Saving Seafood

New England lobstermen save trapped seal pup

July 18, 2017 — The internet is celebrating two Maine lobstermen who rescued a seal pup trapped in a fishing net.

WCSH-TV reports Jeremy Willey and Jeffrey Door were lobstering near Matinicus Rock Monday when they saw a baby seal floating in rope. Door pulled the trapped pup aboard to see what they could do.

Willey carefully cut the rope around the sea critter in order to free it as it wriggled. He returned the bewildered-looking seal pup to the water and watched the furry captive float near the boat for few moments.

Video of the lobstermen saving the seal pup has been viewed on Facebook more than 800,000 times.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at NH1

ASMFC American Lobster Board Approves 5% Increase in Egg Production for the Southern New England Lobster Stock

May 11, 2017 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s American Lobster Management Board approved moving forward with the goal of increasing egg production for the Southern New England (SNE) stock of American lobster by 5%. This increase in egg production can be achieved through a suite of management tools including gauge size changes, trap reductions, and seasonal closures. The recreational fishery is only subject to changes in the gauge size should any be proposed. In making its decision, the Board took into consideration the extensive public comment, which overwhelmingly supported status quo, and the fact that stock declines are largely a result of climatic changes, including increasing water temperatures over the last 15 years.

The next step in the process will be for the Lobster Conservation Management Teams (LCMTs) in Areas 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 to develop area-specific proposals on how to achieve the 5% increase in egg production.  As established through Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for American Lobster, LCMTs are composed of lobster industry members who are charged with recommending area-specific measures for Board consideration and approval. The LCMT proposals will be submitted for Technical Committee review in June and Board consideration in August. Once area-specific measures have been approved, the Board will consider final approval of Addendum XXV.

In its deliberation on the SNE lobster stock, the Board discussed the need to consider changes to the current management goals and reference points, noting changes in the marine environment may limit the ability to rebuild the stock to levels seen in the 1990s. The Board will continue to discuss these issues, particularly as the Commission’s Climate Change Work Group develops recommendations regarding the management of stocks impacted by changing climate conditions.

Warmer waters bring new rules for lobster fishermen

May 11, 2017 — PORTLAND, Maine — New restrictions are coming to southern New England’s lobster fishery in an attempt to save the area’s population of the crustaceans, which has dwindled as waters have warmed.

An arm of the interstate Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted on Tuesday to pursue new management measures to try to slow the decline of lobsters in the area. Management tools will include changes to legal harvesting size, reductions to the number of traps and seasonal closures to fishing areas.

The board’s move was “a recognition that climate change and warming water temperatures play an increasingly role in lobster stocks, especially in southern New England,” said Tina Berger, a spokeswoman for the commission.

The board’s goal, approved on Tuesday, is to increase egg production in the area by five percent. Decreasing the amount of fishing pressure will give the lobsters a better chance to reproduce, scientists working for the commission have said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Sentinel & Enterprise

Fishery management council OKs lobstering in deep coral

April 20, 2017 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — The New England Fishery Management Council has given preliminary approval to a plan to protect corals in the Gulf of Maine and on the Continental Slope south of Georges Bank from the ravages of commercial fishing but exempted the Maine lobster fishery from a proposed ban on the use of fishing gear that would affect the sea floor.

On Tuesday, April 18, by a reported vote of 14-1, the council adopted a preferred alternative plan under its proposed Omnibus Coral Protection Amendment for the inshore Gulf of Maine that would prohibit both trawls and dredges, but not lobster traps and pots, within both the Schoodic Ridge and Mount Desert Rock areas.

According to a statement released Wednesday afternoon, council members recognized the potentially devastating economic impact of preventing the lobster fishery from working within those inshore areas and acknowledged that shifts in effort to other locations could be problematic.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

Hearing Set for Southern New England Lobster Plan

March 24, 2017 — Interstate fishing managers will hold a public hearing Thursday night in Buzzards Bay on a plan to try and save Southern New England Lobsters. The stock has dwindled as water temperatures have warmed, leading the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to develop a number of proposals to improve the fishery’s health.

The plan includes changing the legal harvesting size limit, reducing the number of traps allowed in the water and implementing new seasonal closures. A public hearing on the matter begins at 6 p.m. at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at CapeCod.com 

Lobster exports to China boom

March 24, 2017 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — A trade war with China may be somewhere on the horizon, but the Maine lobster industry is hoping that the horizon is a distant one.

According to the figures published by the National Marine Fisheries Service, in 2016 China imported more than $108 million worth of lobsters from the United States. That’s a reported 14-fold jump from 2010, when lobster imports were about $7.4 million.

More than 80 percent of U.S. lobster imported to China comes from Maine.

The price of lobster was high last year, but so was demand. Published trade figures show that, in 2015, China imported about 13 million pounds of lobster from the United States. Last year, imports of American lobster topped 14 million pounds.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

Maine Fishermen Set Lobster Record for Seventh Straight Year

March 6, 2017 — For the seventh year in a row, Maine lobstermen have set a record for the value of their lobster catch.

Maine lobsters were worth a little more than $533 million at the docks in 2016, exceeding the previous year’s record by more than $30 million, Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher said Friday.

Interest in American lobsters has skyrocketed in Asia, especially China, in recent years, aiding the value of the crustaceans, which remain popular with Americans on summer vacation and Europeans at Christmas.

At the same time, U.S. lobster fishermen have been catching more lobsters. Maine also set a record for volume in 2016, with state fishermen catching nearly 131 million pounds of lobster last year. That surpassed the previous record of nearly 128 million in 2013.

Conservative management of the lobster fishery has allowed the fishery to thrive in recent years, regulators said. Scientists have said warming oceans might also play a role, as the center of the lobster population appears to be moving north as waters warm. The catch off of Rhode Island and Connecticut has plummeted as Maine’s has soared.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

Maine wants help from lobstermen affected by coral rules

March 6, 2017 — Maine marine authorities are looking for input from lobstermen about how they might be impacted by federal regulations designed to protect corals off New England.

The regulatory New England Fishery Management Council is considering protecting corals in the Gulf of Maine. Two of the proposed protection areas are Outer Schoodic Ridge and the area southwest of Mount Desert Rock.

The state Department of Marine Resources says one of the proposed management options is a complete ban on fishing. The department has proposed exempting the lobster and crab fisheries in the two areas.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Southern Business Journal 

Tred Barta: President Trump Should Stop the Obama Attack on New England Fisherman

February 28, 2017 — In the waning days of his administration, Barack Obama decided to seriously cripple the American fishing industry. By executive order, the former president designated a vast underwater expanse off the coast of New England as the nation’s first aquatic national monument. This decision, driven by evidence-free environmental concerns, effectively banned all commercial fishing in the area.

It’s well within President Trump’s powers to modify this decision, and he ought to do so immediately. Left alone, this designation will undermine the regional economy and deprive countless families of their livelihoods.

The monument, officially announced in September, covers about 5,000 square miles of ocean located 130 miles from Cape Cod. For over 40 years, commercial fishermen have harvested this area for crab, squid, swordfish, tuna, and other high-demand seafood. It’s particularly rich in lobster, of which some 800,000 pounds are caught every year.

This order ends all that activity. Some fishing companies had just 60 days to leave the area.

This exodus will bring economic ruin all along the coast. Bill Palombo, a Newport, Rhode Island lobsterman who runs three boats in the monument waters, says he expects to “just go out of business.” Jon Williams runs Atlantic Red Crab, which employs 150 workers in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and he says the drop in harvests will force him to “maybe sell my business”.

The central promise of the Trump White House is the protection of solid jobs for working families. This order kills exactly those positions: stable, well-paid, immune to outsourcing, and available to workers without a college degree. In the Maine lobster industry, which supports 6,300 local jobs, the average starting salary is over $50,000.

Read the full story at Breitbart

SEAN HORGAN: Swedes still fighting lobster imports

February 27, 2017 — Our travel budget here at FishOn is just about enough to get us over to McDonald’s on Maplewood Avenue for a vegan Happy Meal, but we don’t let that dilute our international sophistication or our global reach.

So, let’s go to Sweden, where the Swedes continue to pour their Nordic angst all over our American lobsters by trying to label them an invasive species and ban their importation by the entire European Union. 

The Swedish effort continues, but an interesting analysis by the Atlanta-based King & Spalding law firm specializing in international law says Sweden’s request to ban the lobsters most likely violates rules of the World Trade Organization.

“The EU ban on American lobster, based on the risk allegedly posed by 32 lobsters that escaped during transportation, would seem to require the WTO to look very carefully at the proportionality of the measure to determine whether it is maintained without sufficient scientific evidence, as well as examining the necessity of the measure in light of alternative measures, such as stricter controls on transportation and more effective enforcement of existing relevant laws and regulations,” the analysis stated.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times