Saving Seafood

MAINE: 15,000 Atlantic salmon will be put into the Penobscot River over the next three years

October 7, 2019 — As many as 15,000 adult Atlantic salmon will be put into the Penobscot River over the next three years, most of them after being raised in penstocks off the coast of Washington County. They are expected to create up to 56 million eggs as part of one of the most ambitious efforts yet at reversing the decades-long decimation of Maine’s wild salmon population.

The first 5,000 fish will be placed in the East Branch of the Penobscot River near the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument next fall as part of the Salmon for Maine’s Rivers program, which is funded by a $1.1 million federal grant and involves the state and federal governments, a Native American tribe and a New Brunswick-based company that raises salmon in pens off the Maine coast.

The grant will pay for successive annual infusions of 5,000 Atlantic salmon — half of them female — into the river until 2022, said Sean Ledwin, director of sea-run fisheries at the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Aquaculture Operation to Support Novel Approach to Wild Atlantic Salmon Restoration

October 3, 2019 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) will employ a novel approach to rearing Atlantic salmon for restoring native populations on the East Branch of the Penobscot.

The project, funded through a NOAA Section 6 Species Recovery Grant totaling $1,075,000, will involve a partnership between DMR, Cooke Aquaculture USA, US Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA Fisheries, and the Penobscot Indian Nation to grow juvenile Atlantic salmon to adult size in aquaculture pens located near Cutler Maine. The adult salmon will then be released into the East Branch of the Penobscot to spawn, a river with large amounts of high-quality salmon habitat.

Smolts raised from native broodstock by the US Fish and Wildlife Service at the Green Lake National Fish Hatchery in Ellsworth, Maine, and smolts captured in the wild by rotary screw traps will be used to stock the marine net pens in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Smolts will include only those from Penobscot River origin to ensure the genetic integrity of salmon released into the river.

Plans call for increasing the number of smolts captured in the wild from the East Branch to be used to supply juveniles that will be grown out in the net pens. While hatchery spawned fish help ensure an adequate supply of fish for recovery goals, those spawned in the natural environment are more robust due to the impact of natural selection which results in fish that are better suited to survival in the wild.

The smolts will be placed in net pens under a limited-purpose aquaculture lease in Cutler, Maine where they will be fed and managed in cooperation with Cooke Aquaculture USA for 16 to 30 months, during which time they will grow to mature adults. The DMR will hold the lease on the pens while Cooke will supply the pens and feed for the salmon as they grow.

“We are committed to be part of this wild Atlantic salmon enhancement project in Maine. Cooke Aquaculture has the experience working with Atlantic salmon in their natural environment based on proven aquaculture and fish-health science. Working with the Penobscot Nation and government partners, together we will make this restoration program a success by seeing the fish return to their native waters,” said Glenn Cooke, CEO, Cooke Aquaculture USA.

Approximately 5,000 adult fish will be transported from the net pens to target tributaries and the mainstem of the East Branch of the Penobscot River in the fall of 2021 or 2022 where they will find suitable habitat to naturally spawn. This will result in more spawning adults than have been present in the Penobscot River for decades.

While net pens are not new in Maine for cultivating Atlantic salmon, using them to cultivate salmon for conservation purposes at this scale is new in Maine and showing promise in a Bay of Fundy partnership between Cooke and Canadian provincial and federal governments, First Nations and academia.

The Penobscot Indian Nation has inhabited the Penobscot River drainage since time immemorial. The deep cultural, spiritual and historical connections between the Tribe and the Atlantic salmon of the Penobscot River go back thousands of years, said Dan McCaw, Fisheries Program Manager for the Penobscot Nation. The Penobscot Nation is hopeful that this new program can help to restore this iconic species to its ancestral homeland and applauds the collaborative nature of this multi-stakeholder endeavor.

As populations expand, the goal is to build healthy wild populations of Atlantic Salmon on the East Branch, including the potential for downlisting. The estimated 5,000 adults produced by this effort could result in 20 times more eggs in the gravel in the Penobscot River basin compared to existing stocking and natural reproduction, said Sean Ledwin, Director of DMR’s Searun Fisheries and Habitat Division.

The program will involve surveys of redds in spawning areas to assess spawning success of released fish. Released fish will also be tracked using Passive integrated transponders (PIT tags) and radio telemetry. Electrofishing surveys and use of rotary screw traps, along with genetic analysis, will be used to assess the abundance of offspring from this effort.

The program will also include a public outreach effort undertaken by the department and other program partners that will provide information on salmon and other sea-run species, and the impact of protecting ecosystems on which they rely.

https://www.maine.gov/dmr/news-details.html?id=1597983

Lobster landings post turnaround, Maine’s fisheries’ overall value second highest on record

March 5, 2019 — Maine’s lobster harvesters had a strong year in 2018, landing 119.64 million pounds.

That was an increase of nearly 8 million pounds over 2017’s figure of 111.9 million pounds, according to a Department of Marine Resources news release.

The landings peak was in 2016, when 132.6 million pounds were harvested, after four years in the range of 122 million to 127 million pounds, according to the agency’s data.

Last year was the seventh time in history that landings exceeding 110 million pounds.

At $484.544 million, the value of Maine’s lobster fishery climbed by more than $46 million over 2017 on the strength of a boat price that increased from $3.92 per-pound in 2017 to $4.05 in 2018.

U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, during a visit to Maine Fishermen’s Forum in Rockport over the weekend, took the occasion to commend the work of the men and women in Maine’s fishing industry, “whose hard work drives the economy and helps support families and communities up and down the coast.”

But he also highlighted in a news release the threat to Maine’s lobster fishery posed by climate change and the increasingly warmer temperatures in the Gulf of Maine that are causing lobsters to migrate northward to cooler waters.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

New bill would change Massachusetts lobster processing laws

January 18, 2019 — The first bill introduced in the Massachusetts Senate in 2019 aims to modernize the state’s lobster processing rules and expand in-state processing.

Massachusetts currently allows only for the production and sale of live and cooked lobsters and canned lobster meat, while raw and frozen lobsters are shipped to either Maine or Canada for processing before returning to the state.

“Our state has the second-largest lobster catch in the country. Yet without this bill, raw and frozen lobster parts are processed in Canada or Maine only to be brought back to our local consumers,” said the bill’s sponsor, State Senate Majority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester). “This bill modernizes those lobster laws to bolster the fishing industry and give consumers, including local restaurants and food stores, more choices, all while sustainably supporting coastal fishing communities.”

In 2017, Massachusetts lobstermen landed 16.57 million pounds of lobster for a total value of $81.54 million.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

MAINE: Scallop prices variable, but comparable to last year

January 10, 2019 — The price of scallops caught in Maine waters is comparing well with previous years.

The Ellsworth American reported that harvesters were receiving prices as high as nearly $14 per pound. But in some cases, harvesters received $8.75 to $10.75 per pound, depending on meat size.

That compares with the 2017-18 scallop season, which started off with prices that were down $2 to $3 from 2016-17’s average of $12.77.

In 2017, Maine scallop harvesters landed the most scallops since 1997, bringing ashore 793,544 meat pounds, a nearly 45% jump from 2016. At $9.3 million, scallop landings had the highest overall value since 1993.

The 2018-19 season began Dec. 1. By Jan. 4, the Maine Department of Marine Resources had begun implementing its emergency rulemaking authority to implement conservation closures along parts of the coast to protect the scallop resource from the risk of depletion of broodstock and seed scallop. Called “targeted conservation closures,” they’re determined by the marine resources commissioner based on depletion, seed, the presence of spat-producing scallops and other factors.

Read the full story at Maine Biz

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

Maine awards 11 new fishing licenses for valuable baby eels

January 25, 2018 — For the first time in five years, the state has issued new licenses for Maine’s lucrative baby eel fishery.

Eleven people were chosen through a lottery that more than 3,000 Mainers hoped to win, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The deadline for submitting applications to participate was Jan. 15.

In 2013, the last time the state held the drawing, more than 5,000 people applied for the chance to win one of four new elver fishing licenses.

Each new licensee will be allowed to catch up to four pounds of baby eels, also known as elvers, which usually sell for more than $1,000 per pound. Since 2014, the average annual price paid to elver fishermen has varied from about $875 per pound to more than $2,100.

The licenses have become a hot commodity as the price for elvers has skyrocketed, driven by voracious demand in Asia for eels. In 2016, the most recent year for which statistics are available, approximately 1,000 licensed Maine fishermen netted nearly $13.5 million worth of elvers.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Maine: Lobstermen reject big changes in harvester reporting rules

January 17, 2018 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — Ask any lobsterman about the details of where and how he catches his bugs — what kind of bait he uses, how deep he sets his gear, how many traps on a trawl, how long those traps soak between hauls — and you’re likely to get a fisheye, if not a poke in the nose, in response.

Still, that’s the kind of information the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission wants to collect from lobstermen and Jonah crab fishermen working in the Gulf of Maine and, no surprise, the idea is unpopular.

Last Thursday, about 40 fishermen came to Ellsworth High School for a public hearing on an ASMFC proposal to increase the number of harvesters required to fill out trip-level logbooks filled with data the commission says it needs to manage the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries, primarily in the Gulf of Maine.

The Department of Marine Resources already requires 10 percent of Maine’s licensed lobster fishermen, chosen annually by lottery system, to file detailed trip-level reports of their fishing activities on a monthly basis. Lobster dealers also are required to file landings reports with DMR.

According to Megan Ware, the ASMFC fishery management plan coordinator running last week’s hearing, the commission has two main concerns about the way harvesters report data now.

First, she said, the reports don’t identify in sufficient detail exactly where fishermen are trapping the lobsters they catch, and the commission particularly wants to collect more information about lobsters landed in “nearshore” and “offshore” waters — between three and 40 miles from the coast.

Second, the 10 percent of Maine harvesters required to file reports aren’t necessarily representative of the harvesters who actually land lobsters. No one has to report two years in a row, no matter how big the harvester’s landings, and because the selection process is entirely random, it may include harvesters who fish part time or who are retired and don’t fish at all.

There is another issue with the 10 percent reporting level, Ware said. Maine harvesters account for 83 percent of lobsters landed along the East Coast, so their data is particularly important to fisheries managers.

The opposite side of that coin, though, is that even at a reduced collection level Maine’s data overwhelms the data reported by the other lobster-fishing states.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

 

Maine to issue new licenses for lucrative elvers for first time since 2013

November 15, 2017 — For the first time since 2013, state officials will allow new fishermen into the lucrative baby eel fishery.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources says it plans to hold a lottery to issue at least seven new licenses to harvest baby eels, or elvers, in 2018. The last time DMR issued new licenses in the fishery was in February 2013.

The state started accepting lottery applications at noon on Wednesday.

For the past four years, the fishery has generated between $8 million and $13.4 million in gross statewide annual revenue for Maine’s approximately 1,000 licensed fishermen, which includes members of Maine’s native Indian tribes. During that time, the average annual statewide price offered to fishermen has ranged from $874 to $2,171 per pound.

Each new license holder will be allowed to harvest at least four pounds of elvers during the 2018 season, which is scheduled to begin in late March. Based on 2017 prices, when Maine fishermen were paid on average just above $1,300 per pound, four pounds of elvers could amount to nearly $6,000 in income, DMR officials said.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Maine weighs lottery to issue first new scallop licenses since 2009

October 18, 2017 — BANGOR, Maine — Nearly a decade after halting new licenses for scallop fishing to protect the stock from depletion, Maine is considering how to encourage new people into the fishery.

Prices for scallops remain historically high, and Maine’s scallop fishermen are getting older, prompting the state to contemplate adopting a lottery system for new licenses. The average age for licensed scallop fishermen in Maine is 51.

Maine’s Department of Marine Resources stopped issuing new scallop fishing licenses eight years ago, when the state fishery was floundering from declining stocks. A new fishery management scheme the state developed and implemented since then has helped stocks recover.

The department now wants to develop a system to start issuing new licenses again but, at the same time, protect the long-term stability of the fishery. DMR officials have said they would like to reduce the number of licenses in the fishery while simultaneously letting new people in, but they are not looking to reduce the number of licenses by a specific amount.

There are approximately 630 licensed scallop fishermen in Maine. Nearly 90 percent drag for the shellfish with nets by boat while the rest dive to collect them by hand.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News