Saving Seafood

$16 million grant program opens to help Maine’s seafood industry

April 1, 2022 — A $16 million grant could go a long way for Maine’s seafood industry.

The multi-billion-dollar industry took a big hit during the pandemic, but a new grant program could help businesses trying to recover while preparing for the future.

This state grant program is for wholesale seafood dealers and processors, which play a vital role in the state’s overall economy.

For some, like Ray Trombley, this money comes at the perfect time. He has big plans for his small seafood business in Brunswick.

“I want a cooler three times the size of this,” Trombley said. “This whole cooler fills up one to two days.”

Read the full story at WGME

NORTH CAROLINA: Offshore drilling suspended on NC coast, fishing industry has mixed reactions

April 29, 2019 — The Trump administration has put a suspension on plans to expand offshore drilling off the North Carolina coast, leading to mixed reactions from the state fishing industry.

Randy Robinson, a representative of Brunswick County on the N.C. Fisheries Association Board of Directors thinks that the presence of offshore drilling “isn’t necessarily a bad idea.“ He considers that offshore drilling could play a role in increasing the net amount of jobs for North Carolinians.

Additionally, Robinson blames the N.C. Wildlife Federation for causing more damage than offshore drilling would do. He explains that the organization’s push to reduce trawls and limit the length of nets for fishing shrimp has negatively affected commercial fishing across the state’s coast.

Read the full story at WECT

Why some Maine coastal communities are up in arms about aquaculture

December 10, 2018 — From oyster farms to cultivated seaweed and farm-raised salmon, aquaculture is often described as essential to the economic future of Maine’s fisheries in the face of a changing ecosystem. Warming waters from climate change are pushing lobster farther Down East and have shut down the shrimp fishery, and threats such as ocean acidification and invasive green crabs are harming Maine’s natural fisheries.

But opposition to several proposed projects suggests the hardest part of getting into aquaculture might be getting past the neighbors. All along the coast, neighbors argue that pending aquaculture ventures will create too much noise, use too much energy, attract too many birds and obstruct their opportunities for boating or lobstering. One questioned whether an oyster farm would make it hard for deer to swim from one point of land to another.

In Belfast, abutters to the land where Nordic Aquafarms hopes to put in a giant land-based farm to raise salmon have filed a lawsuit against the city, which they say hastily and secretly approved a zoning change the company needed to move forward.

In Brunswick, opponents of a proposed 40-acre oyster farm have hired not just attorneys, but a public relations expert, Crystal Canney, in the hopes of persuading the Department of Marine Resources not to approve the lease.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Plans for second-largest oyster farm in US state of Maine runs into resistance

September 27, 2018 — An effort to launch what would be the second-largest oyster farm in the US state of Maine is running into some resistance, the Portland Press Herald reports.

Doug Niven and Dan Devereaux, owners of The Mere Point Oyster Co., in Brunswick, have planned a 40-acre oyster farm in Maquoit Bay, consolidating 26 aquaculture licenses to produce about 5 million oysters annually.

The bay is about 3,000 acres and the Maine Department of Marine Resources limit for aquaculture farms is 100 acres. A site review shows the farm unlikely to affect boat traffic or hinder lobster harvesters and bait fishermen.

But some residents, calling themselves the Maquoit Preservation Group, attended a meeting of the Brunswick Town Council last week to voice concerns about the proposal, including especially the impact on the environment and the amount of noise produced by the oyster tumbler. One resident compared the oyster sorting machine to having a cement mixer on the water. They say they were surprised to learn of the size of the farm, as most other oyster farms in the area are just five to 10 acres.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

MAINE: Thousands of dead bait fish wash ashore in Brunswick

June 18, 2017 — Over the last several days, thousands of dead bait fish have washed up on the shores of Middle and Maquoit bays in Brunswick.

The pogies, a type of bait fish, appeared to have died after a single vessel which caught them was ill equipped to handle a large catch, not low oxygen content in the water or predation by a larger fish, according to the Brunswick Police Department.

Since then, the Brunswick Police Department’s Marine Resources and Harbor Management Division has received numerous complaints about dead fish being found on the shore.

“It’s stinky,” Dan Devereaux, Brunswick’s harbor master and marine resource officer, said Sunday, adding that he has received at least 50 complaints from people complaining about the smell of rotting fish. Pogies are particularly pungent because their flesh is so oily, he said.

Devereaux said that on Sunday, a group of recent high school graduate and college students collected 21 totes full of fish within about a 70-yard stretch of the five-mile span of affected coastline.

In an effort to rid the town of rotting pogies, the town is inviting the local fishing community to come collect the excess fish for use as crab and lobster bait.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Maine Marine Patrol Searching for Missing Man on Androscoggin River

May 13, 2017 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

Maine Marine Patrol is searching for a missing man who, according to eye witness reports, fell from his boat into the Androscoggin River near Brunswick last night.

The man, Stephen Wines, 27 of Bailey Island, was on board a small boat in the Androscoggin with his brother William, 30 of Bailey Island, when eye witnesses on shore reported seeing them pass by in the water. The incident was reported to 911 at approximately 8:40 p.m.

Lifeflight of Maine and the Brunswick Fire Department conducted a search while Marine Patrol and Brunswick Police Department conducted an investigation of the incident last evening.

The boat has been recovered and life jackets were on board, however reports indicate that neither man was wearing a life jacket at the time of the incident. 

According to Marine Patrol reports, William made it to shore and was transported to a nearby hospital where he was treated and released.

The Marine Patrol along with Brunswick Police Department and the State Police/Marine Patrol Dive Team are continuing the search today, focusing their efforts near Bay Bridge Landing.

Crawling to Recovery: Loggerhead sea turtles reach a nesting milestone

July 18, 2016 — BRUNSWICK, Ga. — It’s been a record nesting season for Georgia’s loggerhead sea turtles, which last week reached a milestone in efforts to help the threatened species recover.

With 2,810 nests on Georgia barrier islands, the turtles edged past a key goal while also setting a record high since comprehensive nesting counts began in 1989.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries plan for goals for the region including Georgia and the Carolinas is a 2 percent annual nesting increase for a 50-year period. Before this season, Georgia’s 3 percent annual increase rate had the state on pace to hit its goal of 2,800 nests in 2020.

“We’ve had a number of increasing nesting years in a row, but this is kind of a big year for us,” Mark Dodd, coordinator for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Sea Turtle Program, said in a phone interview. “It’s been a long history of conservation in Georgia that culminated in this 2,800 nests number, so it’s pretty exciting for us.”

Georgia’s main nesting sea turtle, loggerheads weigh as much as 400 pounds. Female turtles crawl onto beaches from late spring into August to lay eggs in nests dug on the dry-sand beach, DNR officials say. Hatchlings begin emerging this month, crawling to the surf to begin their lives at sea.

Read the full story at the Albany Herald

MAINE: Mild winter heats up efforts to protect Casco Bay’s clams

May 2, 2016 — Soft-shell clams are a summer tradition around Casco Bay, both for the tourists and residents who love steamers and for the clam diggers who turn long, backbreaking hours on the mud flats into cold, hard cash.

But an infestation of invasive green crabs ravaged juvenile clam stocks in the past four years, adding to ecological changes, competition for coastal access and other pressures facing the state’s second most valuable fishery. Clam landings in the Casco Bay communities of Freeport, Harpswell and Brunswick, some of the state’s leading clam producers, plummeted to historic lows in 2015, and the scarcity of soft-shell clams contributed to all-time high prices.

While some shellfish managers say clam populations have rebounded thanks to a few cold winters that killed off green crabs, harvesters are anxious that the mild winter this year could produce a resurgence of green crabs and throw the fragile industry into a tailspin.

Those fears have clam diggers and scientists stepping up efforts to defend clam beds with boxes and nets. And they are fueling calls for a sea change in the management of soft-shell clams by leasing clam beds so that clammers can better protect the resource from predators.

Some are sounding alarms that without human intervention, the resource faces total collapse.

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like people are just going to be able to go out and dig clams like they have without the protection element,” said Sara Randall, a Freeport researcher working with clammers in that town.

Others worry about an overreaction. Although most agree that active management and conservation efforts will be required in the future, not all believe the industry is facing a doomsday.

“We realize there is a bunch going on, but we don’t see it as the end of wild harvest,” said Darcie Couture, a marine scientist working with Harpswell clammers.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald