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.

Read the full article at Spectrum News

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.”

Read the full article at Down East

November 2, 2022 — If you’re looking for a resolution to an escalating clash between advocates for right whales and the Maine lobstering industry, your best bet these days could be something called the Ropeless Consortium.

The one-day event, held Oct. 24 at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts, seems like one of few arenas these days where fishermen, scientists, regulators, environmentalists and business representatives can get together and find common ground.

“What everyone is trying to do,” says Michael Moore, a marine veterinarian at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a major proponent of ropeless fishing gear, “is to enable the lobster fishery to survive and the right whale to survive. We have to allow both to prosper.”

At the Ropeless Consortium, those in the industry discussed ropeless gear, an innovative new lobster fishing system that uses acoustic signals to activate a trap on the bottom of the ocean. At the signal, a buoy inflates and carries a line stored on the bottom up to the surface so the lobsterman can haul their trap.

The new ropeless technology has some in the industry optimistic because it would drastically lessen the odds that it would become entangled with right whales. That’s a start, because everywhere else – like the courts, the waterfront, the research labs and the political sphere — has seen the issue get pretty hopeless.

Lobster fishing and right whales have been coming into increasing conflict in recent years, both in the waters of the North Atlantic and in federal courts of law. Most Maine citizens probably would like to support both the Maine lobster industry and the North Atlantic right whale, but the lobster-whale wars have tended to force people to take sides – lobstermen and politicians on one side, scientists, regulators, conservationists and the courts on the other.

“I would completely agree” that all parties have to allow both species to prosper, says Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. McCarron said there “could be a place” for ropeless technology in certain areas, but doesn’t see lobstermen using it everywhere without a federal mandate requiring them to.

“Maine fishermen really do care deeply about the right whale. They are working hard to do the right thing, but they are worried our fishery will be regulated out of existence.”

Read the full article at the Portland Phoniex