Saving Seafood

Maine objects, but regulators vote to keep shrimp fishery closed for 2018

November 30, 2017 — Regional fisheries managers voted Wednesday to keep Maine’s commercial shrimp fishery closed for another year amid assessments showing record-low numbers of shrimp in the Gulf of Maine.

The northern shrimp section of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission opted to extend for a fifth year, through 2018, the moratorium on shrimp fishing in northern New England to allow depleted stocks to rebuild. Fishermen and Maine’s representatives on the shrimp panel had been pushing for a modest commercial fishery – ranging from 500 to 2,000 tons – but failed to convince their counterparts from Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

“After 40 years in this business, I know that Mother Nature has a remarkable ability, if we leave the spawning stock in the water, to recover,” said Mike Armstrong, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries representative to the panel. “I’m not convinced that is going to happen … but I want to give this stock a chance to recover for a few more years.”

The decision frustrated Commissioner Patrick Keliher of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, who responded by saying Maine would not participate in the planned 13.3-ton “research set-aside” fishery for shrimp.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald 

 

Moratorium on Northern Shrimp Commercial Fishing Maintained for 2018 Season

November 30, 2017 — PORTLAND, Maine — In response to the depleted condition of the northern shrimp resource, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section extended the moratorium on commercial fishing for the 2018 fishing season. The Section also approved a 13.3 metric ton (mt) research set aside (RSA) and tasked the Technical Committee to develop the RSA program design and report back to the Section for final approval by December 14.

Industry members continued to express concern about the economic impacts of the fishery closure, especially in light of a lack of positive signals in terms of stock rebuilding. Based on these concerns, the Section agreed to include in future discussions the possibility of opening a directed fishery if improvements in stock condition (e.g., strong recruitment or biomass indices) are not realized.

The 2017 Stock Status Report for Gulf of Maine (GOM) Northern Shrimp indicates abundance and biomass indices for 2012–2017 are the lowest on record of the 34 year time series, with 2017 being the lowest observed. Recruitment since 2011 has been poor and includes the four smallest year classes on record. The recruitment index in 2017 (2016 year class) was the second lowest observed. Current harvestable biomass is mainly comprised of females from the weak 2013 year class and some small, early-maturing females from the below-average 2015 year class.

Recruitment of northern shrimp is related to both spawning biomass and ocean temperatures, with higher spawning biomass and colder temperatures producing stronger recruitment. Ocean temperatures in western Gulf of Maine shrimp habitat have increased over the past decade and reached unprecedented highs within the past several years. While 2014 and 2015 temperatures were cooler, 2016 and 2017 temperatures were again high, and temperature is predicted to continue rising as a result of climate change. This suggests an increasingly inhospitable environment for northern shrimp and the need for strong conservation efforts to help restore and maintain the stock. The Northern Shrimp Technical Committee considers the stock to be in poor condition with limited prospects for the near future. The 2017 Stock Status Report is available at http://www.asmfc.org/uploads/file/5a1deb972017NorthernShrimpAssessment_Final.pdf.

For more information, please contact Max Appelman, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at mappelman@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.

 

Shrimp fishery closes another season

November 30, 2017 — As expected, interstate fishery managers will close the Gulf of Maine to commercial shrimping in 2018 for the fifth consecutive year because of the continuing perilous condition of the northern shrimp stock.

The northern shrimp section of the Atlantic States Marine Fishery Commission, which regulates shrimping in the Gulf of Maine, voted 2-1 on Wednesday in Portland, Maine, to continue the shrimping moratorium into the next fishing season.

Representatives from Massachusetts and New Hampshire voted to extend the northern shrimp closure into 2018, rejecting the campaign by some shrimpers and Maine’s panel representative to reopen the region for a scaled-back northern shrimp season.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

US fishing rules coming to impact New England scallops, cod harvests

November 29, 2017 — The US’s National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) has released a proposal that could mean dramatic changes for the way fishing is managed off the coasts of the New England states, the Associated Press reports.

The proposed “Omnibus Essential Fish Habitat Amendment” from NMFS, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, would address the way such species as scallops and haddock are harvested in the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank and other areas, and how rare whales are protected.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News 

 

Odds are tiny for a winter shrimp fishing season

November 28, 2017 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — With fisheries regulators slated to gather in Portland on Wednesday, a shrimp fishing season in the Gulf of Maine this winter seemed as likely as bipartisan tax legislation in Congress.

The schedule called for members of the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section to meet in the afternoon to establish dates and landings limits for the 2018 season. All evidence suggested that, except for a tiny “research” fishery, the limit, or total allowable catch, will be zero and there will be no season at all.

According to the commission’s recently released “2017 Stock Status Report for Gulf of Maine, Northern Shrimp,” the resource is in terrible shape. For the past five years (2012 through 2017) the shrimp stock has been at its lowest, both in terms of number and total biomass, over the 34 years that the shrimp population has been surveyed.

Prospects for the shrimp resource to rebound in the Gulf of Maine are grim.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American 

 

Decision coming about future of New England shrimp fishing

November 27, 2017 — PORTLAND, Maine — A decision is coming this week about whether New England’s long-shuttered shrimp fishery can reopen.

New England shrimping, largely based in Maine, has been shut down since 2013. Regulators say the shrimp are suffering from poor reproduction and warming ocean temperatures.

An arm of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is meeting on Wednesday in Portland to decide if there will be a fishery this coming season.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bristol Herald Courier

 

Massachusetts: Cape and Islands Lawmakers Join Fight to Protect Offshore Herring

November 27, 2017 — CHATHAM, Mass. — The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance is receiving support from the Cape and Islands legislative delegation in protecting offshore herring for local fishermen.

Earlier this month, the lawmakers called on the New England Fishery Management Council to create a buffer zone off the coast of the Cape and Islands from large-scale mid-water herring trawlers.

Current regulations allow the trawlers to fish three miles offshore from Provincetown past the Islands.

“The delegation has taken up a position that we staked out at the Fishermen’s Alliance years ago that we need a buffer zone,” said John Pappalardo, the alliance CEO.

“In other words, a zone off the Cape and Islands where these vessels cannot come in and intensively harvest sea herring.”

The alliance would like a 50 mile buffer zone.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

 

Plan to change New England ocean stewardship up for debate

November 24, 2017 — The federal government is close to enacting new rules about New England ocean habitat that could mean dramatic changes for the way it manages the marine environment and fisheries.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has been working on the rules for some 13 years and recently made them public. They would change the way the government manages the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank and southern New England waters, which are critical pieces of ocean for rare whales, unique underwater canyons and commercial fishermen.

The new rules would affect the way highly valuable species such as scallops and haddock are harvested, in part because it would alter protections that prohibit fishing for species in parts of the ocean. The proposal states that its goal is to minimize “adverse effects of fishing on essential fish habitat.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

 

Scientists Again Recommend Moratorium On Maine Shrimp Fishery

November 22, 2017 — Coveted Maine shrimp are likely off the menu again in 2018.

For the fifth straight year, federal scientists are recommending a moratorium on commercial fishing of northern shrimp in the Gulf of Maine. The small, sweet-tasting invertebrates’ numbers and biomass in the gulf have been dropping steadily, reaching their lowest recorded level this year, according to Max Appelman, who coordinates the fishery’s management for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

“We haven’t seen consecutive low values like this in the history of this fishery. So, somewhat unprecedented, where we are right now,” he says.

Read the full story at Maine Public

 

Maine’s shrimp fishery unlikely to open in 2018

November 22, 2017 — The Maine shrimp fishery appears headed toward another closed season in 2018 based on bleak stock assessments made earlier this year, according to federal officials.

If a panel meeting next Wednesday in Portland agrees with the recommendations released this week, 2018 would be the fourth year the small but much-loved winter fishery is closed.

“It was not a good result for shrimp this year,” said Max Appelman, who coordinates the fishery for the federal regulatory body, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, that oversees the fishery.

Abundance of the species was at a 34-year low in 2017, according to the commission. During the annual summer scientific survey, data showed that survival of the shrimp that spawned in 2016 was the second lowest observed in the history of the survey, which began in the mid-1980s.

Climate change is the likeliest cause for the crash in the fishery; Northern shrimp, or pandalus borealis, require cold winter water to spawn. Waters in the Gulf of Maine, the southern most waters the shrimp can survive in, are warming faster than 99 percent of the world’s oceans, according to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

The environment for shrimp is increasingly “inhospitable,” according to the report.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald