Gulf of Maine Archives - Page 24 of 100

Fall Gulf of Maine Bottom Longline Survey Wraps Up

December 14, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The COVID-19 pandemic and typical fall weather conditions were challenges, but the Cooperative Gulf of Maine Bottom Longline Survey team and industry partners wrapped up a successful season in early November.

“Every single person on the bottom longline survey team worked incredibly hard to get the survey completed this fall,” said Anna Mercer, chief of the Cooperative Research Branch. “From building new software to installing new camera systems, from repeated COVID-19 testing to careful quarantining, from new work flows to new hardware, it was a true team effort.”

The survey targets groundfish at 45 stations across the Gulf of Maine using tub-trawl bottom longline gear. The survey plan focuses on rocky bottom habitat, where fish are difficult to sample with trawl gear.

Read the full release here

Lobster stock levels remain high in Gulf of Maine, but future issues cause concern

December 4, 2020 — When it comes to availability of their catch, the “now” looks solid for local commercial lobster fishermen, based on findings reported in the 2020 Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Lobster Benchmark Stock Assessment. The assessment reported the stock at “record high abundance levels” in the Gulf of Maine. The good news continued: “Stock projections conducted as part of the assessment suggested a low probability of abundance declining below the abundance target over the next 10 years.” The Gulf of Maine lobster fishery now accounts for 90 percent of U.S. lobster landings, and, overall, landings increased fivefold in Maine from 1982 to when they peaked in 2016.

The outlook for southern New England remained poor, with a depleted fishery and no signs of resurgence. The research was conducted by several organizations, including the Department of Marine Resources, Gulf of Maine Research Institute and the University of Maine’s Sea Grant program and Lobster Institute. The assessment, released in October, was based on surveys conducted from 2016 through 2018.

However, once the research turns to the number of juvenile lobster settling on the sea floor, the future looks more uncertain.

“There’s this really puzzling disconnect between the surging numbers of lobsters we’ve been seeing over the past decade and the decline in larval settlement that we’ve seen,” said Richard Wahle, director of The Lobster Institute at the University of Maine.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

Maine’s booming seal population concerns local fishermen, biologists

November 19, 2020 — There’s a lot of debate recently about the seal population in New England, specifically off the coast of Maine.

Once nearly extinct, experts are now seeing a rapid increase in the number of seals in the Gulf of Maine due to decades of legal protection.

Biologists say there are three points to consider: While the increase in harbor seals is creating a healthier ecosystem for the gulf of Maine, it’s also creating problems for local lobstermen who say they’re a threat to their livelihoods, and it’s drawing new and potentially dangerous fish into our waters at a rate the state has never seen before.

“Here we have a pretty big population of seals,” Rusty Court, who’s been lobstering off the coast of Monhegan and Boothbay Harbor for 50 years, said.

Read the full story at WGME

Herring Fishery to Slow Down for Rest of 2020

November 11, 2020 — The New England herring fishery is slowing down for the rest of the year because fishermen are approaching their quota for the fish.

Fishermen will be unable to fish for or possess more than 2,000 pounds of herring per trip in the inshore Gulf of Maine until Dec. 31, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has ruled. The rules went into effect on Wednesday.

Herring are the subject of a large fishery on the East Coast, but the industry has struggled in recent years due to a decline in population. Fishermen caught less than 25 million pounds of the fish last year after catching more than 96 million pounds during the previous year.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

Long-Running Plankton Survey to Resume in the Gulf of Maine

November 10, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

A new agreement between NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center, the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, England and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will allow a plankton survey to resume. The survey was originally conducted across the Gulf of Maine from 1961 to 2017.

NOAA Fisheries is providing funding for the survey through the NOAA Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region, hosted by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The Marine Biological Association manages merchant vessel-based plankton surveys around the world. The association will run and maintain the resumed Gulf of Maine survey through 2024 under this agreement.

“Continuing a long-term time series like the Continuous Plankton Recorder Survey is essential to understanding the impact of climate change to marine ecosystems,” said Chris Melrose, a research oceanographer at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s laboratory in Narragansett, Rhode Island and NOAA representative on the agreement.

“Many marine species are shifting their distributions as ocean waters warm,” explained Melrose. “Because plankton are an important food source for many species, including the endangered North Atlantic right whale, knowing about changes in the plankton helps us to understand other changes we see in the ecosystem.”

Read the full release here

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobster Stocks Found in Steep Decline, With Future in Doubt

October 30, 2020 — Southern New England lobster stocks, once robust, have declined to record lows in recent years according to scientists and regulators, jeopardizing the future of a storied fishery even as Vineyard lobstermen continue to report strong seasons on the water.

In a benchmark assessment released late last week, an interstate regulatory agency found that lobster populations in southern New England are “significantly depleted,” reaching their lowest levels on record and threatening the lobster industry from the southern Cape through Long Island Sound.

But some Vineyard lobstermen said that despite the decreasing abundance in the entire southern New England region — which stretches from south of New York to Monomoy and Nantucket — their catch around the Island remains healthy.

And interestingly, just as lobster populations have declined in more southern waters in recent years, scientists have seen a historic boom in the Gulf of Maine, where lobster abundance and fishery performance have reached record highs, according to the report. The Vineyard sits just south of the halfway point between the two American lobster stock units, which are divided by geography and small differences in the biology of the crustaceans.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

Gulf of Maine Research Institute launches new aquaculture knowledge portal

October 29, 2020 — The Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI) has announced the launch of a new online portal, “The Maine Aquaculturist,” designed to help aquaculture operations in the U.S. state of Maine access resources in the state.

The new portal was created in response to the growing number of aquaculture operations that are either already in business or are planning to establish locations in the state, according to GMRI. In the past few years, companies including Whole Oceans, Nordic Aquafarms, The Kingfish Company, Aquabanq, and American Aquafarms have all announced proposals for either land-based or net-pen aquaculture operations in various locations throughout the state. Those primarily finfish operations are additions onto the existing – and growing – shellfish aquaculture operations in the state, farming oysters in locations up and down the coast.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Long-running plankton survey to resume this winter

October 28, 2020 — Scientists this winter will revive a long-running survey of plankton in the Gulf of Maine. Plankton, drifting microscopic sea organisms, are food for endangered North American right whales and other marine species.

The Gulf of Maine plankton survey was originally performed from 1961–2017. It is returning under a new agreement between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Northeast Fisheries Science Center, the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, England, and the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

“Many marine species are shifting their distributions as ocean waters warm,” said Chris Melrose, a research oceanographer at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s laboratory in Narragansett, R.I. “Because plankton are an important food source for many species, including the endangered North Atlantic right whale, knowing about changes in the plankton helps us to understand other changes we see in the ecosystem.”

Melrose, who is NOAA representative on the agreement, said continuing the survey “is essential to understanding the impact of climate change to marine ecosystems.”

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

Long-Running Plankton Survey to Resume in the Gulf of Maine

October 23, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Read the full release here

American Lobster Benchmark Stock Assessment Finds GOM/GBK Stock Not Overfished nor Experiencing Overfishing & SNE Stock Significantly Depleted: Assessment Introduces Regime Shift Methodology to Address Changing Environmental Conditions

October 22, 2020 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The 2020 American Lobster Benchmark Stock Assessment presents contrasting results for the two American lobster stock units, with record high abundance and recruitment in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank stock (GOM/GBK) and record low abundance and recruitment in the Southern New England stock (SNE) in recent years. The GOM/GBK stock is not overfished nor experiencing overfishing. Conversely, the SNE stock is significantly depleted with poor prospects of recovery. Stock status was assessed using the University of Maine Stock Assessment Model for American Lobster (UMM, Chen et al. 2005), a statistical catch-at-length model that tracks the population of lobster by sex, size and season over time.

“On behalf of the American Lobster Board, I want to applaud the members of the Technical Committee and Stock Assessment Subcommittee for their exceptional work on the 2020 Benchmark Stock Assessment Report,” stated Board Chair Dan McKiernan from Massachusetts. “This assessment made a notable advancement in considering the impact of changing environmental conditions on lobster population dynamics.”

Extensive research has highlighted the influence of the environment on American lobster life history and population dynamics. Among the critical environmental variables, temperature stands out as the primary influence. Further, its range is experiencing changing environmental conditions at some of the fastest rates in the world. Therefore, considering these environmental influences is vital when assessing the lobster stocks and was a focal point of this stock assessment. Environmental data time series included water temperatures at several fixed monitoring stations throughout the lobster’s range, average water temperatures over large areas such as those sampled by fishery-independent surveys, oceanographic processes affecting the environment, and other environmental indicators such as lobster prey abundance.

Environmental time series were analyzed for regime shifts, which indicate a significant difference in the lobster’s environment and population dynamics from one time period to another. Regime shifts can change a stock’s productivity, impacting the stock’s level of recruitment and its ability to support different levels of catch. Temperature time series were also analyzed to quantify the effect of temperature on survey catchability of lobster and correct trends in abundance estimated from surveys by accounting for temperature-driven changes in catchability through time.

Read the full release here