Saving Seafood

Shutdown hampers planning for management of fisheries

January 23, 2019 — The New England Fishery Management Council will meet as scheduled next week, but the agenda for the three-day meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, will be colored by the ongoing shutdown of much of the federal government.

While the council is not scheduled to vote on any final actions, the shutdown has precluded a legion of scientific and fisheries management staff at the Gloucester-based Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office and NOAA Fisheries’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center from contributing analysis and participating as they normally would in the management process.

“It’s really affected the plan development teams,” said Janice Plante, council spokeswoman. “Without their participation, the plan development teams just can’t get the analyses done. We knew this would be one implication of the shutdown. But the longer and longer it goes on, the more and more we miss their participation.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

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

MASSACHUSETTS: Ripple effect of shutdown felt across Cape Cod

January 14, 2019 — Brewster Natural Resources Director Chris Miller was in Washington, D.C., this week at an environmental conference where half the speakers he had hoped to hear — all federal environmental and science agency employees — were absent.

While many stories have focused on the shutdown’s financial effects on employees, it is also hurting those who depend on the federal government for funding and expertise.

The New England Fishery Management Council, which formulates management plans for the billion-dollar Northeast commercial fishing industry, depends on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists and fishery management personnel for analysis and input. But NOAA headquarters in Gloucester and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole are closed, and the council has had to postpone any decisions at their upcoming meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and postpone most advisory committee meetings until the shutdown is resolved.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Shutdown hooks fisheries

January 10, 2018 — The real-world implications from the partial shutdown of the federal government, which entered its 19th day on Wednesday, are starting to be felt by the fishing industry and other stakeholders.

In Gloucester, the shutdown effectively has shuttered the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office on Great Republic Drive, impeding fishermen from dropping off documentation in person, contacting NOAA Fisheries personnel by telephone or email, and leaving other regulatory groups scrambling without essential input and participation from many NOAA Fisheries staffers.

So, while the New England Fishery Management Council remains at work, it is being hampered by lack of access to its federal management partners at GARFO and the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole.

“Since many GARFO and NEFSC scientists and fishery management specialists are key contributors to the council’s plan development teams and provide critical input and analyses during committee meetings, the council is rescheduling or modifying the agendas of several meetings where NOAA Fisheries representatives were expected to provide pivotal presentations, reports and/or analyses,” the council said in a release detailing the impact of the shutdown.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Senate Lawmakers Propose Bill to Expand Lobster Processing

January 9, 2019 — The following was released by the Office of State Senator Bruce Tarr:

Without reform, the state’s lobster laws are confounding consumers and the multi-million dollar seafood industry say a bi-partisan coalition of state Senator.  Senate Docket 1, the first bill filed in the new Senate session, authored by Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R- Gloucester) will, according to a just released report by the Division of Marine Fisheries, result in economic benefits throughout the state’s seafood supply chain and give consumers greater access to desirable fresh seafood products at local retailers and restaurants without harm to lobster stocks.

Under existing laws, Massachusetts lobstermen and seafood vendors are required to sell or transport lobster out-of-state for processing and then bring them back for sale to consumers in the Bay State – often with a ‘Product of Canada’ label.

“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 then be brought back to our local consumers,” said Senator Tarr. “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.”

While the sale of live, cooked, and canned lobster is legal in the state, the new law is needed to expand the industry market with the inclusion of other lobster products.  Tarr notes that the Marine Fisheries study supports lifting limits on the processing, sale, and transportation of cooked and frozen in-shell lobster parts.

The December 31 study confirms that similar changes in other jurisdictions such as Maine and Canada have resulted in the development of new businesses and the creation of new jobs throughout the seafood processing and distribution industry.  In-state lobster landings account for about 11% of the US lobster harvest and 5% globally.

“This report highlights that there is zero reason to further delay legislation to eliminate archaic restrictions on lobster processing.  I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues to once again pass this bill so that businesses may finally expand and create jobs, especially in New Bedford,” said Senator Montigny, lead co-sponsor of the legislation.

Up to 80% of lobsters landed in the state are sent to out of state processing facilities and industry leaders say the move will facilitate opportunities to create and grow jobs in the state.   The Marine Fisheries report notes that the lobster demand has spiked and has continued to evolve in favor of processed lobster parts.

“The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association greatly appreciates Senator Tarr’s efforts over the last several years to modernize the lobster processing laws,” said Beth Casoni, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association.  “This bill will allow our lobstermen to be competitive on a regional and international basis and we will work to ensure the bill’s passage.

The Marine Fisheries reports that the lobster market has continued to evolve to favor processed lobster parts.  In 2016, the state’s lobster fishery landed over 18 million pounds of lobster in 46 ports worth $82 million. Modernizing the law for certified sustainable product would allow Massachusetts seafood businesses to process and sell this highly desirable certified sustainable product to Massachusetts consumers.  Chain retailers, grocery stores, warehouse clubs and online distributors will be a major beneficiary of such a law change the report says.  Many of these retailers currently sell a variety of shell-on lobster parts at their non-Massachusetts locations throughout the United States.

“I am glad to join my colleagues in the Senate in support of our Massachusetts lobster fishermen,” said Senator deMacedo (R-Plymouth). “These advancements in our approach to lobster processing will provide an important benefit to the lobster industry and the fishermen who play such an important role in our communities and economy.”

“This bill works to ensure the sustainability and viability of the state’s lobster industry, which will benefit consumers and lobstermen in coastal communities statewide,” said Senator Michael J. Rodrigues (D-Westport).  “The lobster industry is a vital part of the Commonwealth’s economy and identity.  I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues to support it.”

The lobster industry is a critical part of the Commonwealth’s economy and heritage.  A similar law in Maine has boosted that state’s economy, produced local outlets for product sales, and created jobs.  During the most recent ten years US landings have doubled from 80 million pounds to 159 million pounds annually.

Read the full release here

DON CUDDY: New England surf clam fishery is headed for disaster

January 7, 2019 — When it comes to fishery management controversy never seems to be too far away. Last month you may have read about the dubious nature of a decision by the New England Fishery Management Council to close a large area of Nantucket Shoals to fishermen who harvest surf clams there, ostensibly to protect fish habitat. Questionable actions such as these undermine industry confidence in fishery regulators and serve only to alienate, and embitter, fishermen and the many others on the waterfront whose livelihoods are threatened by such draconian measures. With respect to protecting fish habitat allow me to quote from NOAA Fisheries’ own web site (fishwatch.gov) which bills itself as ‘U.S. Seafood Facts.’ The salient quote, with respect to the Atlantic surfclam, spissula solidissima, is this: “Fishing gear used to harvest surfclams has minimal impacts on habitat.” In spite of this fact these traditional grounds have now been designated as essential fish habitat and clamming is banned there indefinitely. NOAA also tells us that surfclams support a valuable fishery. Well, come April 9 it will not be nearly as valuable for those who participate in the harvest and that includes fishermen and shore workers in New Bedford, Gloucester and Bristol, Rhode Island where Galilean Seafood employs around 120 people in this fishery.

“There were five areas out there where we harvested our clams and the two areas with the most historical tows are the ones they closed,” Alan Rencurrel told me. Alan knows surf calms. He owns Nantucket Sound Seafood in New Bedford where the clams he catches are hand shucked. “If you steam ’em open they get chewy,” he said. He’s been fishing on the Shoals since 1992. “And there were boats out there before me.”

He also played me some high-resolution video, taken from a dredge-mounted camera, showing the sea bed in the area known as the Rose and Crown, the largest of the areas to be closed. There were no fish, rocks or cobble to be seen, just a solitary skate, on a sandy bottom littered with old mussel shells. “We can’t tow over rocky bottom like a scallop dredge,” he told me. It’s too hard on the gear and anyway clams prefer sand bottom, he said. Conversely, groundfish such as cod and haddock are found on hard bottom.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Film Notes: ‘Lobster War,’ Screening in Woodstock, Documents a Changing Fishery

January 4, 2019 — Before deciding whether to see Lobster War: The Fight Over the World’s Richest Fishing Grounds at Woodstock Town Hall Theatre next week, Upper Valley cinephiles need to distinguish David Abel’s new documentary from Lobster Wars, plural.

While Lobster Wars, a six-part reality TV series that ran on the Discovery Channel in 2007, followed fishermen from the United Kingdom pursuing crustaceans over Georges Bank, the feature Lobster War (singular) focuses on American and Canadian lobstermen pursuing the creatures around an island off Maine’s Down East that both countries claim.

Abel is screening Lobster War, which does not yet have a distributor, at venues around New England. The veteran print journalist’s current tour, which follows a round of film-festival appearances, is scheduled to begin in the fishing town of Gloucester, Mass., tonight and to make its Vermont premiere in Woodstock on Wednesday.

“My first two docs were on cable, on network distribution deals that hemmed us in except for the odd festival,” Abel, who writes about environmental issues for the Boston Globe, said during a telephone interview on Wednesday. “This is the first time I’ve decided to go the theater route.

“It’s really gratifying to show your work, to meet folks who are really interested in these issues.”

Climate change is the issue at the center of Lobster War, which documents a dispute between fishermen from Maine and Atlantic Canada. Over the last decade, with ocean waters warming off the New England coast, lobsters have been migrating north and east in search of colder waters for breeding, many of them are now clustering in a 277-square-mile patch of ocean described in the movie as a “Gray Zone” around Machias Seal Island.

Read the full story at Valley News

Fishing industry rides out more regulatory, environmental gales in 2018

December 28, 2018 — The fishing year began with a changing of the guard at the helm of the regional headquarters of NOAA Fisheries and ended with a federal government shutdown that halted many of the agency’s administrative tasks.

In between, the local and regional commercial fishing industries were buffeted by the same regulatory and environmental gales that have come to define the current fishing crisis and the livelihood of those harvesting seafood from the oceans.

And this being Gloucester, there was — as always — something of the offbeat worth recalling.

So, here in no particular order are some of our most compelling stories from 2018 that chronicled the activity within the fishery and along Gloucester’s historic waterfront.

The Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute broke ground on its new Main Street research facility and headquarters in February. On Oct. 30, GMGI — with the assistance of Gov. Charlie Baker and other dignitaries — formally opened the new facility along the north channel of the Inner Harbor.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Shutdown has varied effect at NOAA

December 27, 2018 — The partial shutdown of the federal government continued into its fifth day on Wednesday and NOAA Fisheries appears to be operating – or not –  just as it did during the partial shutdown that shuttered much of the government back in January.

No one answered the phones at NOAA Fisheries media relations offices in Washington, D.C., and Gloucester on Wednesday – the first full business day following the partial shutdown – so it was difficult to identify which employees whose duties have been designated as essential while up to one-quarter of the government is closed.

In all, the partial shutdown, initiated by lapsed appropriations and President Donald Trump’s campaign to fund and build a wall along the nation’s southern border with Mexico, is expected to impact about 800,000 of the 2.1 million federal workers.

According to the Department of Commerce’s 177-page plan for an orderly shutdown, staff at NOAA Fisheries’s Office of Law Enforcement, monitors and inspectors will continue working “for the protection of marine fisheries and sustain fisheries management activities.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: $63.5K to help reshape Gloucester’s fish industry

December 20, 2018 — When the Gloucester Fishing Community Preservation Fund was established in 2007, the Gloucester fleet already had transitioned away from its sizeable offshore groundfish fleet to a largely inshore fleet dependent on cod and other groundfish species in the Gulf of Maine.

More than a decade later, the demise of the Gloucester inshore fleet continues, fueled by regulation, environmental restrictions and the simple demographics of an aging and declining workforce.

“The aging-out of the fleet and attrition have really taken a toll,” said Vito Giacalone, GFCPF executive director. “We’ve now experienced two generations of fishermen who saw no value in continuing to fish.”

The seascape has changed dramatically and now the GFCPF, best known as a source for preserving and leasing permit privileges to Gloucester fishing vessels, is looking toward the future and its role in helping reshape the Gloucester fishing community.

The non-profit organization, with the assistance of U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, became one of seven organizations in the country this week to receive fisheries innovation grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times