September 12, 2019 — Commercial fishing of an important species of bait fish is going to be shut down in one of its key areas in New England for about six weeks.
Interstate regulators say the Atlantic herring fishery in the inshore Gulf of Maine is nearing a quota limit and will be subject to restrictions from Sept. 15 to Oct. 31. That means fishermen will not be allowed to bring the fish to land until that date.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at Maine Public
September 11, 2019 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
Period 3 Closure
The Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine) Atlantic herring fishery is projected to have harvested 92% of the period 3 allocation by Sunday, September 15, 2019. Beginning 12:01 a.m. on September 15, 2019, the Area 1A fishery will move to zero landing days through October 31, 2019, as specified in Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Herring.
Period 4
The states of Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts will determine the specifications for period 4 (November and December) of the Atlantic herring fishery during the next Days Out Call in October. A subsequent notice will announce the call information.
For more information, please contact Kirby Rootes-Murdy, Senior Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at krootes-murdy@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.
A copy of this announcement can be found here – http://www.asmfc.org/
August 27, 2019 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
Atlantic herring Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine) fishery regulations include seasonal spawning closures for portions of state and federal waters in Eastern Maine, Western Maine, and Massachusetts/New Hampshire. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Herring Management Board approved a forecasting method that relies upon at least three samples, each containing at least 25 female herring in gonadal states III-V, to trigger a spawning closure. However, if sufficient samples are not available then closures will begin on predetermined dates.
There is currently no samples for the Eastern Maine spawning area to determine spawning condition. Therefore, the Eastern Maine spawning area will be closed starting at 12:01 a.m. on August 28, 2019 extending through 11:59 p.m. on October 8, 2019. The fishery is currently at zero landing days, and the states will notify fishermen of the spawning closure as soon as possible. Vessels in the directed Atlantic herring fishery cannot take, land, or possess Atlantic herring caught within the Eastern Maine spawning area during this time and must have all fishing gear stowed when transiting through the area. An incidental bycatch allowance of up to 2,000 pounds of Atlantic herring per trip/calendar day applies to vessels in non-directed fisheries that are fishing within the Eastern Maine spawning area.
Eastern Maine spawning area includes all waters bounded by the following coordinates
Maine coast 68° 20’ W
43° 48’ N 68° 20’ W
44° 25’ N 67° 03’ W
North along the US/Canada border
Please contact Kirby Rootes-Murdy at 703.842.0740 or krootes-murdy@asmfc.org for more information.
August 14, 2019 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:
The Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine) Atlantic herring fishery is projected to have harvested 92% of the Period 2 allocation by August 17, 2019. Beginning 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, August 18, 2019, the Area 1A fishery will move to zero landing days through August 31, 2019, as specified in Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Herring.
Vessels participating in other fisheries may not possess more than 2,000 pounds of Atlantic herring per trip per day harvested from Area 1A. In addition, all vessels traveling through Area 1A must have all seine and mid-water trawl gear stowed.
July 19, 2019 — A two-week hiatus in the Maine menhaden fishery ended with the Atlantic States Fisheries Management Commission granting an additional 4.7 million pounds of quota, quelling worries about an impeding shortage of lobster bait.
The “episodic event fishery” that started July 15 won’t solve what has become a regular element of suspense for the industry. State officials reopened the season with additional effort controls, and reducing the weekly allowance from four trucks to three.
The harvest is restricted to state waters Monday through Thursday. The Department of Marine Resources had ordered a halt to the fishery June 30, after monitoring showed the fleet had exceeded the Maine annual quote of 2.4 million pounds by 1.5 million pounds – an overage of about 62 percent.
July 16, 2019 — The reopening of the fishery for a species of schooling fish could boost Maine‘s lobster industry during a season in which its favored bait might be hard to come by.
The Portland Press Herald reports regional fishing managers have approved Maine’s request to reopen the fishery for menhaden. That could make available a few million pounds of the bait fish, which are also called pogies.
The most popular lobster bait in Maine is Atlantic herring, but that fishery has been subject to deep quota cuts in recent years because of concerns about the stability of its population.
July 12, 2019 — Maine lobsterman have gained a new option for baiting their traps as Cooke Aquaculture USA has secured permission from the state’s Department of Marine Resources to process and use whole blackbelly rosefish as lobster bait.
The new bait comes as the fishery’s main source of bait, herring, has faced a significant cut to quotas in 2019 and potentially beyond. The New England Fishery Management Council elected to slash the herring quota from nearly 50,000 metric tons (MT) to just over 15,000 MT – a 70 percent reduction – in the wakes of biomass surveys that indicated substantial declines in recruitment and biomass of the fish.
That quota cut means the lobster industry has to go without roughly 55 million pounds of bait in 2019; and the management council may cut quotas further in 2020 and 2021.
“Lobstering is an important part of the communities where we operate. Lobster fisherman are our friends, neighbors, and in many cases, family,” Glenn Cook, CEO of the Cooke Inc. family of companies, said in a release. “When we learned about the bait shortage and its impact on the lobster industry in Maine, we began to explore possible solutions.”
July 11, 2019 — Maine’s lobster fishermen will be able to use a new species of bait fish to try to get through a shortage of herring that has troubled the industry in recent years.
Lobstermen typically bait traps with Atlantic herring, but federal fishery regulators have enacted dramatic cutbacks to the catch quotas for that fish. The Maine Department of Marine Resources said Thursday it has approved the blackbelly rosefish as a new species that can be sold and used as lobster bait in the state.
The blackbelly rosefish is an abundant species that ranges from Canada to South America. Cooke Aquaculture, a New Brunswick, Canada-based company, requested Maine’s approval to sell rosefish as bait, and the company announced plans to harvest the fish off Uruguay.
“We believe this is a solution to address concerns from the lobster fishery on the challenges they are currently facing on account of bait shortages,” said Glenn Cooke, chief executive officer of Cooke Inc., which includes Cooke Aquaculture.
Most of the U.S. lobster catch comes to the shore in Maine, where lobstermen landed nearly 120 million pounds (54 million kilograms) of the valuable seafood last year. Fishermen rely heavily on herring as a bait source, though they also use other species, such as menhaden.
July 8, 2019 — This year’s delayed lobster season kicked off with a cold, rainy spring and bait worries, but lobstermen haven’t been idle. Instead, they’ve been hunting for a way to cope with looming North Atlantic right whale protections.
“The overall feeling around the docks this year is pretty glum,” said Jason Joyce of Swans Island. “Catch is low, expenses are high and (there are) stormy forecasts ahead thanks to wealthy, politically connected multinational environmental groups that have been targeting us as their latest fundraising villain.”
Lousy spring weather means many midcoast lobstermen have set only half their traps. Farther Down East, lobstermen have set their traps but the catches are light. Topping it off: Bait prices are about twice what they were last summer in some ports.
Underscoring those challenges is the persistent uncertainty about what right whale protections will do to Maine’s $485 million industry, a concern heightened by recent reports of six right whale deaths in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Many of Maine’s 4,500 licensed commercial lobster fishermen have been following federal efforts to protect the endangered right whale, especially a mandate that the Maine fleet reduce its buoy lines by half to prevent entanglements.
June 27, 2019 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:
The New England Fishery Management Council is seeking public comment on the Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) process that was used to develop and analyze alternatives for a new acceptable biological catch (ABC) control rule in Amendment 8 to the Atlantic Herring Fishery Management Plan (FMP). The MSE process involved more public input through workshops and technical analysis earlier in the amendment development process than normal. Comments on the process are welcome until 8 a.m. on August 9, 2019.
This was the first time the Council used MSE in decision-making. The Council now is taking a step back to debrief and identify the benefits and/or drawbacks of the MSE process, as well as lessons learned. The Council especially wants to hear from: (1) stakeholders who were involved in the MSE process and attended a workshop; and (2) people who are invested in the future of herring management.