Saving Seafood

$2M Grant to Fishermen’s Alliance Means More Boats Gathering Ocean Data

December 5, 2024 — Strange things have been happening in recent years in the Gulf of Maine, the 36,000 square miles of relatively enclosed ocean stretching from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia. Low-oxygen zones have become annual occurrences, a large brown algae bloom in summer 2023 grew from Maine to northern Massachusetts, and looming over it all is the accelerating warming of surface waters. The Gulf of Maine is warming three times faster than the global average, according to the Maine Climate Council, which is faster than 99 percent of the world’s oceans.

Understanding these phenomena and their effects on fisheries is difficult, said Owen Nichols, Director of Marine Fisheries Research at the Center for Coastal Studies, because of the lack of data available on the ocean water below the surface — at the depths where most fish live.

There is one group of people, however, who regularly put equipment deep in the ocean: fishermen. And many of them are already working with scientists to gather data on the water.

But on Oct. 31, Gov. Healey’s administration announced a nearly $2 million grant to the Chatham-based Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance that will significantly expand fishing vessel-based measurements. The grant is from the quasi-public Mass. Technology Collaborative.

Since 2001, a Northeast Fisheries Science Center project has partnered with local fishermen to try to fix the lack of data about the depths. The project, called eMOLT (Environmental Monitoring on Lobster Traps and Large Trawlers), has so far installed sensors on about 100 fishermen’s gear to gather data on stratification of water temperature, dissolved oxygen levels, and other parameters.

Read the full story at The Provincetown Independent

Scientists at the University of Maine developing new tools to adapt to warming Gulf of Maine

November 25, 2024 — Scientists say the Gulf of Maine is now warming faster than almost anywhere else in the world. What does that mean for the state’s billion-dollar fishing industry?

Researchers at the University of Maine are developing new tools to ensure the sustainability of Maine’s commercial fisheries.

For years, scientists have been tracking how less cold water enters the Gulf of Maine while the hotter Gulf Stream is shifting north and adding warmer water to the region. This is impacting populations of different species, including Atlantic cod.

Read the full article at News Center Maine

The Gulf of Maine is warming up. To see potential effects, consider the lumpfish.

November 18, 2024 — The lumpfish is small. As its name suggests, it’s rather lumpy – not streamlined, like the fish that interest most recreational and commercial anglers. It isn’t eaten or harvested in New England. Until recently, lumpfish populations in the Gulf of Maine haven’t been studied much.

But to anyone who has interacted with one, the lumpfish is beloved, says University of New Hampshire researcher Elizabeth Fairchild.

“They love to come swim up to the top of a tank to check out anybody who walks by,” she said. “They’re very personable. They’re very curious and they’re hungry all the time, so they come right up to you thinking that you’re going to feed them.”

Fairchild has focused on studying lumpfish in part because they have a special quality. They’re a “cleaner fish,” eating parasites that cling to other fish. Salmon farmers in other parts of the world have used lumpfish to help manage sea lice, a small crustacean that attaches to fish and can cause health problems.

Instead of using harsh chemicals or thermal baths to get rid of the sea lice, farmers can let lumpfish eat the parasites instead.

Read the full article at nhpr

US Gulf of Maine offshore wind auction attracts scant interest

October 30, 2024 — A U.S. auction of offshore wind development rights in the Gulf of Maine on Tuesday drew bids for only half of the eight offered leases, for a total of just $21.9 million in high bids, in the latest sign of deep industry malaise.

The sale was a stark display of the lack of industry appetite for new investment after a year of high-profile setbacks that include canceled projects, two shelved lease sales in Oregon and the Gulf of Mexico and a construction accident at the nation’s first major offshore wind project.

It also demonstrated a reluctance to bet big money on projects that will require floating wind turbines, an emerging technology required in very deep waters like those of the Gulf of Maine.

After just one round of bidding, four of eight offered leases sold to developers Avangrid (AGR.N), opens new tab and Invenergy, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said. They were among 14 companies that had been qualified to bid at the sale.

Read the full article at Reuters 

Biden administration auctions off Gulf of Maine wind energy leases to New England fishers’ dismay

October 29, 2024 — The U.S. Department of the Interior auctioned off the first offshore wind energy leases in the Gulf of Maine on 29 October, despite continued opposition from New England commercial fishers.

The auction included eight areas on the Outer Continental Shelf off the New England coast that winning bidders could develop for wind energy operations. The government claimed that if the leases are developed to their full capacity, the sites could generate 13 gigawatts of energy – enough to power 4.5 million homes.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

The Lobster Industry’s Demise May Be Overstated

October 21, 2024 — Damian Brady spends a lot of his time in lobster boats, scooping up, counting, and measuring baby lobsters in the Gulf of Maine. Along with counts from scuba dives and fishing hauls, Brady’s data goes into the comprehensive Gulf of Maine Ocean Observing System that helps managers regulate the fishery. Brady also looks at “lobster settlement” — under what water conditions do these baby lobsters decide to settle in? He has studied decades of lobster booms and busts, refining the models in search of a “crystal ball,” as he calls it, on lobster futures.

Climate change has course-adjusted the Gulf Stream northward, warming the waters of southern New England, and driving a northward movement of lobster populations. It feels like history repeating: Science suggests warming waters caused the Rhode Island lobster industry to collapse earlier, going from 22 million pounds in 1997 to just over 3 million pounds in 2013.

But in Maine, lobsters are still a vital industry. On a good year, 100 million pounds of lobster may cross the state’s docks, bringing in more than $400 million. Maine’s boon from the northward lobster migration was a record-breaking lobster haul in 2016. But then lobster counts began to decline consistently, year after year into 2023. The fishery’s worst fear echoed across the docks: A Rhode Island-style collapse was heading toward Maine.

But Brady, after years of careful study, is not seeing that future. What many announced as the beginning of the end, he calls a “regime shift.”

The shift drove a downsize in the Maine lobster fleet, particularly from southern Maine towns such as Portland.

“The center of lobstering has moved [north], from the center of Maine to Downeast Maine,” Brady said.

Above Portland on a map, “Downeast” is where Maine juts into the Atlantic Ocean by way of many small islands. There, the island fishing town of Stonington brings in the largest lobster catches. Its boats are able to reach the deep, federal-permit waters far offshore where lobsters are now settling.

“There was a particular boom in deep water settlement,” Brady said, reporting the most recent surveys, “places we haven’t really looked before, or looked at much.” To scientists, new habitats call for more data.

Read the full article at Ambrook Research

Gulf of Maine’s rising temperatures bring challenges and opportunities to local fisheries

August 29, 2024 — The Gulf of Maine’s warming waters are profoundly affecting Maine’s working waterfront in more ways than one. Over the past decade, sea surface temperatures have surged, with recent years experiencing record-breaking warmth. This trend, largely attributed to climate change, poses significant challenges to local fisheries, but it also opens doors to new opportunities.

Over the last 10 years, there has been an unprecedented increase in the sea surface temperatures throughout the Gulf of Maine—something many scientists blame on manmade climate change. Out of the last six years, four of our summers have endured the warmest waters for Maine’s Gulf, with 2021 breaking a new record.

Read the full article at WMTW

MAINE: Maine, federal government reach agreement on floating offshore wind research array

August 20, 2024 — An effort to study the impacts of offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine is closer to launch after the state and federal government reached a lease agreement on Monday for a floating research array.

The Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management offered the research area lease to the state in late May for up to 15 square miles in federal waters about 30 miles southeast of Portland, according to a press release from Gov. Janet Mills’ office Monday afternoon. It will include up to 12 floating turbines and help inform how floating offshore wind operates and interacts with ecosystems in the water.

Read the full article at Yahoo! News

US lobster fishery faces delay in gauge-size increase; Canadian harvesters call for government to do more to combat illegal fishing

August 13, 2024 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) Lobster Board has initiated the process to delay a gauge size increase for the U.S. lobster fishery until 1 July 2025.

The ASMFC first delayed an increase in the lobster gauge size in October 2023, after lobster trawl surveys indicated a decline in the population of sub-legal lobsters. The gauge size increase was first initiated in 2017 as a proactive measure to improve the resiliency of the lobster stock in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, but that process was paused to focus on issues related to entanglement of  North Atlantic right whales.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

As Maine looks to harness Gulf of Maine winds, a big question looms: How much will utility customers pay?

August 1, 2024 — Maine’s offshore wind research project in the Gulf of Maine is the subject of negotiations that are picking up speed among state regulators, the project’s developers and the Public Advocate, who are trying to determine how much the zero-carbon energy will ultimately cost utility customers.

The PUC on July 11 ordered that the price — or how it’s structured for the project in a contract between the developer, Pine Tree Offshore Wind, and CMP or Versant — should be “sufficiently defined and certain” to allow regulators to determine whether the cost to ratepayers is the lowest reasonable amount to finance, build and operate the project. The low-cost provision is required by state law, which mandated that the PUC execute a long-term offshore wind contract between a utility of no less than 20 years.

The project is “intended to be a ‘kick-starter’ for an offshore wind industry in the Gulf of Maine,” regulators said. But it’s still years away from going online.

Jack Shapiro, climate and clean energy director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, called the research project the “tip of the spear,” helping developers of future commercial wind power determine pricing and other factors.

Read the full story at Yahoo! News