Saving Seafood

Maine eyes concepts for developing Searsport as offshore wind hub

February 16, 2022 — State agencies have developed concepts to use the port of Searsport as a manufacturing hub for the burgeoning offshore wind industry.

“We envision an entire port concept,” said Matthew Burns, director of ports and marine transportation with the Maine Department of Transportation.

Burns spoke during a webinar last week, hosted by Augusta public policy nonprofit Maine Conservation Voters, on proposed plans to develop the port for offshore wind.

In November, Gov. Janet Mills directed her administration to study options for renewable energy development at the state’s commercial ports, calling offshore wind an “unprecedented economic and investment opportunity for Maine.”

Led by the Governor’s Energy Office, the Maine Department of Transportation and other agencies, officials are looking at a variety of wind options at Searsport, Portland, Eastport and others.

Read the full story at Mainebiz

Great whites attracted by plentiful seal populations in Maine waters

July 29, 2020 — Monday’s fatal shark attack off Harpswell is the result of rebounding great white shark and seal populations along the Maine coast, experts say.

The attack on Julie Dimperio Holowach, 63, was the first fatal shark attack in the state’s history. A diver was attacked off Eastport in 2010, according to the Florida Museum’s International Shark Attack File, but he was not injured and fended off a porbeagle shark with his video camera.

Seal populations have grown since a 1972 law barred killing of marine mammals and white shark numbers have been rebounding for two decades as a result of a rule that said fishermen could no longer kill the fearsome predators, a shark expert based in Massachusetts said.

Gregory Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries dismissed speculation that warming water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine might be enticing more great whites to the state’s coastline.

He said the sharks always have been frequent visitors to Maine waters, but that growing seal populations might be drawing them closer to the shore. Seals are a favorite food of the great white, he said.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald