Saving Seafood

CFRF Lobster & Jonah Crab Research Session 8/30/18

August 2, 2018 — The following was released by the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation:

Please join the CFRF and its collaborators for a Lobster and Jonah Crab Research Session on Thursday, August 30, 2018 from 4-6 PM at the Commercial Fisheries Center of Rhode Island. The Research Session will include:

  • Discussion of the Lobster and Jonah Crab Research Fleet, including reflections from participant fishermen, data summaries, plans for the future, and viewing of the project documentary video.
  • Presentations from collaborators at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries on Jonah crab size at sexual maturity and the sustainability of the Jonah crab fishery.
  • Presentations from lobster and Jonah crab stock assessment scientists at the NOAA Northeast Fisheries Science Center focusing on the use of the Research Fleet’s data in the lobster stock assessment and Jonah crab management plan.

To read more about the project and for project updates visit the project web page here.

RSVP to Aubrey at (401) 515-4892 or aellertson@cfrfoundation.org .

The research session is being held at the Commercial Fisheries Center of RI, Building 61B, URI East Farm Campus, Kingston, RI  (click here for directions).

Maine Lobster Industry Has Yet to Feel Full Impact of China Tariffs

July 27, 2018 — Bob Baines does not believe new foreign tariffs will have an immediate impact on the Maine lobster industry.

“The state is catching mostly new-shell lobsters that don’t ship well to China or the EU yet,” he said, plucking a few twisting lobsters from his haul to display the small number mature enough for an overseas voyage.

That won’t last, Baines said, and harder shells will come with more difficult trade barriers.

Moving quickly around the deck of his lobster boat Thrasher, Baines unloaded flat crates of live catch onto a dock adjacent to the Spruce Head Fisherman’s Co-Op, where he serves as president of the South Thomaston nonprofit that brokers sales for more than 40 dues-paying members.

Read the full story at The Free Press

All shell, no shock: Lobster prices strong, season picks up

July 26, 2018 — New England’s lobster industry faces big new challenges in selling to Europe and China, but the trouble hasn’t caused prices to budge much for American consumers.

The business is in the midst of its busiest part of the year, when tourists flock to coastal states with a beachside lobster dinner in mind. Summer is also when prices tend to fall a bit because it’s when the majority of lobsters are caught.

But the prices haven’t fallen much. Retailers are selling live lobsters in the $7 to $12 per pound (per 0.45 kilogram) range in Maine, where the American lobster industry is based. That’s not too far behind recent summers.

“It’s starting to pick up, so of course the price is dropping. But that’s pretty normal,” said William Adler, a lobsterman out of Green Harbor, Massachusetts. “Now it’s starting to come alive, and prices are still good right now.”

Members of the industry are concerned about heavy new tariffs applied by China to U.S. seafood this month, because that country is a major lobster buyer. Canada also recently brokered a deal with the European Union to remove tariffs on Canadian lobster exports to Europe, while the U.S. has no such agreement.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Akron Legal News

Sen. Jack Reed joins New England senators to designate a ‘National Lobster Day’

July 26, 2018 –In celebration of one of New England’s favorite crustaceans, Sen. Jack Reed is joining in the fight to designate Sept. 25 as “National Lobster Day.”

Reed is joining a bipartisan group of Senators from New England to introduce the new legislation. He said “National Lobster Day” would honor the lobsters’ economic, historic, cultural and culinary contributions to Rhode Island and across the nation.

“National Lobster Day is a fun and tasty way to pay tribute to our local lobstermen and women and the important economic impact lobsters have on Rhode Island’s economy,” Reed said. “It is a great way to celebrate an industry that supports hundreds of Rhode Island families and helps bring tourists to the area to enjoy delicious, freshly caught lobster and seafood.”

The resolution is being led by Maine’s Sen. Angus King and Sen. Susan Collins.

Reed also said “National Lobster Day” would help Rhode Island’s restaurants boost sales.

“Whether you enjoy lobster fresh off the boat, or with fresh-made pasta, Rhode Island offers plenty of ways to join the celebration,” Reed said.

Read the full story at WPRI

Documents Released on Trump Administration Defense of National Monument Actions

July 25, 2018 — In today’s print edition, the Washington Post published an article by Juliet Eilperin on the Trump administration and national monuments. The article, based on internal documents from the Interior Department, was critical of senior officials for allegedly dismissing positive information on the benefits of national monuments.

The majority of the story focused on land-based monuments, but with regard to marine monuments, the Post reported that,“On Sept. 11, 2017, Randal Bowman, the lead staffer for the review, suggested deleting language that most fishing vessels near the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument ‘generated 5% or less of their annual landings from within the monument’ because it ‘undercuts the case for the ban being harmful.’”

Saving Seafood executive director Bob Vanasse was quoted in the article noting that “‘Trump administration officials have been more open to outside input than their predecessors.’ … ‘They had a lot of meetings with our folks but didn’t listen,’ he said of Obama officials, adding even some Massachusetts Democratic lawmakers raised concerns about the New England marine monument’s fishing restrictions.”

The article suggested that Mr. Bowman, a career Interior Department employee and not a Trump administration appointee, purposefully excised information from logbook data indicating that, on the whole, most vessels fishing near the monument generate just 5 percent of their landings from within the monument.

However, there are valid reasons to be cautious about the logbook-data driven 5 percent statistic. There are more sources available to characterize fishing activity – in addition to just logbooks, formally known as “vessel trip reports”, which was the sole source cited in the email referenced in the Post story. While, as the material references states, the information comes from NOAA and the fishery management councils so it can be presumed accurate, the context is missing.

An Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) survey identified recent (2014-2015) fishing activity within the boundaries of the National Monument that, if the Obama executive order is not reversed, will be closed to the fishery in the future. The results indicate that 12-14 percent of the offshore lobster fishery effort and 13-14 percent of revenue ($2.4-2.8 million annually) for the lobster and Jonah crab fishery comes from the area of the National Monument. This revenue is significantly higher than that derived from the vessel trip report (logbook) analysis, which is only about $0.7 million annually.

The document cited in the Post story correctly cites the $2.4-$2.8 million annual revenue in those fisheries, but it does not make clear the significant percentage of offshore revenue that comes from the monument area. Similarly, when the document cites $1.8 million from the Monument region annually (2010-2015), that includes only the $0.7 million lobster trap revenues derived from vessel trip reports, not the total indicated by the ASMFC survey for more recent years.

While it is generally accurate, if one looks at the entire fishing industry in the region, to make the statement that only a small number of vessels derive more than 5 percent of their revenue from the Monument area, for those vessels and fisheries that conduct significant portions of their operations in the monument area, the economic harm is significant.

Also, in a document attached to the story, a margin comment erroneously states that NOAA advised the Interior Department that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification for red crab was “revoked.” That is not the case. In 2009, the red crab fishery became the first MSC-certified fishery on the East Coast. The certification was never revoked. The certification expired because the participants in the fishery determined that the cost to pursue renewal of the certification exceeded the financial benefits they anticipated would arise from maintaining it, and they decided voluntarily to allow it to lapse.

Read the full Washington Post story

Read further coverage of this story from E&E News

Changes coming to herring fishery as bait crunch looms

July 25, 2018 — New England’s lobster fishing industry is again facing the possibility of a bait shortage, and ocean managers are looking to make some tweaks to the herring fishery.

The lobster and herring fisheries are tied to each other because herring is the preferred bait for lobster traps. But fishermen in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts have sometimes had trouble getting enough bait in recent summers.

An arm of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission changed some of the rules about herring fishing off of New England starting on Monday. The rules have to do with how many days herring fishermen can operate, and how much fish they can bring to land.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Herald

All shell, no shock: Lobster prices strong as season picks up

July 23, 2018 — New England’s lobster industry faces big new challenges in selling to Europe and China, but the trouble hasn’t caused prices to budge much for American consumers.

The business is in the midst of its busiest part of the year, when tourists flock to coastal states with a beachside lobster dinner in mind. Summer is also when prices tend to fall a bit because it’s when the majority of lobsters are caught.

But the prices haven’t fallen much. Retailers are selling live lobsters in the $7 to $12 per pound range in Maine, where the American lobster industry is based. That’s not too far behind recent summers.

“It’s starting to pick up, so of course the price is dropping. But that’s pretty normal,” said William Adler, a lobsterman out of Green Harbor, Massachusetts. “Now it’s starting to come alive, and prices are still good right now.”

Members of the industry are concerned about heavy new tariffs applied by China to U.S. seafood this month, because that country is a major lobster buyer. Canada also recently brokered a deal with the European Union to remove tariffs on Canadian lobster exports to Europe, while the U.S. has no such agreement.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

This strange, lobster-fueled border dispute off Maine has been simmering long before Trump

July 23, 2018 — For all the attention being paid on southern immigration, the shared border itself between the United States and Mexico is actually something on which all sides have agreed for decades.

However, the efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to ramp up immigration enforcement all along the perimeter of the United States recently shed light on a uniquely unsettled border dispute much closer to home. Machias Seal Island, a 20-acre island 10 miles off the coast of Maine, is claimed by both Canada and the United States.

“We have a 5,525-mile-long border with Canada, and all but this little chunk of it is firmly established and accepted by both countries,” says Stephen Kelly, a research scholar at Duke University and former diplomat who has long urged the two neighbors to settle the disagreement.

The conflict was recently cast into international focus after reports that U.S. Border Patrol agents were stopping Canadian fishermen in the area, causing a modest uproar in the Great White North. It was likely the first time many Americans had even heard of Machias Seal Island, if the story broke through at all.

Read the full story at Boston.com

Ex-manager says processor repacked expired seafood

July 19, 2018 — Gloucester Seafood Processing, the largely shuttered local subsidiary of Illinois-based Mazzetta Co., is a defendant in a lawsuit accusing the seafood giant of artificially manipulating lobster prices and repackaging expired seafood into new packaging with new expiration dates.

The accusations are contained in a wrongful termination suit brought by Corey Thompson, a former general manager at Mazzetta’s Atwood Lobster subsidiary in South Thomaston, Maine. Besides Gloucester Seafood Processing, the action also names Mazzetta Co. and its parent company, JorZac Inc., as well as Atwood, Londonderry Freezer LLC., and other Mazzetta subsidiaries as defendants.

Thompson claims in the lawsuit that he was fired with no explanation on May 26, 2017 — five days after he sent an email to Mazzetta Co. owner Tom Mazzetta and another company executive “expressing his concern that artificially deflated raw material prices” to benefit other Mazzetta subsidiaries “was illegal and in violation of domestic and international tax laws.”

In the same email, attached to the lawsuit as an exhibit, Thompson “expressed his concern that repacking expired seafood with new expiration dates was morally wrong and illegal.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MAINE: Those lobster license plates are supporting $340,000 in research on vital industry

July 18, 2018 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources is using $340,000 from the sale of specialty license plates to bankroll lobster research.

The state agency is using lobster license plate profits to fund six research projects, including five run by the University of Maine and one by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, and give $5,000 mini-grants to four other researchers. Project data will be shared through a research collaborative created to address the impact of a changing ocean environment on Maine’s lobster industry.

“Maine’s lobster industry is our most valuable and is a critical piece of the economy of nearly every community along the coast,” Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher said in a prepared statement Tuesday. “We know that change is happening in the Gulf of Maine and we want to be positioned with improved science to adapt to those changes.”

The agency in charge of regulating the state’s $1.5 billion industry is trying to up its own scientific efforts with these grants, which will be shared and shaped by a research collaborative made up of state officials, scientists and industry leaders. At the centerpiece of the new emphasis is research to support Maine’s most valuable fishery. The plan was to fund $500,000 in lobster science projects.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald