Saving Seafood

8 Gulf of Maine sites picked for possible commercial offshore wind leases

May 2, 2024 — The federal government is proposing eight areas in the Gulf of Maine as possible sites for commercial offshore wind farms.

The proposed lease areas cover about 1 million acres and have the potential to generate 15 gigawatts of energy, enough to power five million homes, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said Tuesday.

Two of the sites, encompassing nearly 254,000 acres, are off the Maine coast. The remaining six are located off Massachusetts.

In choosing the lease sites, BOEM said it wanted to avoid offshore fishing grounds and transit routes for ships. The eight proposed sites represent about half of the 2 million acres that BOEM chose as its “final wind energy area” for the Gulf of Maine, which the agency announced last month.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Gulf of Maine Research Institute initiative improves access to seafood for students

February 3, 2024 — About 45,000 New England students have been offered locally sourced seafood as part of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s initiative to serve more fish in school lunches.

Using money from federal and local grants, GMRI partnered with nine districts throughout the region, helping them introduce seafood to their students through fun recipes and education.

Their goal is to improve access to seafood and to see fish offered in schools more than just once a month.

Program leaders say 70% – 80% of the students surveyed after a taste test said they do like eating fish.

This initiative is intended to benefit the local economy as well.

Read the full article at WABI

Commentary: Offshore wind in Gulf of Maine a bad idea

January 11, 2024 — My name is Rick Beal, and I’ve been in the fishing industry and interacting with nature since the 1960s. I’ve seen firsthand many of nature’s wonders. I have stood in awe while watching the northern lights, witnessed the viciousness of a shark feeding frenzy and the humanism of a mother whale towards her calf. I have also seen how we humans affect nature both positively and negatively and believe that environmentalism is a cause we should all embrace. In fact, being the dominant species, we have an obligation to do so. Reducing dependency on fossil fuels is very important to this cause, but offshore wind is not the answer, it will do more harm than good.

Because of its currents and topography, the Gulf of Maine has a unique and very fragile ecosystem. Small changes can have huge effects. By the 1970s, because of exploitation by foreign countries and our domestic fleets’ unregulated practices, the Gulf of Maine’s ecosystem was on the brink of collapse. Today, due to hard work of both regulators and industry, it has been brought back from that near disaster to the healthy and sustainable levels of today.

However, today, we have a new crisis on the horizon: offshore wind. With its hundreds of man-made structures both above and below the surface and the changes they will bring to the ecosystem, the decades of work will be destroyed. I have read many articles, looked behind them to see who wrote or funded them, and the research quoted in them. I came away thinking of something I once read, “Words and numbers can be manipulated by their users and made to do their users bidding.” On the issue of offshore wind, manipulation, be it pro or con, is rampant.

Read the full article at the Gloucester Daily Times 

NOAA extends emergency measures for Gulf of Maine haddock quota

January 9, 2024 — NOAA Fisheries has taken emergency action to increase the Gulf of Maine haddock acceptable biological catch (ABC) for the 2023 fishing year.

At the New England Fishery Management Council’s request, NOAA Fisheries increased the fishing year 2023 ABC to the fishing mortality associated with the maximum sustainable yield (FMSY), which is 2,515 metric tons. The action is effective Tuesday, Jan. 9.

Read the full article at Gloucester Daily Times

NMFS extends Gulf of Maine haddock increase

January 8, 2024 — An emergency action that boosted the Gulf of Maine haddock catch to prevent premature 2023 closings is now being extended to the end of the fishing  year April 30, the National Marine Fisheries Service announced Monday.

Faced with warnings from fishermen of unusually high catch rates, the New England Fishery Management Council in April 2023 asked NMFS for an increase in the allowable biological catch (ABC) of Gulf of Maine haddock for the coming fishing year that began May 1.

Without a one-time emergency increase for haddock, groundfish shutdowns appeared likely in August, the council warned.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

MAINE: Scientists report high level of whale activity off Maine coast this fall

November 18, 2023 — Several North Atlantic right whales have been spotted in the Gulf of Maine in recent weeks, including a mother and her 10-month-old calf. The New England Aquarium said it also recently sighted a third right whale about 35 miles southeast of Portland.

The aquarium is reporting the appearance of dozens of humpback whales and endangered fin whales in the Gulf of Maine this fall, along with an endangered blue whale just south of Boothbay.

“The amount of wildlife we’ve seen feeding has really been quite astounding,” Orla O’Brien, a scientist who leads the aerial survey team for the New England Aquarium, said in a statement. “From fin whales lunge feeding on krill, to right whales and basking sharks skim feeding side by side, to groups of humpbacks, pods of dolphins and a blue whale — all brought here by a large amount of prey in the Gulf of Maine.”

The locations of critically endangered right whales are of interest to scientists, because warming waters in the northern Atlantic Ocean have changed the species’ traditional distribution patterns.

Read the full article at Maine Public

New England’s wetter, warmer future is already here

November 16, 2023 — The warmer, wetter future that climate scientists have been predicting for New England is already here.

The fifth National Climate Assessment – issued by the White House on Tuesday – includes data showing the region is seeing extreme heat on land and at sea, especially in the Gulf of Maine, and more frequent heavy rainstorms than any other region of the country.

The assessment shines a spotlight on the links between extreme weather and inland flooding, said U.S. Forest Service scientist Erin Lane, one of the authors of the Northeast chapter. Data shows the number of days when at least 2 inches of rain fell is up, but the number of 5-inch days more than doubled.

These storms can have a big impact on local communities and ecosystems, but they can also spur action.

“The stress of extreme weather is motivating climate action,” Lane said on Tuesday. “In our region, we are seeing more adaptation to build resilience, as well as inclusion of nature-based solutions and carbon emission reduction strategies as communities work toward addressing these issues.”

Rising sea levels and heavy rains are leading to floods, driving up insurance rates, and forcing towns to repair or move roads, bridges and ferry landings. Extreme weather can sometimes mean droughts and floods in succession, wreaking havoc with the growing season, spring thaws and mud season.

Read the full article at the Portland Press Herald

A warming Gulf Stream is edging ever closer to shore

October 23, 2023 — Over the last 20 years, the Gulf Stream has warmed faster than the global oceans and shifted closer to the shore, increasing the likelihood that the tropical ocean current could suddenly impact U.S. coastal fisheries, according to a new study published this month.

Physical oceanographers Robert Todd and Alice Ren from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found the Gulf Stream has warmed 2 degrees Fahrenheit and moved 6 miles closer to the eastern continental shelf since 2001, according to findings published in Nature Climate Change.

The Gulf of Maine is most influenced by the Labrador Current, which brings colder water from the north. The oscillating Gulf Stream generally passes 100 miles south of the Gulf of Maine’s southern border, but warm-water breakaways from it can still increase Gulf of Maine temperatures for months at a time.

Scientists say it is too early to know for sure, but increasingly warm core rings that break away closer to shore could have a significant impact on environmental conditions, and marine wildlife, within the Gulf of Maine, according to Todd, the study’s lead author.

“These rings have a very sharp temperature contrast,” Todd said. “They come in and very suddenly you have very warm water in the spot where you had cold water before. It’s temporary, for the life of the ring, but it’s a long enough period of time that the fish, the shellfish, they care.”

This study focused on the general Gulf Stream that hugs the U.S. coast from Florida up to Cape Cod, before it flows east toward Europe, but Todd notes that other researchers have found the number of warm core rings formed by the Gulf Stream has roughly doubled since 2000.

Read the full article at Portland Press Herald

Gulf of Maine Logged its 8th Hottest Summer on Record

October 10, 2023 — The average surface temperature of the Gulf of Maine this summer was 61.01 degrees, 1.91 degrees above the 30-year seasonal average, making it the eighth hottest summer since satellite data has been collected, according to a new report from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

But conditions in the gulf this summer were unusually cool when compared to recent years, the institute concluded. The three previous summers had been noteworthy for their extended marine heatwaves, part of a long-term trend of unseasonably warm summer and fall temperatures since 2012.

“While the summer of 2023 was ‘only’ the eighth-warmest summer on record in the Gulf of Maine, the broader North Atlantic region was off-the-charts hot,” said Dave Reidmiller, director of the institute’s Climate Center. “It’s clear that the long-term warming trend continues unabated.”

Researchers believe this trend is the result of a distinct regime shift: a combination of the widening of the Gulf Stream, changes in the Labrador Current and the weakening of a large system of currents that carries warm water from the tropics north and keeps the sea’s heat and energy well mixed.

The trend means coastal communities must continue to prepare for a warmer world, Reidmiller said.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Can Fishing and Offshore Wind Coexist in the Gulf of Maine? It Depends, Experts Say

September 19, 2023 — Fisherman David Goethel is looking at the prospect of large scale wind production in the Gulf of Maine and what changes that may mean to fish behavior, marine environment and life as it has been known on the ocean for centuries.

He told an online seminar for the New Hampshire Network for Environmental, Energy and Climate Monday night that “Europe built first and studied later,” the impacts to turbines in their waters.

He said people should also think of food security versus energy security when they look at impacts.

“It’s just as vital and yet, I don’t think it’s getting enough discussion,” he told about 60 people listening to the presentation entitled “Planning for Offshore Wind AND Sustainable Fisheries in New England.”

The central question discussed was can both fishing and renewable wind harvesting coexist and what would the impacts be?

Panelists said it depends on what is built, where and who provides input in the planning.

Read the full article at InDepthNH.org