Saving Seafood

The surprising reasons we should cheer the return of great white sharks

June 14, 2022 — Nearly every summer for the past two decades, Erin Graeber of Braintree has traveled to Cape Cod with her family, often visiting local beaches for a swim. But in 2018, after 26-year-old Arthur Medici was killed by a great white shark off the coast of Wellfleet, Graeber decided her days of ocean swimming on the Cape were behind her. “The joy I get from being in the water is now overshadowed by the fear,” she says. “It’s not worth it.”

Graeber is not alone. Last summer, a school of striped bass was enough to send me and every other swimmer at a beach near Portland, Maine, scrambling to shore. Admittedly, stripers bear little resemblance to gray seals, the favorite prey of great white sharks (often called “white sharks” by scientists), but after a shark attack in nearby Harpswell killed 63-year-old Julie Dimperio Holowach in 2020, we weren’t taking any chances.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

 

MAINE: Portland Fish Exchange looks to shore up its future with aquaculture

September 3, 2020 — The Portland Fish Exchange is launching a new oyster sorting and bagging operation inside its cold, cavernous auction warehouse in hopes of growing the state’s aquaculture economy and diversifying a business plan that’s taken a beating since local ground fish landings collapsed.

On Wednesday, the Exchange received the first of what it hopes will be many oyster deliveries. Two employees measured, sorted, bagged and tagged five 100-count bags of Eastern oysters harvested by Running Tide, a two-year-old aquaculture company that operates a hatchery in Harpswell and grows oysters, clams and scallops at three coastal Maine locations.

“Ground fish landings have been going down, down, down for years,” said Bert Jongerden, the longtime general manager of the exchange. “The numbers told us we had to find something else. So we thought, let’s do for aquaculture what we’ve done for ground fishermen. Give them the shoreside support they need to focus on harvesting instead of chasing down sales.”

The pearly white shelled oysters, which measure from 2 ½ inches to 5 inches from hinge to outer shell fan, have rounded edges created from being tumbled, or stirred, to avoid being chipped when shucked, and deep pockets that hint at the plump meat inside. This first harvest is bound for The Shop, a raw bar on Washington Avenue, to be served up on Friday.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Lobstermen will get extension on medical waivers

April 11, 2018 — AUGUSTA, Maine — A Maine law is now on the books to extend the amount of time some commercial fishing license holders can receive a medical waiver.

Harpswell Democratic Rep. Jay McCreight’s measure allows the Maine Department of Marine Resources commissioner to renew a temporary medical waiver for lobster and crab fishing licenses up to one year.

McCreight says she was motivated to make the proposal at the request of a Harpswell lobsterman who needed help because he’s struggling with a terminal illness, but still needs to work.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

 

MAINE: Red tide prompts state to close many clam flats

May 24, 2017 — A large segment of the Maine coastline between Old Orchard Beach and Harpswell was declared off-limits to clam harvesting this week because of red tide, adding further restrictions to a much larger area that has been under a shellfish harvesting prohibition for more than a month.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources and its Bureau of Public Health made the announcement on Monday, warning that the ban on clam harvesting takes effect immediately because of the threat of paralytic shellfish poisoning caused by red tide.

According to the department’s announcement, it is unlawful now to dig for clams in the area between Old Orchard Beach and Harpswell.

The clam harvesting ban, which applies only to soft-shell, hard-shell and razor clams, will affect clam digging areas on Cousins Island in Yarmouth, Chebeague Island in Cumberland, Woodward Point in Brunswick, Foster Point in West Bath, and Basin Point in Harpswell.

Jeff Nichols, a spokesman for the marine resources department, said a regional ban that prohibited the harvesting of mussels, European oysters and carnivorous snails was implemented April 3. The regional shellfish ban affects the area between South Berwick in York County and Pemaquid Point in the Lincoln County community of Bristol, he said. Clam harvesting may still occur in flats to the south of Old Orchard Beach and north of Harpswell under the regional ban.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Auction of historic lobster wharf could change life on this Maine island

April 13, 2017 — The first true sign of spring arrived Tuesday on Bailey Island, as temperatures hovered around 60 degrees and lobstermen painted buoys and repaired traps near Cook’s Lobster & Ale House, just over the historic Cribstone Bridge at the tip of Harpswell.

Nick and Jennifer Charboneau were busy at the 62-year-old restaurant, readying for the second weekend of the new season following an “amazing” 2016, their first full season at the helm of the waterfront restaurant that has been featured on national television advertising campaigns and multiple travel magazines.

Although the adjacent commercial wharf was still, with lobster boats not yet active for the season, it was the focus of much discussion in the area. Following a preview Wednesday and another next week, the wharf and associated docks and outbuildings will be auctioned “as is” to the highest bidder on April 25.

The outcome of that auction could mean big changes for the fishing community on the island.

For the dozen or so fishermen who moor their boats in tiny Garrison’s Cove and fish off the wharf, maintaining a commercial operation is critical, as it is for the Charboneaus and the Casco Bay Ferry cruise boat that arrives once each day during the summer,

Danny Coffin, whose lobster boat, the Twisted Halo, is moored in Garrison’s Cove, said Tuesday that while the wharf has fallen into disrepair in recent years, “we need it.”

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Mild winter heats up efforts to protect Casco Bay’s clams

May 2, 2016 — Soft-shell clams are a summer tradition around Casco Bay, both for the tourists and residents who love steamers and for the clam diggers who turn long, backbreaking hours on the mud flats into cold, hard cash.

But an infestation of invasive green crabs ravaged juvenile clam stocks in the past four years, adding to ecological changes, competition for coastal access and other pressures facing the state’s second most valuable fishery. Clam landings in the Casco Bay communities of Freeport, Harpswell and Brunswick, some of the state’s leading clam producers, plummeted to historic lows in 2015, and the scarcity of soft-shell clams contributed to all-time high prices.

While some shellfish managers say clam populations have rebounded thanks to a few cold winters that killed off green crabs, harvesters are anxious that the mild winter this year could produce a resurgence of green crabs and throw the fragile industry into a tailspin.

Those fears have clam diggers and scientists stepping up efforts to defend clam beds with boxes and nets. And they are fueling calls for a sea change in the management of soft-shell clams by leasing clam beds so that clammers can better protect the resource from predators.

Some are sounding alarms that without human intervention, the resource faces total collapse.

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like people are just going to be able to go out and dig clams like they have without the protection element,” said Sara Randall, a Freeport researcher working with clammers in that town.

Others worry about an overreaction. Although most agree that active management and conservation efforts will be required in the future, not all believe the industry is facing a doomsday.

“We realize there is a bunch going on, but we don’t see it as the end of wild harvest,” said Darcie Couture, a marine scientist working with Harpswell clammers.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald