Saving Seafood

Lobster fishermen can sue environmental group for defamation, judge says

March 3, 2025 — A group of lobster fishermen can sue one of the world’s largest seafood watchdog groups for defamation, a federal court has ruled, over a report that described Maine lobster as an unwise choice for consumers.

The threat to a rare whale species from getting tangled in fishing gear has prompted Monterey Bay Aquarium in California to caution against eating a variety of lobster that New England fishermen have harvested for centuries.

Seafood Watch, a conservation program operated by the aquarium, placed lobster from the U.S. and Canada on its do-not-eat “red list” in 2022. Some retailers pulled lobster from stores after the recommendation.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Most Maine lobstermen have resisted alternative fishing gear. A new initiative hopes to change that

February 28, 2025 — The wind is whipping the sides of the dock on this bright, cold afternoon in Jonesport.

“I think my fingers are too frozen.”

Brooke Hachey of the Sunrise County Economic Council is leading a demonstration of a kind of “on demand,” sometimes called “ropeless” lobster fishing gear.

In a bid to protect North Atlantic right whales from extinction, many scientists are promoting this kind of alternative lobster fishing gear that minimizes the risks of entanglement.

While some lobstermen in Massachusetts have agreed to use this new gear in exchange for accessing closed areas of Cape Cod Bay, most Maine lobstermen have been reluctant — if not outright resistant — to the new technology.

Read the full article at wbur

MAINE: The Lobster Trap: Can Stonington, Maine, Survive the Tide of Change?

February 28, 2025 — I first visited Stonington, Maine, in the summer of 2003 to write a story for Yankee about the community’s proudly held identity as a fishing town. Even then, Stonington was an anomaly. While other main streets and harbors along the Maine coast had become the shiny domain of tourist shops and pleasure boats, here, on the rocky outermost tip of remote Deer Isle, lived just over 1,000 people whose lives were still largely built around what they hauled from the sea.

The challenges Stonington faced back then—tighter regulations, increasing costs, wild swings in the price of lobster—still confront the town more than two decades later. But now it’s increasingly feeling the threat of climate change, too. Early last year, two powerful storms slammed into the island, cutting off Stonington from the mainland, devastating businesses, and swamping the public pier. The Gulf of Maine’s warming waters, meanwhile, are putting the very survival of the state’s signature lobster industry at risk. Even for a community long accustomed to dealing with headwinds, these latest developments beg the question: What will it take for New England’s largest lobster port to endure?

Last June, I returned to Stonington to find out.

Robbie Eaton is ready to get on the water.

It’s pushing 5:30 on a Thursday morning in early June, and for the past half hour the 24-year-old has been prepping his boat, the Legacy, a mint-green 35-footer docked at the Stonington Fish Pier. It’s not quite summer but it’s starting to feel like it, warming up even at this hour, and the surrounding harbor is quiet, a testament to just how early the workday starts around here. In Maine’s largest lobster port, many of its 350 boats motored off nearly two hours ago.

Read the full article at NewEngland.com

 

New England ocean warming slows but temperatures remain high

February 27, 2025 — The waters off New England had another warm year but didn’t heat up as fast as earlier this decade, bucking a trend of higher warming worldwide, said scientists who study the Atlantic Ocean near Maine.

The Gulf of Maine, which touches three New England states and Canada, emerged as a test case for climate change about a decade ago because it is warming much faster than most of the world’s oceans. The gulf is home to some of the country’s most valuable seafood species and is critical to the American lobster industry.

The gulf’s annual sea surface temperature last year was 51.5 degrees Fahrenheit (10.8 degrees Celsius), according to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland. That was more than 0.88 F (0.49 C) above the long-term average from 1991 to 2020, the institute said in a report released this month.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Federal Lobster Permit Holders: Lobster Trap Tag Ordering Instructions

February 12, 2025 — You must renew your federal lobster permit and order new lobster trap tags if you intend to fish for lobsters in federal waters with trap gear during the 2025 fishing year. This guide outlines how to order your trap tags.  You must renew your permit through the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office’s Fish Online. Fish Online is the website where you can submit electronic vessel trip reports, check your landings data, and manage your vessel’s permits. In some cases, you may be required to order trap tags through your state fisheries agency, as explained below.

To fish with lobster traps in federal waters, you must:

  1. Be eligible to fish in at least one lobster management area; and
  2. Select at least one lobster management area, which your permit qualifies for, on your federal permit renewal application.

Once your federal permit is issued for fishing year 2025, we will forward the lobster management areas you select on your Federal permit renewal application to Cambridge Security Seals so they appear on your 2025 trap tags. Only fishing year 2025 tags purchased through CSS will be considered valid on or after June 1, 2025. If you purchase your trap tags through a state agency, you must choose the same lobster management areas on the state’s trap tag order forms that you have chosen on your Federal permit renewal application. You must attach a 2025 trap tag to each fished lobster trap.

The deadline for attaching the 2025 trap tags to your lobster traps is June 1, 2025.  You are encouraged to renew your federal permit and apply for trap tags as soon as possible so that your tags can be authorized, manufactured, and mailed ahead of planned fishing activity.

Your federal lobster trap permit must be renewed before we will authorize CSS to issue tags for 2025.

Read the full article at NOAA Fisheries 

Stricter lobster fishing rules scrapped after complaints from fishermen about harm to industry

February 10, 2024 — Fishing industry regulators have decided to scrap stricter new lobster fishing standards off New England in the wake of months of protest from lobster fishermen that the rules were unnecessary and would bankrupt harvesters.

The regulators were planning to institute new rules this summer that increased the minimum legal harvest size for lobsters in some of the most important fishing grounds in the world. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Council, which manages the fishery, said the changes were important to preserve the future of a lobster population that has shown recent signs of decline.

Many commercial fishermen adamantly opposed the changes, which would have required them to throw back previously market-ready lobsters. An arm of the commission voted on Feb. 4 to initiate a repeal of the new rules in the face of “fervent industry concerns about the potential economic impacts” of the changes, the commission said in a statement.

Read the full article at ABC News

Proposal to change catch sizes for lobster repealed

February 5, 2025 — A controversial proposal looking to increase the minimum catch sizes for lobster has officially been repealed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

The vote happened Tuesday and came a month after the Maine Department of Marine Resources announced it wouldn’t be following the new rules due to push back from local lobstermen.

Read the full article at Fox 23

Maine and NH lobstermen celebrate reversal of lobster catch size limits

February 4, 2025 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission have walked back new regulations that New Hampshire and Maine lobstermen said would have dire economic consequences to their industry.

The commission voted Tuesday to repeal key elements of a proposed increase to minimum allowable catch sizes for Gulf of Maine lobster. The announcement comes after officials in Maine and New Hampshire, which together account for most of U.S. lobster landings, announced they would not cooperate with the proposal.

“New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) thanks the commission for heeding the voice of lobstermen,” said NEFSA COO and fourth-generation lobsterman Dustin Delano. “Raising catch sizes at this time would bankrupt many lobstermen and surrender the U.S. market to foreign competitors. NEFSA is grateful that the commission has chosen to support our historic trade, which contributes billions to New England’s economy and shapes the character of the region.”

Read the full article at Fosters Daily Democrat

MASSACHUSETTS: New Bedford Mayor Calls for Repeal of Lobster Size Limits New Bedford Mayor Calls for Repeal of Lobster Size Limits

February 4, 2024 — Mayor Jon Mitchell has penned a letter he hopes will help New Bedford lobstermen not feel the pinch come this summer.

Mitchell sent a letter today to Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Executive Director Robert Beal pushing for the repeal of Addendum XXVII to the ASMFC’s lobster fishery management plan, which is set to take effect in July and will limit the catch size of lobsters.

“As Mayor of America’s top commercial fishing port, I write to urge the ASMFC to repeal Addendum XXVII concerning lobster gauge size,” Mitchell wrote.

“I submit that the ASMFC should listen to lobstermen and work with them on alternatives that would be far less draconian and far more effective at sustaining the fishery and the fishermen in the long term,” he wrote.

Read the full article at WBSM

 

Massachusetts lobster fishing limits to protect whales restored by appeals court

January 31, 2025 —  A federal appeals court on Thursday restored a U.S. agency rule restricting lobster and Jonah crab fishing off the Massachusetts coast to protect endangered whales, rejecting a claim that the agency did not deserve deference under a recent landmark Supreme Court case.

In a 3-0 decision, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston said the National Marine Fisheries Service acted lawfully in banning from Feb. 1 to April 30 annually the use of vertical buoy lines in a 200-nautical-mile area of federal waters called the Massachusetts Restricted Area Wedge.

The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association sued to block the rule, saying a Dec. 2022 appropriations rider reflected the U.S. Congress’ intent not to extend emergency protections for North Atlantic right whales from earlier that year.

A federal district judge declared the rule void last March.

But in Thursday’s decision, Circuit Judge Seth Aframe called that a mistake because the rule was “in place” when the rider took effect, though it was not being enforced at that time.

Read the full article at Reuters