Saving Seafood

Maine lobstermen insist they are not the ones killing right whales

August 13, 2019 — Lobsterman Charlie Smith has already paid a steep price to protect the right whale, an endangered species that he has never even seen in a long career spent at sea, much less found entangled in his fishing rope.

When the Jonesport lobsterman raises his left hand, it is clear that he has lost the ends of several fingers, ripped off several years ago by a tangle of weighted rope that fishermen were ordered to use in 2009 to protect right whales.

“That’s what happened here to these fingers,” said Smith, holding up his hand, at a National Marine Fisheries Service hearing Monday night. “The rope got all chafed up. There’s all kind of stories from sinking ground line. What comes next?”

About 70 fishermen came to the first fisheries service public meeting in Maine on the latest round of lobster rule changes being considered to protect the endangered whales. They expressed safety fears and their mounting frustration.

The state’s $485 million-a-year lobster industry is facing a federal mandate to lower the number of buoy lines in the Gulf of Maine by 50 percent to protect right whales. Fishermen worry the rules will make their jobs less profitable and more dangerous.

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

MASSACHUSETTS: NOAA to meet with public about possible new whale protection

August 12, 2019 — Federal officials will meet with fishermen and other members of the public in a series of meetings about possible changes to rules designed to protect vulnerable whales.

A federal team has called for gear modifications and a reduction of the vertical trap lines in the Gulf of Maine to reduce the risk of entanglement, injury and of death of North Atlantic right whales, which number about 400, by 60 percent.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it’s looking for comments on the new management options, which have been highly criticized by some lobster stakeholders and public officials, particularly in Maine.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Mackerel, small but economically important, hits ‘overfished’ list

August 6, 2019 — For the first time, the Atlantic mackerel — native to the Gulf of Maine — has been added to a federal list of overfished species.

The listing appeared in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2018 Status of U.S. Fisheries Annual Report to Congress.

The report details the status of 479 managed stocks or stock complexes in the U.S. to identify which stocks are subject to overfishing, are overfished, or are rebuilt to sustainable levels, according to a news release.

Although the number of U.S. fish stocks subject to overfishing remains at a near all-time low, the Atlantic mackerel was added to the list for the first time.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

NOAA marks Northwest salmon runs, Atlantic mackerel, bigeye overfished

August 5, 2019 — Pacific Northwest king (chinook) and silver (coho) salmon runs plagued by drought and warmer ocean waters are new additions to the overfished species list in the federal 2018 Status of U.S. Fisheries released Friday.

In the Atlantic, bigeye tuna joined the overfished list — reflecting the continuing inability of international regulators to rein in other nations’ fleets in the eastern Atlantic. For the first time, Atlantic mackerel between North Carolina and Maine are declared overfished, based on a first comprehensive assessment.

The good news, according to NOAA, is that rebuilding sustainable fisheries is still on its slow upward track since 2000, with 45 stocks now declared rebuilt. The latest is the Gulf of Maine smooth skate, after a 9-year rebuilding effort that included a prohibition on landings.

That success follows the 2016 rebuilding of barndoor skate in New England waters. “The renewed fishing opportunity and market for barndoor skate wings, following its rebuilt status, may lay the market foundation for a smooth skate fishery in the future,” the annual NMFS report noted.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Pollock scarce — and expensive — as Northeast groundfish prices fluctuate

July 25, 2019 — The Northeast groundfish fishery kicked off May 1. The federal shutdown last winter meant some management changes, like Framework 58 which changes catch limits on several stocks, faced delays.

Groundfish prices seem to be fluctuating. Bert Jongerden, general manager of the Portland Fish Exchange, a wholesale auction in Maine says fleets are  “mostly bringing in Gulf of Maine haddock, dabs, and white hake, it’s balanced among those.”

Gulf of Maine haddock appears steady, with average price for large around $2.78 per pound. Demand for dabs for restaurant markets is high, with $4.50-5.00 for large dabs.

Fleets are hauling high volumes of redfish, with low prices. Another low point is monkfish.

“Tails are very soft, sometimes less than $1 per pound on auction,” adds Jongerden. It is a pattern that has been seen a few years – likely a result of robust supply but cold European markets, which set the price.

“A lot of gillnetters are targeting monks to avoid cod, because there is a terrible cod problem. The fish are there,” said Jongerden. Average prices for cod were $3.24 to $3.81 per pound as of late June.

All eyes are on Atlantic pollock. “Gillnetters are just not seeing them, no large or mediums,” adds Jongerden. Pollock (aka Boston bluefish) is popular in NY markets.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

MAINE: Lobstermen, politicians rally in Stonington to protest whale rules

July 23, 2019 — The sun was blazing hot, but tempers were moderate Sunday when hundreds of lobstermen gathered at the Municipal Fish Pier at noon for a rally to protest proposed federal rules aimed at protecting right whales.

The rules would force Maine fishermen to cut by 50 percent the number of lines in Gulf of Maine waters that connect lobster traps on the sea floor to their marker buoys on the surface.

