Saving Seafood

Scientists see long-term hope for Maine’s lobster fishery despite warming waters

June 13, 2022 — Dire predictions about the effects of global warming on Maine’s lobster population may be exaggerated and underestimate the potential that conservation measures have to preserve the fishery into the future.

Rapid warming in the Gulf of Maine and the collapse of lobster fisheries in southern New England have fueled predictions that lobsters will likely move north out of Maine waters in the coming decades. But ongoing research at the University of Maine is revealing a more optimistic long-term view of the Maine lobster fishery.

The UMaine scientists are now projecting that temperatures in Gulf of Maine will likely remain within lobsters’ comfort zone because of the gulf’s unique oceanographic features, though changing ocean currents are harder to predict. The researchers cautioned that the dynamics of global warming are complex and make it difficult to project far into the future with certainty.

Ocean stratification – where water of different densities separates into distinct layers – is keeping the bottom temperatures colder on the Gulf of Maine’s western side, the scientists say, while strong tidal mixing in the eastern gulf and the Bay of Fundy helps moderate the water temperature there during the summer. Because Maine waters have historically been so cold, they say, even a couple of degrees of warming should keep Maine’s bottom waters below 68 degrees, the temperature at which lobsters begin to show signs of stress, according to the Atlantic States Fisheries Management Council.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

New research shows climate change impacts on whale habitat use in the warming Gulf of Maine

June 10, 2022 — New research finds climate change is having an impact on how large whale species, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, use habitats in the warming Gulf of Maine, showing that right whales’ use of Cape Cod Bay has shifted significantly over the last 20 years.

The study, led by the New England Aquarium and including researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the USGS Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, the Center for Coastal Studies, UCLA, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Canadian Whale Institute was published this month in the journal Global Change Biology. The authors set out to better understand the impacts of ocean climate change on phenology, or the timing of recurring biological events such as when plants flower each year. Using more than 20 years of data, the scientists measured shifts in whale habitat use in Cape Cod Bay, evaluating trends in peak use for North Atlantic right whales, humpback whales, and fin whales. The study found that peak use of Cape Cod Bay had shifted almost three weeks later for right whales and humpback whales. Changes in the timing of whale habitat use were related to when spring starts, which has been changing as a result of climate change. The study suggested that highly migratory marine mammals can and do adapt the timing of their habitat use in response to climate-driven changes in their environment, with results showing increased habitat use by right whales in Cape Cod Bay from February to May, with greatest increases in April and May.

“The time of year when we are most likely to see right and humpback whales in Cape Cod Bay has changed considerably, and right whales are using the habitat much more heavily than they did 20 years ago,” said lead author Dr. Dan Pendleton, Research Scientist in the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life.

Read the full story at ScienceDaily

Can Offshore Wind Energy Coexist With Maine’s Lobster Industry? Attempt Underway

June 9, 2022 — Researchers at the University of Maine are attempting to work ahead to prevent problems between one of Maine’s heritage industries and a new clean energy sector.

Over the past several years, Maine lobstermen have raised concerns about offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine and its potential to disrupt where and how they fish.

Hundreds of people in Maine’s lobster industry organized a protest in the state’s capital, Augusta, last year on the same day Gov. Janet Mills issued a moratorium on all new offshore wind development in state waters for 10 years, excluding some specific research projects. ‘

Roughly one week ago, UMaine announced it would try to “minimize” conflict by working with the Maine Lobstermen’s Association and other groups to gather data on where fishing occurs, in order to inform offshore wind development.

“Right now, published maps suggest that lobster fishing is occurring everywhere. We hope through this effort to provide more spatial specificity about the most important fishing locations — where fishermen spend more time and effort,” said Kate Beard-Tisdale, a professor of spatial computing at the university who is leading this collaboration, in a statement released by UMaine.

Read the full story at NECN

NASA-funded Study: Gulf of Maine’s Phytoplankton Productivity Down 65%

June 8, 2022 — The Gulf of Maine is growing increasingly warm and salty, due to ocean currents pushing warm water into the gulf from the Northwest Atlantic, according to a new NASA-funded study. These temperature and salinity changes have led to a substantial decrease in the productivity of phytoplankton that serve as the basis of the marine food web. Specifically, phytoplankton are about 65% less productive in the Gulf of Maine than they were two decades ago, scientists at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in East Boothbay, Maine, report in new results published today.

The Gulf of Maine helps fuel New England’s marine ecosystems and economy. Like plants on land, phytoplankton absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use photosynthesis to grow, and then become a food source for other organisms. Disruptions to their productivity can lead to adverse effects on the region’s fisheries and the communities that depend on them.

“Phytoplankton are at the base of the marine food web on which all of life in the ocean depends, so it’s incredibly [significant] that its productivity has decreased,” says William Balch, the Bigelow Laboratory scientist who led the study. “A drop [of] 65% will undoubtedly have an effect on the carbon flowing through the marine food web, through phytoplankton-eating zooplankton and up to fish and apex predators.”

Read the full story from NASA

UMaine and lobster industry team up on innovative collaboration to map Maine’s fishing effort

June 6, 2022 — The University of Maine is leading an innovative new research project to collaborate with Maine’s lobster industry to explore the potential to use data owned by commercial lobstermen to map fishing effort. These data may be used to minimize conflict from potential future offshore wind development.

The state of Maine has set an aggressive goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 and is looking to floating offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine to supply renewable power, as well as economic benefit.

Participants in Maine’s commercial fisheries are concerned that offshore wind development could result in lost fishing grounds and pose significant navigation and safety concerns. While Maine’s lobster fishery accounted for 82 percent of the value of Maine’s commercial seafood landings in 2021, there are no comprehensive data on where and when Maine lobstermen fish. To minimize the impact on Maine’s lobster fishery, better data are needed on the location, type and intensity of fishing activity in the Gulf of Maine.

Kate Beard-Tisdale is leading this collaborative project to use data already being collected by commercial lobstermen to fill these data gaps.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

A prized southern crustacean could be Maine’s newest fishery

May 31, 2022 — The appearance of blue crab in Maine over the past couple years has researchers wondering if the prized southern crustacean is making a new home up north.

Known for their bright blue claws, blue crabs are one of the most valuable commercial fisheries in the Chesapeake Bay. While not unheard of, sightings in Maine are rare, and the species historically does stray much further than Massachusetts.

But scientists in southern Maine say they’ve found dozens of blue crabs in the salt marshes off Wells, prompting them to investigate if the species is extending its habitat north as the Gulf of Maine warms.

If it is, there’s potential for a new fishery in Maine, though there is also tremendous uncertainty around how the highly predatory crab would interact with local species, including the lobster — the bread and butter of Maine’s fishing fleet.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

MASSACHUSETTS: State weighs relief fund to buoy lobster industry

May 27, 2022 — Lawmakers want to create a new fund to help commercial lobstermen whose livelihoods are being impacted by state and federal regulations aimed at protecting critically endangered north Atlantic right whales.

An amendment added to the Senate version of the $49.7 billion state budget, approved Thursday, would set up a Lobstering Closure Mitigation Fund through the state’s unemployment system with at least $12 million in initial funding.

The amendment was co-sponsored by Sens. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, and Patrick O’Connor, R-Weymouth, who say the move will provide “much needed relief” for the lobster industry.

“It is absolutely critical that we provide relief to the people in this industry which is so important to the commonwealth,” Tarr said. “As the second largest provider of lobster in the nation these workers are needed for another day, another year, and another generation.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

New England task force convenes to plan the next phase of offshore wind development

May 25, 2022 — Last year, President Joe Biden announced plans to start leasing areas of the Gulf of Maine to offshore wind energy developers by 2024.

On Thursday, May 18, the federal Bureau Of Ocean Energy Management convened a task force of officials from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and tribal governments to consider the next phase in the push to stand up a new “green” industry off the shores of Northern New England.

Leases for wind projects have been stacking up the past few years off Atlantic states from Massachusetts south. Attention now turns to the Gulf of Maine, where deeper waters will likely require deployment of new “floating platform” technologies that Maine researchers and international developers are pioneering.

“So the Gulf of Maine, off the coast of Maine, floating is the only option. We don’t have any other options,” said Habib Dagher, the University of Maine engineering expert who has led development of a prototype floating-platform wind turbine in state waters off Mohegan Island.

Dagher is also part of the team that has proposed a larger array of as many as a dozen turbines in federal waters off the midcoast, aimed at researching the technology’s viability and its effects on ecosystems and fisheries.

Officials at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on May 18 outlined their plans for handling Gov. Janet Mills’ proposed 16-square-mile lease site for the research array.

Backers such as Dagher say it can set a course early for responsible development of commercial-scale projects off the East Coast.

Read the full story at Maine Public Radio

 

New research suggests cod, New England’s founding fish, may be returning to local waters

May 5, 2022 — “For the first time in about 20 years we’ve seen and are tracking a successful year class of cod, and they seem to be growing at a very good rate,” said Kevin Stokesbury, a fisheries science professor at UMass Dartmouth leading a multi-year survey of codfish in the Gulf of Maine.

Stokesbury has a history of using scientific innovation to produce new findings that upend fishing regulations. In the 1990s, he devised a new way of counting scallops that helped open up a tightly regulated fishery.

A typical government-led survey determines scallop numbers by dredging the ocean floor, counting the scallops it pulls up, and estimating what percentage that is of the total scallops in the sample area. Stokesbury’s surveys rely on pictures of the ocean floor instead. A team of his undergraduates count all the scallops in their sample areas one-by-one, eliminating much of the guesswork.

Stokesbury’s method for counting scallops was peer reviewed and eventually incorporated into the government’s periodic stock assessments, which form the basis of fishing regulations in America. In the early 2000s, regulators had already suspected scallops were rebounding to some extent, but Stokesbury’s findings upended what they had been saying for years.

“They thought there were two to three times as many scallops in there,” Stokesbury said, “and there were actually about 14 times as many.”

But the UMass Dartmouth scientist has his own critics when it comes to codfish. One of them has an office down the hall from him.

Professor Steve Cadrin, a fisheries scientist leading a periodic review of how the government assesses cod stocks, said the cod fishery has opened up prematurely once before.

“We’ve seen other year classes that have not survived,” Cadrin said.

Some years, Cadrin said NOAA’s projections have been overly optimistic.

“They led to continued overfishing and the stock hasn’t rebuilt,” Cadrin said. “It’s a lot more than just a heartbreak. There’s been a lot of fishery restrictions because of that.”

Read the full story at The Public’s Radio

Conservation groups call for federal review of offshore wind impact on Gulf of Maine ecosystems

May 4, 2022 — A wide coalition of New England conservation groups is calling on federal regulators for a rigorous review of the potential effects of offshore wind-farms on Gulf of Maine ecosystems and fisheries. And they want that effort made before specific wind sites are proposed – which the feds did not do when planning wind-lease areas in southern New England.

Some 18 groups from Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine signed on to the effort, ranging from the New England Aquarium to the Natural Resources Council of Maine, as well as national organizations like the Audubon Society.

They are calling for a “Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement” — a comprehensive up-front review of the all the Gulf’s ecosystems, before any consideration of where the best wind- lease sites might be.

Read the full story at Maine Public Radio