Saving Seafood

Senate panel approves marine research funding that Trump wanted to kill

October 4, 2019 — The Senate Appropriations Committee has unanimously approved funding increases to several federal programs critical to Maine’s coastal communities, including ones President Trump had repeatedly proposed eliminating.

The committee approved the fiscal year 2020 budget bill for the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Justice and related science agencies, including provisions to boost funding for the National Sea Grant program by $7 million to $75 million, with $2 million allocated to support research on lobsters and herring (which lobstermen use as bait), and how the rapid warming of the Gulf of Maine affects them. This follows the $2 million awarded from Sea Grant’s fiscal year 2019 budget to lobster researchers at the University of Maine, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve and other institutions.

“These investments will help us to better understand how the lobster stock is reacting to changing environmental conditions and ensure that Maine’s iconic industry that supports thousands of jobs continues to thrive,” Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said Thursday in a statement announcing the 31-0 vote. “As a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, I fought to include these provisions, and I am pleased that they were incorporated in the final package.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: Ocean temps full of ‘surprises’ – and not the good kind

October 2, 2019 — Maine fishermen face plenty of challenges including proposed whale protection rules, depredation of the state’s softshell clam stock by invasive green crabs, restrictions on seaweed harvesting and rising operating expenses.

It isn’t only the cost of running a fishing operation that’s rising, though.

Two new, recently published studies report that marine ecosystems around the world are experiencing unusually high ocean temperatures more frequently than researchers previously expected. These warming events, including marine heat waves, are disrupting marine ecosystems and the people who depend on them.

Andrew Pershing, chief scientific officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, led the study “Challenges to natural and human communities from surprising ocean temperatures,” published in early August. Working with him on the project were researchers from several Maine-based institutions as well as scientists from laboratories in California and Colorado.

Pershing previously identified the Gulf of Maine as one of the most rapidly warming ecosystems in the global ocean. This time around, Pershing and his colleagues examined 65 large marine ecosystems between 1854 and 2018 to identify the frequency of “surprising” ocean temperatures, which they defined as an annual mean temperature substantially above the mean for the previous three decades.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

NEFMC Initiates Framework for Atlantic Herring Offshore Spawning Protection

September 24, 2019 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council has initiated a framework adjustment to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan to develop options to protect spawning herring in offshore waters.

One of the Council’s 2019 priorities was to consider offshore spawning protection for Atlantic herring on Georges Bank. In order to facilitate this work, the Council issued a contract to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI) to review both historical and current scientific research, as well as other relevant information and previous management actions for spawning herring.

Read the full release here

Marine Resources Education Program (MREP) Solicits Participants for 2020

September 23, 2019 — The following was released by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute is pleased to announce the eighth offering of the Marine Resources Education Program (MREP) in the Southeast fishery region.

MREP provides fishermen and others interested in federal fisheries with an opportunity to gain insight into how fisheries data are collected and how those data lead to regulations. MREP brings together commercial, charter, and recreational fishermen with scientists, managers, and other marine resource professionals from the South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean to learn, share insights, and network in a neutral and professional setting. Participants leave the program empowered and better prepared to participate in federal fisheries management.

The two-part workshop series is free to selected participants and includes meals, travel and accommodation. Seats are limited.

MREP Southeast Fisheries Science Workshop
St. Petersburg, FL February 18-20, 2020

MREP Southeast Fisheries Management Workshop
Tampa Bay, FL April 28-30, 2020

Applications to participate can be found at: gmri.org/mrepsoutheast

The program principals are available to respond to inquiries about the workshop:

  • Bob Gill, Commercial Fisherman and Seafood Retailer, at (888) 833-1844
  • Dave Webb, Recreational Angler, at (901) 606-1886
  • Ira Laks, Commercial Fisherman, at (561) 719-8857

General questions about the program should be directed to Alexa Dayton, MREP Senior Program Manager, Gulf of Maine Research Institute, (207) 228-1645 or adayton@gmri.org.

The Gulf Of Maine’s Temperature Was ‘Normal’ This Year — Which Is The New Cool

September 19, 2019 — It’s often reported that the Gulf of Maine’s waters are warming faster than 99 percent of the largest saltwater bodies on the planet. But scientists will tell you the trend can be volatile. This year, for instance, surface water temperatures in the Gulf have been their coolest since 2008. That may be providing some relief for some of the Gulf’s historic species, but ongoing climate change means that long-term prospects are still uncertain.

Lobsterman Seth Dube fishes 400 traps from his boat, the Alison Nicole, out of Camp Ellis in Saco.

“Off and on most of my life, and my father did it and my grandfather and now me, hopefully my boy,” Dube says.

This has been a good decade for Dube and the rest of Maine’s lobster fleet, with record catches most years since 2010. But this year, the beginning of the big summer harvest – when lobsters molt, shedding their old hard shells to reveal new, soft shells – was slow. Lobstermen and some scientists associate that with cooler water temperatures earlier this year.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Waters off the coast of Maine vulnerable to changing climate

September 16, 2019 — From the one-lane bridge over the Little River at low water, you can see men hunched over the mudflats, hundreds of yards from shore, flipping the sea bottom with their pitchfork-like hoes to reveal the clams hiding there.

The clams, the basis of livelihood for generations of diggers from Cape Porpoise to Lubec, are back, at least for now, their numbers slowly recovering from a climate-driven disaster that will almost certainly strike again.

Six years ago, after the Gulf of Maine warmed to unprecedented levels, green crabs flooded over these northern embayments of Casco Bay like a plague of locusts, tearing away seagrass meadows, pockmarking salt marshes with their burrows, and devouring most every mussel and soft-shell clam in their path.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Gulf of Maine Research Institute launches virtual climate center

September 9, 2019 — The Portland marine science lab that first told the world the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than almost any other part of the ocean is launching a virtual climate center that will focus on finding solutions to the challenges related to ocean warming.

Under this virtual banner, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute hopes to leverage its science and educational expertise to help fishermen, policymakers, and coastal communities in Maine and around the world deal with the consequences of rising ocean temperatures.

“We’ve spent the last decade identifying warming trends and associated challenges,” said Don Perkins, a Maine native who has been at GMRI’s helm for almost 25 years. “We’ll spend the next decade identifying solutions to some of those challenges and helping coastal communities adapt to a warming future.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Electronic Monitoring Can Provide Better Data: A Fisherman’s Perspective

August 12, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Jim Ford has been fishing in the Gulf of Maine since he was in sixth grade. Ford’s first job was working as a deckhand on party boats. Later, he began operating a small gillnet vessel and a small trawler, in addition to longlining. He currently owns and operates the Lisa Ann III, a 50-foot dragger. He targets groundfish from his home port of Newburyport, Massachusetts.

In 2018, we issued an exempted fishing permit to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute to create a  pilot project to test electronic monitoring in the Northeast. Ford signed up as one of the first project participants, and currently uses electronic monitoring on 100 percent of his trips.

When I met Ford on his boat on a foggy May morning, he showed me the equipment he uses. In the wheelhouse, there’s a monitor with a four-way split screen that shows him the feed from the four cameras on his boat. In order to record all of the catch coming onboard, two cameras are positioned above the trawl net off the back of his boat. Two are above the deck to give a bird’s eye perspective.

Read the full release here

Study: Maine Fishermen Should Plan For Accelerated Ocean Warming

August 6, 2019 — Climate change is triggering more and more surprise variations in temperatures in the world’s oceans, including off Maine, and those spikes are changing ecosystems in ways that looking at the past wouldn’t predict.

That’s one of the conclusions of a new study out Monday from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, which finds that the bigger-than-expected temperature swings are benefiting some species while hurting others, and that has effects that can be felt up the food chain by the humans that depend on those ecosystems.

Dr. Andrew Pershing, chief scientific officer at GMRI and the lead author of the study, spoke with All Things Considered Host Nora Flaherty about the changes.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Announcing the 2019 Marine Resource Education (MREP) Program Southeast

March 12, 2019 — The following was released by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council:

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute is pleased to announce the Marine Resources Education Program (MREP) in the Southeast fishery region.

MREP provides fishermen and others with an interest in federal fisheries with an opportunity to gain insight into how fisheries data are collected and how those data lead to regulations.

MREP brings together commercial, charter, and recreational fishermen with scientists, managers, and other marine resource professionals from the South Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean to learn, share insights, and network in a neutral and professional setting. Participants leave the program empowered and better prepared to be a voice in federal fisheries management.

The two-part workshop series is free to selected participants and includes meals, travel, and accommodation. Seats are limited.

MREP Southeast Fishery Science Workshop
May 7-9, 2019
Hollander Hotel
St. Petersburg, FL

MREP Southeast Fishery Management Workshop
November 19-21, 2019
Westin Tampa Bay
Tampa, FL

Applications to participate can be found at: gmri.org/mrepsoutheast
The program principals are available to respond to inquiries about the workshop:

* Bob Gill, Commercial Fisherman and Seafood Retailer, at (888) 833-1844
* Dave Webb, Recreational Angler, at (901) 606-1886

General questions about the program should be directed to Alexa Dayton, MREP Senior Program Manager, Gulf of Maine Research Institute, (207) 228-1645 or adayton@gmri.org.