Sunday’s rally drew perhaps 300 fishermen, family members, other supporters and politicians to Stonington. Some came from as far away as Corea and Winter Harbor and other Downeast ports, others from as far away as Harpswell. Many came by boat.

“This Governor has your back,” Gov. Janet Mills told an assembled crowd that was adamant in its opposition to the rules.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: Rally over whale rules planned

July 19, 2019 — It was almost 45 years ago when a fictional news anchor named Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch in the film “Network,” shouted out to listeners “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take this anymore!”

Last week, Stonington lobsterman Julie Eaton, speaking for most members of her industry said just about the same thing in a posting on Facebook announcing plans for a rally on the Stonington Fish Pier at noon this Sunday to protest a proposed NOAA Fisheries rule that would force Maine lobstermen to remove half their buoy lines from the Gulf of Maine to reduce the risk that endangered right whales might become entangled in the fishing gear.

“It is official,” Eaton wrote. “We are holding a Lobstermen’s Rally … on the Stonington Commercial Fish Pier.”

Last March, NOAA Fisheries announced that the risk of harming right whales in the Gulf of Maine had to be reduced by 60 percent. Not long afterwards, the regulators adopted a “consensus” recommendation by a stakeholder group including representatives from the Department of Marine Resources, other state and federal fisheries regulators and several conservation organizations — the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team — that to reach the risk reduction target, Maine lobstermen would have to reduce the number of vertical buoy lines in the Gulf of Maine by 50 percent even though evidence showed that Maine fishing gear was not the primary cause of most of the right whale deaths over the past several years and that the vast majority of recent whale mortalities had occurred in Canadian waters.

According to Eaton, Sunday’s gathering is emphatically not a protest of the whale rule proposal but is intended “to inform the public that we are not killing whales in Maine, voice our concerns about the proposed whale regulations and how they will not only affect our own futures and safety but the future of our children and our coastal communities.”

Read the full story at The Mount Desert Islander

BANGOR DAILY NEWS: Finding the right way to protect right whales

July 18, 2019 — Last week, Gov. Janet Mills’ administration made it clear that Maine does not support proposed federal regulations aimed at protecting endangered right whales. The issue is not whether right whales are worth protecting — they certainly are and are required to be under the Endangered Species Act — but instead how the federal proposal looks to reduce risk to the whales in part through a significant reduction in underwater lines used by Maine lobstermen.

All four members of Maine’s congressional delegation have also asked President Donald Trump to intervene on the proposed regulations, and together with Mills, have taken heat from environmental groups as a result. One wildlife advocate went as far as to say that Mills’ decision to have Maine pursue its own risk reduction plan amounts to playing “an active role in the right whale’s extinction.”

That’s strong stuff. But let’s be clear: justified concern about the impact of proposed rules on Maine’s lobster industry, and the incomplete data and largely unproven modeling underlying it, doesn’t make Maine officials unsympathetic or complicit to the undisputed plight of the right whale. It makes them appropriately skeptical representatives voicing concerns of their state, and one of its significant industries.

The worrisome decline of the Atlantic right whale has been well-documented in recent years. A once-growing population has dropped to an estimated 411 total whales. Data relative to whale mortality, however, is much less conclusive in terms of the role that Maine’s lobster fishery has played in that recent and troubling dip.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

NOAA Fisheries Sets 2019 Management Measures for Northeast Groundfish

July 18, 2019 — We are approving Framework 58 and implementing new catch limits for seven groundfish stocks for the 2019 fishing year (May 1, 2019 – April 30, 2020), including the three stocks managed jointly with Canada. These revised catch limits are based upon the results of stock assessments conducted in 2018.

In 2019, commercial groundfish quotas increase for four stocks from 2018: Georges Bank cod (+15%), Georges Bank haddock (+20%), Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder (+31%), and Acadian redfish (+2%); and decrease for three stocks: Gulf of Maine haddock (-5%), Georges Bank yellowtail flounder (-50%), and American plaice (-7%).

Framework 58 also:

  • Exempts vessels fishing exclusively in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization Regulatory Area (i.e., in international waters) from the domestic groundfish fishery minimum fish sizes to allow them to better compete in the international frozen fish market.
  • Extends the temporary change to the scallop accountability measure implementation policy for Georges Bank yellowtail flounder to provide the scallop fishery with flexibility to adjust to current catch conditions while still providing an incentive to avoid yellowtail flounder.
  • Revises or creates rebuilding plans for five stocks: Georges Bank winter flounder, Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder, witch flounder, northern windowpane flounder, and ocean pout.

In this rule, we are also announcing:

  • Reductions to the 2019 commercial quota for Gulf of Maine cod by 29.2 mt because the quota was exceeded in 2017.
  • A permanent extension of the annual deadline to submit applications to lease groundfish days-at-sea between vessels from March 1 to April 30 (the end of the fishing year); and
  • Changes to the regulations to clarify that vessels must report catch by statistical area when submitting catch reports through their vessel monitoring system.

Read the final rule  as filed today in the Federal Register and the permit holder bulletin available on our website.

Read the full release here