Saving Seafood

Lobstermen win right to fish in coral protection zones

July 5, 2017 — Last month, the New England Fishery Management Council voted to prohibit most fishing in two prime areas off the Downeast coast, but the ban aimed at protecting deep sea corals won’t affect Maine lobstermen.

Meeting in Portland, the council approved two coral protection zones in the Gulf of Maine as part of a wider Omnibus Deep-Sea Coral Amendment.

The Outer Schoodic Ridge zone comprises a roughly rectangular area 12.8 miles long in a northeast to southwest direction and about 2.4 miles wide comprising 30.5 square miles located some 25 southeast of Mount Desert Island with water depths ranging from roughly 350 to more than 800 feet.

The five-sided Mount Desert Rock zone includes an area of 8.2 square miles with a perimeter of 13.7 miles extending southwest of the tiny islet, which lies about 20 miles south of MDI. Water depths in the coral protection zone range from 330 to 650 feet.

As part of a wider action aimed at protecting fragile deep sea corals along the Northeast Atlantic coast, the council banned the use of all bottom-tending mobile gear in the two protection zones. The prohibition includes gear such as trawls used to harvest groundfish and dredges used to harvest shellfish such as ocean quahogs and scallops.

“I’m very pleased the council struck a balance that provides protection for corals and will enable additional research on fishing gear impacts to corals, while ensuring millions of dollars of continued economic opportunity for Maine’s Downeast communities,” DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher said in an email last week. “I’m also grateful that industry stepped up to provide the detailed information on potential impacts that helped the council make a fully informed decision.”

Read the full story in the The Ellsworth American

This year, a welcome switch on bait supply for Maine lobstermen

June 29, 2017 — Maine lobstermen are hitting the water late this year because of cold weather, but without the cloud of a looming bait crisis hanging over them.

Bait freezers along the coast are full of herring and pogies, and even alewives, which means that bait is not only available, it is also much less expensive than last year when herring cost as much as 60 cents a pound, said Pat Keliher, commissioner of the state Department of Marine Resources. This year the lobstermen’s go-to bait costs about half as much.

That’s still not a great price, Keliher said. Herring fetched about 18 cents a pound at the start of the 2015 lobstering season.

“I won’t say we’re in great shape, but we are in a heck of a lot better shape than we were last year,” Keliher said.

He attributed the strong start to basic supply-and-demand economics. When the supply of bait fish is high and demand is low, lobstermen do well.

Fishermen caught herring in the deep waters off Georges Bank earlier this year than they did in 2016, Keliher said. Although they’ve landed a little more than last year – about 19.9 percent of their quota, compared with 19.1 percent at the same time last year, according to this week’s federal landing reports – this year’s catch came early enough in the season to keep prices low.

The inshore herring fishery in the Gulf of Maine opened this month. The state is applying the same restrictions it implemented last year to stretch out this local supply of fresh herring deep into the summer, when the lobster season starts to peak. These measures include weekly landing limits, a limit on how many days a week herring can be landed, and a prohibition on the use of carrier-only fishing vessels.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: Fishermen, regulators disagree over cause of Brunswick fish kill

June 26, 2017 — As a massive vacuum truck from Clean Harbors traveled along the shoreline near Simpsons Point midweek to clean up rotting pogies, local fishermen were battling what they say was a raft of misinformation put forth by the state about how and why those pogies were dumped from a local fishing vessel on June 6.

On Tuesday, a day after residents of the Simpsons Point area asked town councilors to help pay for a professional cleanup of the fish, local lobsterman Steve Anderson posted a 10-minute video on YouTube, taking local media to task for only reporting part of the story and excoriating the Maine Department of Marine Resources for a quota system Anderson said simply doesn’t work.

Anderson declined requests to speak to the Bangor Daily News this week.

But Jeff Nichols, spokesman for the DMR, said Friday that Anderson “got a lot of things wrong,” including that DMR imposes the quota system. According to Nichols, while fishermen are still held to a quota,they can transfer their catch to another vessel, to act as a carrier vessel.

Quotas for Atlantic Menhaden, or pogies, are imposed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and implemented by state marine resources regulators. This year’s quota allowed Maine fishermen to catch 161,000 pounds per year, then to reapply to catch more if there is still stock, as there is this year but not every year.

“We hit that [quota] at the end of May, and then we could apply for an ‘episodic event fishery’ quota triggered when there are still fish in the water,” Nichols said.

This year, fishermen were granted additional quotas of 120,000 pounds per day per boat, Nichols said.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Maine Marine Patrol Searching Penobscot River after Report of Abandoned Vehicle on Bridge

June 22, 2017 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

The Maine Marine Patrol this morning is searching the waters beneath the Penobscot Narrows Bridge after a report of an abandoned vehicle on the bridge.

The Marine Patrol received the report at approximately 6:00 am this morning and began searching shortly after 7:00 am. The report indicated that the vehicle was discovered at approximately 3:30 am.

The State Police is investigating this incident.

Hundreds of dead fish prompt call for changes at Ellsworth dam

June 16, 2017 — River herring are dying in droves this month in Ellsworth after passing through Leonard Lake Dam, according to a Maine conservation group calling for safer passage for the fish.

“Community members have reported seeing hundreds of dead fish floating down stream below the dam and the Route 1 bridge on multiple occasions over the past 12 days,” said Brett Ciccotelli of the Downeast Salmon Federation. “Dead fish have been seen as far downstream as the city’s Harbor Park.”

Some of those fish appeared to have parts chopped off, while others suffered slashes across their sides or were missing eyes, indicating they struck turbines in the dam, according to the group.

The federation says “thousands” of adult river herring have been killed since early this month while returning from their spawning grounds farther upriver. The group made similar claims following another large-scale fish kill back in October.

“Their life history — needing fresh water to lay their eggs and returning to the same rivers year after year — makes dams without safe downstream passage particularly dangerous to river herring,” Ciccotelli said.

Brookfield Renewables, the parent company that owns the Ellsworth dam, is in the midst of a five-year process for renewing its federal license for the dam for another 30 years.

Ciccotelli argued that one requirement of that renewal should be an upgrade to the fish passage through the dam to reduce the number of fish kills.

Brookfield did not immediately return messages Friday requesting comment.

In October, Brookfield said in a news release that it was “constantly working to minimize the potential environmental impacts associated with our operations and activities.”

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

What did your lobster eat before you ate your lobster? And why should you care?

May 23, 2017 — If you like lobster – and care about maintaining the fishery as both a cultural and economic resource in Maine – should you care what it ate before it made it to your plate?

Lobsters get a bad rap for being scavengers, says veterinarian scientist Robert C. Bayer, executive director of the University of Maine’s Lobster Institute in Orono. In fact, they have rather discerning chemosensory apparatus housed in the short antennae on their heads and tiny sensing hairs all over their bodies.

With a sense of smell more akin to a dog’s than a human’s, lobsters can sniff out a single amino acid that tags their favorite food. For Maine lobsters, that’s herring. So lobstermen favor it as bait up and down the coast.

In 2016 the state’s lobster fishery hit record numbers in volume (over 130 million pounds) and value ($530 million). With so many traps in play, herring became the second-most valuable fishery in Maine, weighing in at $19 million last year. The hike in its value corresponded with the demand from hungry lobsters just as there was a drop off in herring landings in New England.

Earlier this month, interstate marine fisheries regulators approved new rules to avoid another bait shortage. To space out the catch, herring fishermen are now subject to a weekly limit on the amount they can bring to shore. Bayer says it takes one pound of herring to produce one pound of lobster. That same input/output ratio, when used in fin fish aquaculture, has been rendered an unsustainable practice.

Read the full story at CentralMaine.com

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.

MAINE: Fishing surveillance bill amended

May 10, 2017 — A bill that would authorize the Department of Marine Resources to conduct surreptitious electronic surveillance of lobster boats drew mixed reviews at a hearing by the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee in April.

But at a work session last Wednesday, the committee voted to recommend passage of an amended version of the bill.

Introduced by Rep. Walter Kumiega (D-Deer Isle) at the request of the Department of Marine Resources, LD 1379 — as initially formulated — would have given the DMR commissioner authority to approve installation of electronic tracking devices on lobster boats without first getting a warrant from a judge. The approval would have been based on an affidavit from the chief of the Marine Patrol that he had “probable cause” to believe that a civil violation of the laws regulating the placement or hauling of lobster gear had occurred.

At its work session last week, the committee scrapped the idea of authorizing the commissioner to approve installation of tracking devices and took a new approach.

According to committee Co-chairman Kumiega, the committee opted to make four kinds of conduct “associated with fishing over the limit” of traps allowed Class D misdemeanors.

As of now, these violations are civil offenses.

The reason for the change, Kumiega said, is that Marine Patrol officers could not obtain sealed warrants from a judge when the offenses were handled as civil violations.

As criminal offenses, that all would change. Marine Patrol officers would be able to obtain warrants without giving notice to the subject of an investigation.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

Officials: Maine Elver Harvest at Almost 80 Percent of Annual Quota

May 8, 2017 — After a slow start, Maine fishermen are closing in on their annual harvest quota for baby glass eels more than a month before the season officially ends.

Jeff Nichols, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Marine Resources, said the eels — known as elvers — are currently fetching around $1,300 a pound from dealers, who can’t ship the catch to Asian markets fast enough.

“We’re probably at almost 80 percent of the total quota, harvesters have landed over 7,500 pounds of the 9,616 of the overall quota and that leaves a couple of thousand pounds left to harvest,” he said.

Read the full story at Maine Public Radio

Harsher penalties for lobstermen who cheat get legislative support

May 4, 2017 — A legislative committee voted unanimously Wednesday to toughen penalties on lobstermen who fish too many traps or use “sunken trawls,” as part of an industry-supported effort to crack down on lawbreakers.

“I do think this is going to get people’s attention and will hopefully make people realize that it doesn’t pay to cheat,” said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

Lawmakers are considering a suite of requests from the Maine Department of Marine Resources for more enforcement tools and tougher sanctions against violators in an industry worth more than $500 million last year.

A bill unanimously endorsed by the Marine Resources Committee, L.D. 575, would allow DMR’s commissioner to order longer license suspensions for lobstermen who violate the laws on the first offense and, in several cases, permanently revoke the licenses of repeat offenders.

For instance, violators caught fishing more than the legal limit of 800 traps or fishing “sunken trawls” without marker buoys would face a minimum three-year suspension – up from the current one year – and could lose their licenses for up to 10 years. Removing or “scrubbing” the eggs from female lobsters would result in a minimum four-year license suspension, and “molesting” other fishermen’s traps could result in a suspension from two to six years. The current maximum for molesting gear is three years.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald