Saving Seafood

Council to set quota for groundfish stocks

November 27, 2019 — The nadir for fishing for Gulf of Maine cod arrived in 2014, when NOAA Fisheries slashed quota by 77% and implemented emergency area closures that particularly singed the Gloucester small-boat, day fleet.

Nine days later, the New England Fishery Management Council cut cod quota by another 75 percent for the 2015 fishing season and the decline and fall of Gulf of Maine cod was on.

The closures and withering cuts added fuel to the debate over the precision of the science federal fishery regulators use to count fish and highlighted the cavernous divide between what National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries scientists say their science reflects and what fishermen say they see on the water.

In some ways, those battles still are being fought. Groundfishermen continue to say they see far more cod in their time on the water than is remotely represented in NOAA Fisheries’ science and modeling — both of which they still find suspect.

And, said longtime fisherman Joe Orlando, cod remains the most important linchpin stock in the groundfishery.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Study documents ‘chronic social disruption’ plaguing New England fishing communities

November 22, 2019 — Years of fishery failures and tightening restrictions on the Gulf of Maine groundfish fleet have put severe psychological strain on fishermen and chronic disruption to the social fabric of New England fishing communities, according to a team of academic researchers.

Drawing on six years of surveys and interviews, the team based at Northeastern University in Massachusetts “found that psychological distress and social disruption were pervasive throughout New England fishing communities,” the authors wrote in their paper in the journal Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences.

“For instance, our results indicate that 62 percent of captains self-reported severe or moderate psychological distress one year after the crisis began, and these patterns have persisted for five years,” the report states.

Among its conclusions, the report strongly recommends more monitoring and managing of social effects and “human well-being” beyond economic analysis, to moderate the adverse effects on communities of fisheries disruptions like the long-running New England groundfish struggle.

“This particular fishing fleet has been through so much pain,” said Steven Scyphers, an assistant professor of marine and environmental studies at Northeastern and lead author of the study report.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Warming waters spell more bad news for Maine’s shrimpers

November 21, 2019 — New England shrimp are still in bad shape despite a fishing shutdown that is unlikely to end soon, new data show.

The region’s shrimp fishing industry, long based mostly in Maine, has been shut down since 2013 because of concerns about the health of the population. Recent surveys off Maine and New Hampshire say signs are still poor, scientists with the regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission said.

A big part of the problem is that the shrimp thrive in cold water and the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than most of the world’s oceans. The mean average summer sea bottom temperature was about 42 degrees Fahrenheit from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, and it rose to 45 degrees this year, said Dustin Colson Leaning, a fishery management plan coordinator for the Atlantic States.

That small difference makes it harder for young shrimp to thrive and join the population, he said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bangor Daily News

Summer survey shows shrimp not rebuilding

November 20, 2019 — A year ago, fishery regulators that manage northern shrimp in the Gulf of Maine closed the fishery for the 2019 season because the imperiled stock remained a prisoner to its own meager abundance and unrelenting inability to improve biomass and recruitment.

The closure — the sixth since the Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission’s initial shuttering following the 2013 season — was not a surprise. What was surprising was that the commission opted to forgo a single-season closure and instead closed the northern shrimp, or Pandalus borealis, fishery for three seasons ending in 2021.

Things were that bad. Apparently, they haven’t gotten any better in the past year.

The commission’s northern shrimp section is set to convene Dec. 6 via webinar to discuss the 2019 data update to its benchmark stock assessment for northern shrimp.

Based on preliminary findings, it is not expected to be a cheery meeting.

On Tuesday, the ASFMC said preliminary findings from the 2019 northern shrimp stock summer survey —and the Maine-New Hampshire survey — show no improvement in the health of the stock and provide no compelling reason for its northern shrimp section to recommend changes to the current management plan of closures.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Will Old Bones Tell Tales?

November 19, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Northeast Fisheries Science Center researchers are engaged in a multi-year effort to create the information needed to maintain viable fisheries in a warming world ocean. Projects are underway to improve stock assessments, modeling, and surveys, and to understand the vulnerabilities of coastal communities to climate change.

One of these projects looks at today’s cod in a warming Gulf of Maine through the lens of a similar time more than 300 years ago, when there was rapid ocean warming after the “little ice age” of the 1500s. Researchers are using fish parts gathered from a recent archaeological excavation of the Smuttynose Island fish station.

The fish parts date from 1640 to 1708, when the Smuttynose fish station was most active. The best-represented years are about 1640 to 1660. This was a time of intense harvest in the developing fishery during rapid ocean warming that is similar to what is happening in the Gulf of Maine today.

Examining these old fish parts may reveal how cod responded to intense fishing and warming in the 17th century. It will help us better project outcomes for Atlantic cod in the future.

Read the full release here

First Public Meeting For Offshore Wind Task Force Will Take Place In N.H.

November 19, 2019 — New Hampshire will host the kick-off meeting of a federal offshore wind task force for the Gulf of Maine. The meeting is set for Dec. 12 at the University of New Hampshire.

It will be open to the public, with time for public input.

The task force will include state, local and tribal government officials from New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine, and from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Read the full story at New Hampshire Public Radio

UMaine Launches Initiative To Help Mainers Understand How State Is Affected By Arctic Climate

November 18, 2019 — The University of Maine is launching an initiative designed to help Mainers better understand how the state is affected by Arctic climate.

Called “UMaine Arctic,” the project explores how the changing climate will impact the state’s fisheries, native populations and coastal communities.

“The Arctic has a huge impact on life in Maine,” says Christopher Gerbi with UMaine’s College of Natural Sciences, Forestry and Agriculture. He says the Gulf of Maine is fed by waters from the arctic regions of Canada and Greenland.

“As the water changes temperature, that changes the temperature in the Gulf of Maine, which has a huge impact on all our fisheries, the lobster industry,” he says.

And on all of the industries that rely on those industries, such as marine suppliers, restaurants and coffee shops in coastal communities, says Gerbi.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Group Discusses Potential Gear Restrictions At North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium

November 15, 2019 — An international group of scientists, conservationists, fisheries managers and others are gathered in Portland this week for the annual meeting of what’s called the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium.

Federal regulators told the group that they are looking at a wide slate of measures to protect the endangered whales from entanglement in fishing gear. Some measures include reductions in the amount of lobster-trap rope allowed in the water and in the strength of that rope. The feds say they are also considering having a part of Cape Cod Bay that is now closed February to April closed to endlines but open to ropeless gear in the future.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Maine Lobstermen’s Association won’t support new right whale rules

November 11, 2019 — After a week of hearings on a proposal to implement new rules to protect endangered right whales, a leading group has decided not support the plan.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources held three hearings on the plan, including one in South Portland Wednesday, to take public comments, most coming from lobstermen against the proposal.

On Thursday, the Maine Lobstermen’s Association voted “not to support” the plan “because it seeks reductions that exceed the documented risk posed by the Maine lobster fishery,” the association said in a statement posted on its website.

The plan calls for a reduction of the vertical lobster trap lines in the Gulf of Maine. Maine fishery officials say they would remove 25 percent of the lines, not including an exemption for lobstermen who fish inshore waters.

Read the full story at WPFO

MAINE: Goodbye herring, hello squid: Fishermen’s catch likely to change in warming Gulf of Maine

November 8, 2019 — In a warmer future, Maine fishermen will probably be catching squid or mackerel, not cod or herring.

They will probably have to travel farther and fine-tune their gear to catch the cold-water species that remain in the Gulf of Maine, like lobster and sea scallops, and be ready to fish the new species that will be calling a warmer Gulf of Maine home by then, like black sea bass.

“We face some challenges moving forward that will require adaptation to maintain our vibrant fisheries,” Katherine Mills, a research scientist at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, said in an address Thursday, the fourth day of the five-day Gulf of Maine 2050 Symposium in Portland.

Mills gave the audience a peek at work that GMRI scientists and economists are doing to explore how New England fishing communities will be affected by rising sea temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, which is warming three to four times faster than the rest of the world’s oceans. The Gulf is expected to warm by 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2055.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald