November 18, 2022 — A Thursday afternoon opinion was confirmed with bipartisan agreement between environmental groups and Maine lobstermen intervenors to allow the federal government to come up with new regulations to reduce right whale entanglements.
Judge James Boasberg of D.C. ruled in favor of the two-year extension as new rules from National Marine Fisheries Service were set to be released this fall.
November 18, 2022 — Maine lobster industry officials told business leaders Thursday that they will continue to fight what they see as unfair and unnecessary federal rules meant to protect endangered right whales.
“We are well over a $2 billion industry to the state primarily operating in communities without other job prospects,” Patrice McCarron, head of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association said. “It cannot be overstated.”
McCarron’s comments to the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce came just one day after the industry suffered the latest in a series of setbacks.
On Wednesday, the Marine Stewardship Council said it is suspending the Maine lobster fisheries sustainability certificate in mid-December because they don’t think federal laws are strong enough to protect the whales.
That followed an announcement in September that the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch had issued a red rating that directs consumers to avoid eating Maine lobster, also because of concerns about whale protections.
November 18, 2022 — A major seafood guide announced Wednesday it no longer considers Maine’s famed lobsters sustainable, given that whales on the brink of extinction are dying after becoming entangled in fishing gear.
The decision to revoke the Marine Stewardship Council’s recognizable blue label is a blow to a business already feeling an economic pinch amid low lobster prices, high fuel costs and questions about its environmental practices. Conservationists have launched an aggressive campaign to do more to protect critically endangered right whales in the North Atlantic, whose numbers continue to decline. Only an estimated 340 individuals remain.
“We’re hopeful and look for the opportunity to work with the fishery and others to figure out how to help them move forward,” said Erika Feller, a regional director at the Marine Stewardship Council. “Hopefully, the fishery can regain certification.”
November 17, 2022 — The line at Red’s Eats, in Wiscasset, snaked around the corner on a warm Saturday afternoon this fall. Many of the customers had queued up even before the iconic stand had opened, and all were eager enough for one of its famous lobster rolls that they were prepared to wait an hour or more. No one confessed to knowing that, just a few weeks before, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, an agenda-setting program for sustainability-minded seafood buyers and chefs, had shocked the industry by placing Gulf of Maine lobster on its “red list” of species to avoid.
Not Dodie Neo, an Ohioan retiree who’d been in line for 45 minutes when I approached her. Knowing about the red-listing, however, wouldn’t have stopped her from ordering. “The aquarium has a right to put lobster on whatever list it wants,” she told me. “And I have a right to eat it.”
Way down the road, at Highroller Lobster Co., in Portland’s Old Port, the crowd skewed younger and hipper, but wait times were just as long and customers just as surprised to hear about lobster getting canceled. After some discussion, most in line seemed to agree with Rick Conlin, visiting from western Massachusetts, that it didn’t much matter. “I vote for the lobstermen,” he said.
If you follow the news of New England, ignorance of the Seafood Watch censure might seem surprising. When the Monterey Bay Aquarium announced in September that it was red-listing American lobster because of the fishery’s impact on critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, national media outlets jumped on the story. In Maine, the red-listing was covered breathlessly, not least because lobstering seemed to be an issue politicians from every party could rally around during a heated midterm election, with opposing candidates standing shoulder-to-shoulder at rallies in defense of lobstermen and Maine’s whole congressional delegation cosponsoring a bill to block federal funding for the aquarium (the “Red Listing Monterey Bay Aquarium Act” would deprive the institution of some $10 to $25 million in federal grants it receives annually).
So how did a California aquarium come to cause such hue and cry in Vacationland?
Monterey Bay founded its Seafood Watch program in 1999, at a time when the then–15-year-old tourist attraction was increasingly branching out into advocacy and conservation policy. What began as a pocket guide to take along to the fish market is today an extensive set of buyers’ guides that rate fisheries and farms using a color-coded system: Green signals a “best choice,” while blue indicates certification for sustainability from a trusted third party. Yellow suggests “okay, but some concerns,” and red means “avoid.”
November 17, 2022 — An international nonprofit organization that sets sustainability standards for commercial fishing management has suspended a certification it awarded Maine’s lobster industry over concerns about harm to whales.
Representatives for Marine Stewardship Council, which is based in London, said Wednesday that the suspension of the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery’s certificate will go into effect on Dec. 15. The organization said in a statement that the danger North Atlantic right whales face from entanglement in fishing gear is a “serious and tragic situation” of “grave concern to all those involved in the fishing industry.”
MSC’s decision to take away its certification from the U.S. lobster fishery represents the second time a sustainability organization has downgraded the industry’s status this year. Seafood Watch, based at Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, said in a report in late summer that it has added the American and Canadian lobster fisheries to its “red list” of species to avoid over concerns about risks to whales.
Some retailers removed lobster from their inventory after Seafood Watch’s decision, and the industry could suffer more repercussions from MSC’s move. MSC runs the largest seafood certification program in the world, and its logo, a blue and white fish, features prominently at many seafood counters.
November 17, 2022 — Maine’s lobster fishery suffered another blow Wednesday with the announcement that it’s losing an international sustainability certification — just two months after it was red-listed by an international seafood rating program. The Marine Stewardship Council, or MSC, said the decision is the result of an independent audit examining the fisheries’ risk to right whales.
Stonington fisherman Mike Dassatt, who serves on the Downeast Lobstermen’s Association, said he’s frustrated and exhausted by the repercussions the lobster fishery are facing because of the endangered status of right whales.
“Frankly I’m getting tired of it. It’s making it very difficult for us to make a living. It’s just— it’s ludicrous,” he said.
In September, Seafood Watch, a program out of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, similarly announced that it could no longer recommend consumption of lobster from the U.S. and Canada.
November 16, 2022 — The Marine Stewardship Council announced on 16 November, 2022, the Maine lobster fishery will have its MSC certification suspended for a second time.
The suspension, effective 15 December, 2022, stems from the same reasoning behind the first suspension in August 2020 – a suspension that was lifted in October 2021. A court ruling in July 2022 by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg determined the fishery is no longer in legal compliance with the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.
November 15, 2022 — Maine’s quota for an increasingly important lobster bait will rise dramatically next year, reflecting recent shifts in the Gulf of Maine’s fisheries.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission last week upped the Pine Tree State’s baseline quota for menhaden — known as pogies — from 0.5 percent to almost 5 percent. The exponential increase could free Maine from its past reliance on special allowances to keep lobstermen’s bait bags full throughout the season.
Over the past few years, Maine lobstermen have turned to pogies as the schooling fish’s populations grow in the Gulf of Maine and herring — a once major piece of the bait industry — continues to diminish. But fishermen were hampered by how much pogie they could catch because quotas were based when pogies weren’t as abundant in Maine.
Fishermen lobbied for Maine’s quota to better align with what they are seeing in the water now, and the commission’s new quotas drew praise from fishermen and state officials alike.
November 15, 2022 — U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King, and Representative Chellie Pingree, have announced that two Maine organizations will be receiving a total of $1.2 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Sea Grant American Lobster Initiative to support the health of Maine’s lobster industry and help lobstermen adapt to any potential regulatory changes.
The funding will be used by the Maine Department of Marine Resources to research new, innovative gear technology, and by the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation to improve information and communications systems for lobstermen. These grants come after the Maine delegation included language in the 2022 appropriations package that required Sea Grant to utilize this funding to support gear modernization, according to a press release.
November 15, 2022 — The Maine Lobstermen’s Association filed its opening brief in a battle against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and its 10-year whale protection plan that calls for the industry to reduce the risk of North Atlantic right whale entanglements with lobster gear.
The brief explained that the NMFS, by law, must use “the best scientific and commercial data available and ensure only that the lobstermen are not likely to jeopardize the right whale population.”
However, the MLA argued that the data used was skewed and “catastrophized,” per an MLA press release. As the MLA explained in its brief, NMFS used “worst-case scenarios” to impose their risk reduction plan, which includes gear modifications and closed fishing areas.