Saving Seafood

Massachusetts lobstermen drop lawsuit against California aquarium that told people to stop eating lobster

January 10, 2023 — The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association has ended its fight against a California aquarium that says people shouldn’t buy and eat lobster because of the risks the fishery poses on the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

A federal judge in the Northern District of California on Monday dismissed a class action lawsuit that four Bay State lobstermen filed last March against the Monterey Bay Aquarium after the two sides agreed to end the months-long dispute with prejudice.

Monterey Bay in September 2022 gave the American lobster a “red rating” on its Seafood Watch, recommending consumers to avoid the species caught by trap from the Gulf of Maine, Southern New England and Georges Bank stocks.

The action prompted the four lobstermen to file the suit months later, seeking $75,000 in damages for disparagement of their aquaculture product and interference with their proprietary rights.

“After lengthy discussions among the named individuals in the suit, they agreed to dismiss the Class Action Suit as a win in the California court is highly unlikely and extremely costly,” the MLA said in a statement to the Herald on Tuesday. “The laws in California would ultimately hold these individuals financially responsible for the defendant’s legal fees should they prevail.”

The aquarium had asserted that trapping lobsters had contributed to the depletion of the population of Northern Atlantic right whales, an endangered species at high risk of extinction. There are fewer than 340 such whales today, and the aquarium says entanglement in fishing gear is the leading cause of injury and death.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald

Lobster fishers sue to block monitoring laws designed to help save a rare whale

January 8, 2024 — A group of lobster fishermen has sued fishing regulators in federal court, claiming that new electronic monitoring requirements designed to protect rare whales are unconstitutional.

The new rules went into effect on Dec. 15 and require fishermen with federal lobster fishing permits to install 24-hour electronic tracking devices on their boats. The Maine Department of Marine Resources, which regulates fisheries in Maine, has promoted the new rule as a way to collect better data that can both benefit the fishery and help save the vanishing North Atlantic right whale, which is vulnerable to potentially lethal entanglement in fishing gear.

Five lobstermen who are members of a lobster fishing union filed their lawsuit in federal court last week. The fishermen said they oppose the requirement that the tracking devices must be operational regardless of what the boat is being used for at the time.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Maine lobstermen sue over monitoring laws

January 7, 2024 — Five Maine lobstermen have filed a lawsuit against the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) over recently enacted rules requiring all Maine lobstermen with federal lobster fishing permits to install 24-hour electronic tracking devices on their vessels.

The rule went into force on 15 December and stems from a higher-level decision made by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) calling for individual state departments to create rules establishing around-the-clock tracking requirements on both American lobster fishing vessels and Jonah crab fishing vessels. One of the main stated goals of the plan is to help reduce the risk of lobster gear entangling critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Maine lobstermen sue state over requirement to track boats

January 4, 2024 — Five lobstermen are suing the Maine Department of Marine Resources over a new regulation that requires tracking devices on boats that fish in federal waters, saying the devices violate their privacy rights.

The trackers had to be installed by Dec. 15 under a new regulation from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. According to the department, the trackers periodically monitor the locations of a lobstering or crabbing vessel to help identify fishing patterns, which are then used to help grow the fishing stock and better protect the endangered North American right whale population – a contentious issue in the fishing community.

But the lobstermen and other fishing groups believe the trackers violate multiple amendments of the U.S. Constitution and threaten the fishermen’s personal and commercial interests.

“The plaintiffs contend that minute-by-minute surveillance of Maine’s federally licensed lobster fleet is unconstitutional, unwarranted and unfair to Maine lobstermen, who have proven through the actions of generations of lobstering families that they are good stewards of the ocean ecosystems essential to their livelihoods,” Portland attorney Thimi Mina, who is representing the lobstermen, said in a statement.

Read the full article at the Press Herald

MAINE: Maine lobstermen sue the state over electronic boat tracking rules

January 3, 2024 — Five lobstermen are suing the Maine Department of Marine Resources in an effort to stop new electronic boat monitoring requirements.

Under new rules that went into effect last month, lobstermen with federal fishing permits must install monitors on their boats that track their location each minute.

Attorney Thimi Mina said the lobstermen believe that the tracking is a violation of their constitutional right to privacy, equal protection and due process.

Read the full article at nhpr

Judge denies Red Lobster’s motion to dismiss class-action sustainability suit

January 3, 2024 — A federal judge has denied Red Lobster’s motion to dismiss a class-action fraud lawsuit alleging that the restaurant chain sold Maine lobster and farmed shrimp that is not as sustainable as the company claims.

U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt denied the motion to dismiss the class action complaint, originally filed by Dezzi Rae Marshall in the U.S. state of California against Orlando, Florida, U.S.A-based Red Lobster. Marshall – represented by Richman Law and Policy, which has brought similar lawsuits against ALDI, Cooke, and other companies – alleges that the company’s shrimp and lobster are sourced from farms and fisheries that don’t meet high environmental standards.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

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