Saving Seafood

Environmental Groups Decry BOEM Failure to Conduct Environmental Review Before Offshore Wind Designations in Gulf of Maine

September 20, 2022 — The following was released by the Conservation Law Foundation:

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has declined to conduct a comprehensive environmental review before designating areas for offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine. Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and several partners had pushed for a full review to be done before wind areas are chosen.

“This decision epitomizes short-term thinking that will only cause problems in the long run,” said Erica Fuller, Senior Attorney at CLF. “It’s simply backwards to choose areas for offshore wind development before doing a full environmental analysis, which would ultimately save time and money if done now. It is critical to advance offshore wind to respond to the climate crisis and clean up our electric grid, but it must be done in a science-based, inclusive and transparent way.”

Considered to be one of the most productive ecosystems in the world, the Gulf of Maine plays a significant role in the culture of New England and is the foundation for a coastal economy characterized by commercial and recreational fishing, aquaculture, recreational boating, shipping, and tourism.

CLF was joined in this effort by 350NH, Acadia Center, Blue Ocean Society, Friends of Casco Bay, Island Institute, League of Conservation Voters, Maine Conservation Voters, Maine Audubon, Mass. Audubon, National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Council of Maine, NRDC, New England Aquarium, New Hampshire Audubon, Oceana, and Surfrider Foundation.

Maine Lobstering Union drops part of lawsuit against NOAA Fisheries

August 25, 2022 — The Maine Lobstering Union is agreeing to drop part of its lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Services, where the federal agency is closing a 960-square-mile section of the Gulf of Maine to lobster fishers.

Federal regulators said this section of ocean is prime habitat for North Atlantic right whales and argued blocking that part of the ocean off from buoy lines from Oct. 18 to Jan. 31, 2023, would help reduce the risk posed to entanglements between lobster gear and whales.

Alfred C Frawley with McCloskey, Mina, Cunniff, and Frawley, LLC, said in an email the move was made as federal agencies add more regulations against the lobster industry.

“The MLU has taken the procedural step of agreeing to dismiss its case in Maine, which was largely mooted by the DC Court’s recent decision, in order to focus its resources on the ongoing litigation in DC and on ensuring that NMFS issues a new rule that both protects the North Atlantic right whale and ensures the sustainability of Maine’s lobster fishery,” Frawley said in an email to NEWS CENTER Maine.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

Climate change has reversed 900 years of cooling in the Gulf of Maine

August 9, 2022 — Nearly a millennium of cooling in the Gulf of Maine has been reversed over the past century.

That’s the finding of a new study, published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, led by Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, co-written by the University of Maine and funded by the National Science Foundation.

Scientists have long warned that the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than most of the world’s oceans — 2021 was yet another year of record warmth — but the lack of long-term records has made it difficult to compare the 20th and 21st centuries to warming or cooling trends for past periods.

The oldest records available come from a station in Boothbay Harbor, where surface water temperatures have been tracked since 1905.

Read the full article at the Bangor Daily News

MASSACHUSETTS: ‘Wicked Tuna’ captain sets sights on selling you tuna

August 8, 2022 — Fans of “Wicked Tuna” often ask Capt. Dave Marciano of Beverly how they might get a taste of the giant bluefin tunas he and his fellow boat captains reel out of the Gulf of Maine on the popular National Geographic reality TV show.

“People have said this to me a hundred times, ‘Where can we get some of the fish that we see you catch on the show?’ I bet I have been asked that a thousand times. and I can’t send them anywhere to get a piece of the fish,” besides a few local restaurants, he said, or maybe a sushi buyer looking for tuna with a high fat for the Asian market.

“We’ve put this name in the households,” Marciano said. “We’ve put the idea of this product in people’s heads. Right now we just can’t send it to them. Well, that’s about to change.”

Starting Sept. 1, Marciano, whose Angelica Fisheries offers fishing charters aboard the fishing vessels Hard Merchandise and Falcon from Gloucester, is casting out his reality show fame to hook customers as he starts a new business called Angelica Seafoods.

The business plans to offer premium fresh seafood products from Gloucester and New England.

Read the full article at Gloucester Times

VESL: one app to make lobster harvest reporting easier

July 27, 2022 — Lobstermen in Maine will have to comply with a new reporting requirement, which will be implemented in 2023, but a free app, VESL, will help fishermen meet their reporting obligations with ease.

Currently only 10 percent of state licensed lobster harvesters in Maine must report their harvest, according to the Department of Marine Resources. However, as part of an update to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission fishery management plan for lobster, 100 percent of state licensed commercial lobstermen will have to report their harvest information, including location of fishing activity and pounds landed, in 2023.

The common notion among the public is that reporting to the government is complicated and time consuming, but it doesn’t have to be so, and that’s where BlueFin Data comes in. The company developed, under a contract with the Maine Department of Marine Resources, the app, called VESL, so lobstermen can meet their reporting obligations with ease. VESL represents the solution to the required increase in the percentage of lobster harvesters who must submit reports.

VESL, which is available for iOS and Android devices and can be downloaded free Apple App Store and Google Play Store, is a hub for collecting quality data with the least amount of effort all in one place, and report it to the government.

Read the full article at National Fishermen

Fisheries groups oppose fast tracking offshore wind development in Gulf of Maine

July 21, 2022 — The health of the ocean is at stake, according to fishing industry advocates who oppose offshore wind development.

A report on the threats posed to commercial fishing was released after an offshore wind conference held in Boston in May.

The Partnership’s Vice President and Executive Director Angela Sanfilippo said her organization is concerned about the health of the ocean, the health of the fish stock, and the health of the industry. She calls plans for fast-tracking wind developments a threat to all three.

Read the full article at Cape Cod Times

MAINE: Volunteers recover nearly 5,000 pounds of trash from Gulf of Maine

July 20, 2022 — A nonprofit conservation group that works to help remove trash and plastic debris from the world’s oceans along with volunteers from Maine’s coastal communities recently recovered nearly 5,000 pounds of what is known as “ghost gear” from the Gulf of Maine.

The group of local volunteers in collaboration with Ocean Conservancy and the Rozalia Project were able to collect a total of 4,723 pounds of discarded gear and other marine debris from remote islands in the Gulf of Maine during an expedition at the end of June.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

Whale activists file objection to Gulf of Maine lobster fishery certification

July 1, 2022 — Conservation groups formally objected to a recent recommendation by MRAG Americas that the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery be recertified to the Marine Stewardship Council standard.

The Gulf of Maine lobster fishery, which covers U.S. landings of the North American lobster was first certified to the MSC standard in 2016, and its current certificate expires on June 30. MRAG Americas has recommended that the certification continue, but groups including Animal Welfare Institute, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Natural Resources Defense Council claim the fishery no longer meets the standards due to complications related to the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

“If the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery was certified as sustainable at this time, consumers of MSC-certified lobster could be unknowingly hastening the demise of one of our most emblematic and endangered species,” said Francine Kershaw, senior scientist with NRDC, in a prepared statement. “There could not be a more blatant way to further erode consumer confidence in MSC as a certifying body.”

At the heart of the issue is the reoccurring fight over the lobster industry’s impact on right whales – something the MSC has been involved with once before. In August 2020, the MSC suspended the certification of the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery after a federal court found it was in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

The suspension has since been lifted, and the lobster industry is also under new standards implemented by NOAA Fisheries to comply with Endangered Species Act. Despite the new rules, the NGOs claim that the fishery is still relying on insufficient protection measures and that it is still posing a threat to right whales.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

NGOs object to MSC recertification for Gulf of Maine lobster

June 28, 2022 — Conservation groups have formally objected to a recent recommendation by MRAG Americas that the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery be recertified to the Marine Stewardship Council standard.

The Gulf of Maine lobster fishery, which covers U.S. landings of the North American lobster (Homarus americanus) was first certified to the MSC standard in 2016, and its current certificate expires on 30 June, 2022. MRAG Americas has recommended that the certification continue, but groups including Animal Welfare Institute, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Natural Resources Defense Council claim the fishery no longer meets the standards due to complications related to the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

How warming ocean temperatures wiped out Maine’s shrimp industry

June 24, 2022 — Shrimp is one of the iconic New England meals.

Unfortunately, Gulf of Maine shrimp or northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) are a cold-water species and New England is on the very southern tip of their range.

They occur from the Arctic to northern New England and are one species that is so temperature-dependent that we could use them as an indicator to detect climate changes.

Since 2014 fishing for northern shrimp has been banned in the United States. The stock in our area has decreased to the point where they are not reproducing. This is not due to overfishing; it is directly due to the temperature of the water. They have simply moved north to colder Canadian waters.

Read the full story at The Portsmouth Herald