Saving Seafood

Study says ocean oscillation changes reduced shellfish landings

November 6, 2018 — For years, Maine shellfish harvesters have been complaining that there are fewer softshell clams while arguing that the diggers who go out on the mud flats aren’t the cause of the problem.

A recent study by researchers from NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources backs them up on both counts.

According to Clyde L. MacKenzie Jr. of NOAA and Mitchell Tarnowski from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, between 1980 and 2010, documented landings of the four most commercially important inshore bivalve mollusks along the Northeast coast — eastern oysters, northern quahogs, softshell clams and northern bay scallops — dropped by 85 percent.

The principal cause, they say, was warming ocean temperatures associated with a shift in the North Atlantic Oscillation which resulted in damaged shellfish habitat and increased predation from Maine to North Carolina.

“My first response is that the article confirms what I have been seeing with soft-shell clams over at least the last decade or so,” Brian Beal, a professor of marine ecology at the University of Maine Machias and director of research at the Downeast Institute on Great Wass Island, said last week.

The North Atlantic Oscillation is a fluctuation of atmospheric pressure over the North Atlantic that affects both the weather and the climate along the East Coast, especially in winter and early spring.

According to NOAA, shifts in the oscillation can affect the timing of a species’ reproduction and growth, the availability of microscopic organisms for food and predator-prey relationships.

Over a period of several years, MacKenzie and Tarnowski interviewed shellfish wardens and harvesters along the New England coast, as well as examining landings records and other research in an effort to determine the “true causes” of the precipitous drop in shellfish landings.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Researchers identify causes of decline in shellfish harvests

November 5, 2018 — NOAA researchers studying the 85 percent decline between 1980 and 2010 of the four most commercially-important bivalve mollusks — eastern oysters, northern quahogs, softshell clams, and northern bay scallops — have identified the causes.

Along with the sharp decline in commercially important bivalves, there has been a corresponding decline in the numbers of fishermen (89 percent) who harvested the bivalves, said researchers with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service.

The bivalve declines are in contrast to the previous three decades (1950–80) when the combined landings of the same bivalves were much higher and the trend in each of their annual landings was nearly level, decade by decade.

The only exceptions to the declines were seen in the harvest of northern quahogs in Connecticut and American lobsters in Maine. However, the numbers of American lobster landings have fallen precipitously – as much as 98 percent – from southern Massachusetts to New Jersey.

The researchers also found during the course of the study that a number of groups of marine and land animals have also experienced large shifts in abundance since the early 1980’s.

Read the full story at Digital Journal

Some North Carolina seafood unsafe to eat after Hurricane Florence

October 26, 2018 — Some seafood caught in North Carolina may not be safe to eat in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence.

Florence made landfall in Wrightsville Beach on Sept. 14. It was a Category 1 storm at landfall, and the storm moved extremely slowly–dumping dozens of inches of rain on many parts of North Carolina.

Florence dumped 8 trillion gallons of water on North Carolina. That’s enough to fill Falls Lake more than 70 times.

The influx of water turned creeks and streams into whitewater rapids that picked up everything in their paths.

The polluted runoff spilled into the Cape Fear River and Neuse River, then into the Pamlico Sound, and finally into the Atlantic Ocean.

The runoff forced North Carolina’s Department of Marine Fisheries to order a blanket ban on harvesting any shellfish off the coast. Months after the storm, miles of coastline remain off limits.

Wildlife most vulnerable to the pollution are filter feeders like clams, mussels and oysters.

Read the full story at ABC 11

Jeffrey Bolton replaces Daniel Cohen as CEO of Atlantic Capes Fisheries

October 19, 2018 — Cape May, New Jersey, U.S.A.-based scallop firm Atlantic Capes Fisheries, Inc., has appointed its longtime employee, Jeffrey Bolton, as its new chief executive officer.

Bolton, 57, has served as COO of the processing, sales, and marketing subsidiary of the company since 2003 and has worked in the seafood industry for 37 years.

Atlantic Capes’ primary product is scallops, though it also harvests, processes, and markets surf clams, lobster, crawfish, catfish, and other Mid-Atlantic species for retailers, distributors, and foodservice operators in the North American market. It has its own fleet of 17 sea scallop vessels and has sourcing agreements with an additional 50 independent boats, giving it an estimated 22 percent of all U.S. sea scallop landings. The company also owns Galilean Seafoods, a surf clam plant in Bristol, Rhode Island that produces Marine Stewardship Council clams shucked by hand.

David Cohen, the founder of Atlantic Capes, is stepping down as CEO but will continue to play an active role in the company as chairman of its board of directors. In a press release, he said he “will oversee the expansion of the board and its advisors to expand the diversity of advisors available to assist the new CEO.”

“Jeff joined us in 2003, and very simply, he has been a transformational figure here. Every step of the way, he led the growth and evolution of ACF from seasonal harvester of commodity shellfish to a world-class food company – a year-round supplier of finished products sold to multiple end-user channels,” Cohen said. “His execution made it possible for us to increase sales many times over and to create an organization that provides a gainful living to many hundreds of people. I am confident in Jeff’s abilities and excited for the future of the company under his full leadership.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Alaska razor clam harvest expected to dip

October 11, 2018 — Cook Inlet clammers dug on a quota of more than 350,000 pounds as the season got underway in May. The diggers arrive at Polly Creek in spring, put up semi-permanent camps and hit the low tides each morning in search of razor clams, which are lugged back up the beach, where the sands are solid enough to land small airplanes. The planes ferry them from the west side of the inlet to a processing plant at Nikiski, which is north of Kenai on the Kenai Peninsula.

Clam meat recovery runs 40 to 50 percent. In 2016, the clammers dug 284,800 pounds of razors, and the harvest fell to 177,147 pounds in the 2017 season. Preliminary harvest data for 2018 suggests the harvest will wind up around 175,940 pounds, down sharply from the 380,912 pounds that diggers dug just five years ago.

The decline in production could be tied to a couple of factors, according to Pat Shields, a regional management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Soldotna.

“There are fewer diggers working for the company now,” said Shields. “They used to average around 20 to 22 diggers per year, and now they’re down to something like 14 to 15.”

Most of the product winds up in retail markets along the West Coast. Diggers are paid 90 cents a pound for food-grade clams and 60 cents for those with broken shells, which are used for bait.

According to Shields, 2018 revenues tallied up to $175,624 for food-grade clams and $2,344 for bait.

Meanwhile, Alaska’s fleet of just two scallop dredgers worked on a statewide guideline harvest level of 265,000 pounds (shucked meat) The majority of the 145,000-pound GHL for the 2018-19 season has been set for harvest areas near Yakutat, with another 85,000 pounds available for harvest areas surrounding Kodiak. The Cook Inlet harvest area has been closed in an effort to conserve dwindling biomass.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Maine nonprofit awarded NOAA grant to develop green crab market

September 19, 2018 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program has given a grant of USD 267,440 (EUR 229,165) to a Maine, U.S.A.-based nonprofit Manomet in order to work on creating a fishery for invasive European green crabs.

The grant will allow Manomet to expand its project on creating a new economic opportunity out of soft-shell green crabs in New England. The green crab, a species that is invasive to New England, has been present for more than a hundred years and has recently expanded in numbers to the point it is putting pressure on local species.

That pressure has contributed to record low landings of caught and farmed mussels, and also threatens Maine’s softshell clam industry.

Manomet has already launched efforts to galvanize efforts on commercializing green crabs. On 6 and 7 June, the organization hosted a “Green Crab Working Summit” in Portland, Maine, to bring together various experts to discuss commercialization of the species.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Residents alarmed by proposed expansion of Maine shellfish farm

September 17, 2018 — ELIOT, Maine — Frustrated residents from the Eliot and Kittery sides of Spinney Creek appeared before the Select Board Thursday night, seeking recourse about their concerns of the proposed expansion of Spinney Creek Shellfish.

Spinney Creek Shellfish, at 27 Howell Drive in Eliot, is applying to the Maine Department of Marine Resources to obtain a three-year aquaculture lease on 3.67 acres of Spinney Creek, a salt pond between Eliot and Kittery off the Piscataqua River. The new lease is for raising oysters and littleneck clams (quahogs) in suspended cages.

The residents have discovered Eliot and Kittery’s boards have no control over aquaculture in the pond.

Roberta Place of Spring Lane on Spinney Creek said residents of 50 households bordering the creek are concerned about the creek’s health.

“I have lived there a long time. I used to swim there with a wet suit. Now the temperature in the creek is 74 degrees,” she said.

She said she thought oysters are supposed to clean water, but added that the eelgrass in front of house has disappeared.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

NEFMC Sends Clam Dredge Framework Back to Habitat Committee to Develop New Alternatives

July 5, 2018 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council voted on June 14 to remand its draft Clam Dredge Framework Adjustment to the Habitat Committee for further development. The Council also issued a specific request to the surfclam industry to propose additional alternatives for consideration and analysis.

The Council initially was scheduled to select the framework’s range of alternatives, which then would have been analyzed in detail over the summer by the Habitat Plan Development Team (PDT). Under this timeline, the Council potentially could have taken final action on the framework in September.

However, during the Council’s recent meeting in Portland, ME, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS, NOAA Fisheries) Regional Administrator expressed concern that all of the alternatives proposed to date in the Clam Dredge Framework appeared to include a fair amount of “sensitive habitat” and may not meet the framework’s “purpose and need for action.”

The Regional Administrator recognized that additional analyses were forthcoming and stressed that no conclusive determination had been made.

Nonetheless, the Council clearly heard the words of caution, noting that NMFS may have a challenging time approving proposed surfclam hydraulic dredge exemption areas within the Great South Channel Habitat Management Area (HMA) if the framework’s purpose and need aren’t met.

Read the full release here

Massachusetts: Two Essex clam flats reopen

May 31, 2018 — ESSEX, Mass. — State fisheries regulators reopened two of Essex’s clam-harvesting areas on Wednesday, helping mitigate potential demand issues for restaurants and seafood dealers following Sunday’s town-wide closure because of sewage contamination.

Following a second examination, the state Division of Marine Fisheries reopened two harvesting areas — N 7-4 and N 7-5 — that overlap into Ipswich and are among the farthest away from the Main Street area where the sewer pipe broke Saturday night and sent its contents surging into the Essex River.

The rest of the town’s clam flats remain closed indefinitely, with no indication when they might reopen.

According to the order DMF issued Sunday to the towns of Essex and Ipswich, as well as the city of Gloucester, the entire N 7 Essex Bay area was closed to clamming.

The N7 Essex Bay area, according to the closure notice, includes “the waters, flats and tributaries of Essex Bay in the Towns of Ipswich and Essex and the City of Gloucester, inside and south and west of a line drawn across the Essex Bay inlet from the southern most point of Crane Beach in the Town of Ipswich easterly to the northern most point of Two Penny Loaf in Gloucester.”

The reopening of the two harvesting areas at Middle Castle Neck River and Lower Castle Neck River went into effect at sunrise Wednesday and clammers wasted little time resuming the harvest.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Climate change to have drastic effects on Gulf of Maine lobster and clam fisheries, studies say

May 23, 2018 — AUGUSTA, Maine — Two new scientific studies are highlighting the current and future impacts that rising ocean temperatures will have on lobster, clams and other important commercial fisheries in the Gulf of Maine.

Research on nearly 700 North American fish species predicts Atlantic cod habitat could shrink by as much as 90 percent by century’s end and that lobster populations could shift 200 miles farther north as a result of climate change. Meanwhile, a separate research project suggests Maine’s soft-shell clam industry could collapse unless steps are taken to protect the fishery from green crabs that are thriving in the state’s warming waters.

“Something is out of whack and we need to do something about it. We need to adapt,” said University of Maine professor Brian Beal, who has studied soft-shell clams for more than 30 years.

The studies are part of a growing body of scientific work seeking to understand – and look beyond – changes that fishermen across the country are witnessing on the water every day.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald