer menus.

Wholesale crab prices have dropped in recent months, encouraging retail and restaurant buyers to promote it this summer, which in turn has led to higher sales. Frozen crab sales spiked 41.9 percent in May 2023 compared to the same month last year, and fresh crab sales jumped 15.4 percent, according to research firm Circana.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

The Case for Ropeless

June 27, 2023 — Allow me to touch a “third rail” of fisheries politics: Lobstermen, crabbers, and other fishermen currently in the crosshairs of environmental groups over whale entanglements need to get behind ropeless fishing technology. On-demand gear can keep you on the water when the presence of whales would otherwise trigger a closure, it’s not about admitting defeat but find opportunities to keep fishing.

Coming is the time when trap fisheries will face two options: start using ropeless gear, or lose significant chunks – if not all ­– of the fishing season. Resistance now will likely put many in a world of pain later.

Over the years I have participated in numerous fixed gear fisheries in the North Pacific. I have also written extensively on whale entanglements in West Coast Dungeness crab and in other fisheries here for National Fisherman and in other outlets. I often find myself as not only a bridge builder but also an antagonist.

I’m willing to call out the bad actors and misdeeds within the commercial fishing industry while also critical of the bad faith engagement and the reckless hyperbole some of the environmental organizations using both the courts and media to attack working-class fishermen. In this position I found myself resistant to ropeless fishing gear, seeing it as an unfounded and expensive proposition.

But over the past few years I have changed my mind. I now see ropeless as the best forward to save fisheries, whales, and the reputation of an industry currently facing a public relations crisis.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman