Saving Seafood

Maine objects, but regulators vote to keep shrimp fishery closed for 2018

November 30, 2017 — Regional fisheries managers voted Wednesday to keep Maine’s commercial shrimp fishery closed for another year amid assessments showing record-low numbers of shrimp in the Gulf of Maine.

The northern shrimp section of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission opted to extend for a fifth year, through 2018, the moratorium on shrimp fishing in northern New England to allow depleted stocks to rebuild. Fishermen and Maine’s representatives on the shrimp panel had been pushing for a modest commercial fishery – ranging from 500 to 2,000 tons – but failed to convince their counterparts from Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

“After 40 years in this business, I know that Mother Nature has a remarkable ability, if we leave the spawning stock in the water, to recover,” said Mike Armstrong, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries representative to the panel. “I’m not convinced that is going to happen … but I want to give this stock a chance to recover for a few more years.”

The decision frustrated Commissioner Patrick Keliher of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, who responded by saying Maine would not participate in the planned 13.3-ton “research set-aside” fishery for shrimp.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald 

 

Odds are tiny for a winter shrimp fishing season

November 28, 2017 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — With fisheries regulators slated to gather in Portland on Wednesday, a shrimp fishing season in the Gulf of Maine this winter seemed as likely as bipartisan tax legislation in Congress.

The schedule called for members of the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section to meet in the afternoon to establish dates and landings limits for the 2018 season. All evidence suggested that, except for a tiny “research” fishery, the limit, or total allowable catch, will be zero and there will be no season at all.

According to the commission’s recently released “2017 Stock Status Report for Gulf of Maine, Northern Shrimp,” the resource is in terrible shape. For the past five years (2012 through 2017) the shrimp stock has been at its lowest, both in terms of number and total biomass, over the 34 years that the shrimp population has been surveyed.

Prospects for the shrimp resource to rebound in the Gulf of Maine are grim.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American 

 

Maine’s shrimp fishery unlikely to open in 2018

November 22, 2017 — The Maine shrimp fishery appears headed toward another closed season in 2018 based on bleak stock assessments made earlier this year, according to federal officials.

If a panel meeting next Wednesday in Portland agrees with the recommendations released this week, 2018 would be the fourth year the small but much-loved winter fishery is closed.

“It was not a good result for shrimp this year,” said Max Appelman, who coordinates the fishery for the federal regulatory body, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, that oversees the fishery.

Abundance of the species was at a 34-year low in 2017, according to the commission. During the annual summer scientific survey, data showed that survival of the shrimp that spawned in 2016 was the second lowest observed in the history of the survey, which began in the mid-1980s.

Climate change is the likeliest cause for the crash in the fishery; Northern shrimp, or pandalus borealis, require cold winter water to spawn. Waters in the Gulf of Maine, the southern most waters the shrimp can survive in, are warming faster than 99 percent of the world’s oceans, according to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

The environment for shrimp is increasingly “inhospitable,” according to the report.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Researchers find summer heat’s lasting longer in the Gulf of Maine

The warmer conditions endure two months longer than in the early 1980s, posing threats to the food chain and raising risks from more powerful hurricanes.

September 11, 2017 — New scientific research has revealed that summer temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, the second fastest warming part of the world’s oceans, are persisting two months longer than they were as recently as the early 1980s.

The findings, by a Maine-led team of scientists, have ramifications for marine life, fishermen and the strength of hurricanes, which appear in late summer and are fueled by warm water.

“What we found was quite astonishing in that almost all the warming is in the late summer and the winter is not contributing very much at all,” says the project’s lead scientist, University of Maine oceanographer Andrew Thomas. “You can think of impacts all across the food chain, from animals that have actual temperature tolerances to the distribution of species, their prey, and even their predators, not to mention the bacteria and viruses, which we have no idea how they will react.”

The researchers used daily satellite readings collected between 1982 and 2014 to map changes in sea surface temperatures along the Eastern Seaboard from North Carolina to Nova Scotia, breaking out the data by month to reveal seasonal differences in warming rates. They weren’t surprised to find the strongest warming in the Gulf of Maine and adjacent Scotia Shelf – team members had worked with Andrew Pershing of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland to demonstrate this in a 2015 study – but the profound seasonal differences were unexpected.

The satellite data show warming trends across the Gulf of Maine for every month and very sharp increases during July, August and September, especially off the Maine coast. While the Gulf of Maine warmed by an average of 0.72 degrees Fahrenheit per decade during the 33-year period, the warming rate was twice that in the months of July through September, or 1.44 degrees F per decade.

Read the full story from the Portland Press Herald at Central Maine

Maine center to study impact of climate change on cod, sole

September 6, 2017 — PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The federal government is giving a Maine science center more than $1 million to investigate the impacts of climate change on important commercial fish species such as cod and sole.

Gulf of Maine Research Institute says it’s getting $1.1 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Portland-based center says researchers will also try to learn more about how fisheries management can be improved in the era of climate change.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Times

 

New Study Puts Hard Numbers on Impacts of Bottom Trawling

July 24, 2017 — Roughly a fifth of all fish eaten globally are caught using nets towed along the bottom of the ocean. There’s long been concern that this method – known as trawling – destroys or severely damages the ecosystems where it’s used. Now, a new meta-analysis of the science available on this topic offers some quantification of the impacts of different type of trawls.

Previous studies have found that the mud plumes from some trawls can be seen from space, and that “bottom trawling related to commercial fisheries leaves a greater physical footprint on the seafloor than the combined effects of all other human activities, including scientific research, fossil fuel recovery and waste disposal.”

While it is undeniable that dragging metal gear across the seafloor impacts the ecosystems there, a new analysis of seventy different studies finds that not all trawls are equal, and that some do significantly less damage than others.

In particular, otter trawls – the type most commonly used in New England – have the least impact of the four types compared. Otter trawls scrape, on average, just under an inch off the seafloor and remove about six percent of the animals living there. In contrast, hydraulic dredges squirt water into the sediment to release buried animals, reaching about six inches into the sea floor and removing more than forty percent of animals.

Read the full story at WCAI

Lobstermen question the need for camera surveillance aboard vessels in Nova Scotia

June 26, 2017 — Several Nova Scotia lobster fishermen voiced doubt over their support of the possible implementation of vessel video surveillance during a workshop held last week in Lockport, Nova Scotia.

Camera surveillance aboard fishing boats was the primary topic of discussion during the 22 June information session hosted by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans and organized by the Ecology Action Center. The session was attended by more than a hundred southwest Nova Scotia fishermen, many of whom were concerned that the technology posed a threat to their privacy, CBC News reported.

Speakers including a fisherman from British Columbia and a program manager from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Discussion focused on the use of camera surveillance as a means to monitor catch and to cut down on bycatch, in particular regional endangered species such as Atlantic cod and cusk. However, many fishermen claimed practices are already in place that do enough to provide proper catch assurances.

Port La Tour fisherman Wilford Smith noted that the industry is already self-reporting its bycatch in logbooks, and throwing at-risk species back.

Regarding the prospect of camera surveillance on boats, Smith said: “What for? We’ve got nothing to hide…We’re not keeping nothing secret,” according to CBC News.

Spurred by insistence from main lobster-buying markets – including the United States, Europe and Asia – requiring evidence of the sustainability of imported seafood, the Nova Scotia lobster fishery obtained certification from the Marine Stewardship Council in 2015. As standards continue to evolve, though, the elements needed to prove the sustainability of catch is changing as well, and there aren’t a lot of options beyond camera surveillance that are cost-effective, according to Susanna Fuller, senior marine co-ordinator at the Ecology Action Center. While video surveillance isn’t being imposed upon Nova Scotia lobster fishermen, alternatives including at-sea observers will cost more, Fuller told CBC News.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

NOAA recommends Maine fisheries research projects for $1.5M in funding

June 8, 2017 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has recommended over $1.5 million in Saltonstall-Kennedy Grant Program funding for six fisheries research projects in Maine.

The goal of the Saltonstall-Kennedy program is to fund projects that address the needs of fishing communities, optimize economic benefits by building and maintaining sustainable fisheries and increase other opportunities to keep working waterfronts viable.

The program has recommended the following projects for funding; final approval is pending:

  • Downeast Institute for Applied Marine Research and Education, $278,000: Demonstrating aquaculture technologies designed to increase the supply, quality and diversification of domestic seafood: Field experiments with cultured arctic surf clams.
  • Gulf of Maine Research Institute, $288,888: Addressing the issue of “Choke” species in a changing climate.
  • Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association Lobster, $141,092: Migration and growth: Continuation and expansion of 2015 tagging effort on Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine.
  • Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, $298,932: A ‘Halo’ for shellfish aquaculture: Discovering the phytoremediation potential of farmed kelp.
  • University of Maine, $299,623: Evaluating the life history and stock structure of yellowfin tuna in the northwest Atlantic Ocean.
  • University of Maine, $275,308: Assessing the potential for sustainability of fishing-dependent communities in coastal Maine in the face of environmental and socioeconomic change.

In a news release announcing the NOAA’s recommendations, U.S Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, characterized the projects as “key to the future of the Gulf of Maine and the thousands of Mainers who make their living from it.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz

MASSACHUSETTS: Cape fishermen push dogfish, skate at expo

March 23, 2017 — Chatham fishermen Charlie Dodge, Jamie Eldredge, and Greg Connors walked the crowded aisles of the Seafood Expo North America Monday, one of the largest seafood shows in the world, drawing more than 21,000 attendees and exhibitors over three days.

The men were there to meet wholesale fish buyers and distributors looking to market their catch: skates — a kite-shaped fish related to sharks — and dogfish, a small coastal shark.

Dogfish and skates may not be ready to join heavyweights like salmon and shrimp, but with help from the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, as well as federal and state grants to assist with marketing, they are slowly gaining a foothold in domestic markets.

“It would be way better if it stays within the country,” Dodge said of dogfish, which, like skates is largely exported to Europe and Asia, and fetch relatively low prices, with skates at 23 cents per pound on average in 2015 and dogfish fluctuating between 11 cents and 22 cents per pound. In 2015, cod, by comparison, averaged $1.90 per pound.

Not long ago Chatham was one of the top cod ports in the country, but that stock is considered to be at historically low levels and landings state-wide collapsed from 27.5 million pounds in 2001 to 2.9 million pounds in 2015. Both skates and dogfish are plentiful and considered sustainably managed by organizations like the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the Marine Stewardship Council and Seafood Watch. That message — a local, sustainable and affordable fish — has helped convince institutional clients like the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

Read the full story at Cape Cod 

New Trawl Net is Cod Friendly

March 13, 2017 — The Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI) in Portland, Maine, has developed an ultra low opening trawl (ULOT) net designed to prevent cod from being caught while allowing the targeting of more plentiful groundfish.

Commercial fishers in New England’s Gulf of Maine are assigned catch quotas, in pounds or metric tons, for Atlantic cod. Violating current cod restrictions results in fishers being shut down for the rest of the season. Because of this, fishers pursuing other groundfish (such as grey sole, flounder, monkfish, whiting, and pollock) need to be vigilant about how many cod make it into their nets—an impossible task until now. The net was designed, built, and tested by a collaboration of New England fishers, scientists, and Rhode Island-based net maker, Superior Trawl.

Traditional trawl nets feature a 6-foot (1.83-meter) opening into which groundfish get trapped. The new ULOT trawl has a 2-foot (0.61-meter) opening which allows cod to swim up and over the net while trapping species that swim lower to the ocean floor. It was initially tested at the Marine Institute in Newfoundland in a simulated ocean environment and was later tested on a commercial trawling vessel. On the commercial trawler, the net reduced cod catch by 45 percent with no impact on the catch levels of other species. Additionally, the ULOT net also created a nearly seven percent reduction in the vessel’s fuel use because it has less drag than traditional nets.

Read the full story at Foodtank