Saving Seafood

Maine’s Elver Fishery Rules Relaxed To Protect Industry During Coronavirus Pandemic

March 27, 2020 — State regulators are relaxing some rules for Maine’s valuable elver fishery, in order to get the delayed season underway while maintaining safe practices during the coronavirus pandemic.

Licensed fishermen will be able to harvest not only their own quotas, but those of others as well, and to bring them all to dealers. The goal, says Department of Marine Resources spokesman Jeff Nichols, is to reduce the number of people involved on a daily basis.

“So that will reduce the number of harvesters on the banks and at the shops where they’re sold,” Nichols says. “At the same time dealers have agreed to a set of guidelines intended to provide protection at the shops.”

Read the full story at Maine Public

Maine regulators to meet with lobstermen again about new whale rules

September 18, 2019 — Maine regulators are working on a new slate of meetings with the state’s lobstermen to discuss potential new whale protection rules that could impact the fishery.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources is developing a proposal for the federal government about how to better protect endangered North Atlantic right whales. It had scheduled several meetings with lobstermen about the proposal for this month, but has temporarily put them on hold.

Department spokesman Jeff Nichols said a revised schedule will be out after regulators have had a chance to develop a proposal that reflects “another review of all data.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Shellfish harvest sites reopened after long red tide season

August 21, 2019 — Maine has recently lifted long closures of several shellfish harvest sites due to the potentially fatal biological toxin known as red tide.

The Portland Press Herald reports this year’s closure remained in place for three months in parts of southern Maine, nearly three times as long as the typical four to five weeks.

Jeff Nichols, a spokesman for the Maine Department of Marine Resources, said the department hasn’t determined the cause of the longer red tide season.

Read the full story at The Associated Press at the Bangor Daily News

Maine elver season gets slower start, but values still above average

April 5, 2019 — Maine’s elver fishery got its start on 22 March, and at two weeks in, the average price-per-pound is sitting well above historical averages.

Maine’s elver fishery made headlines last year as the prices being paid for the baby eels hit historic highs, with some reporting getting prices of over USD 2,500 (EUR 2,225) per pound. Maine Department of Marine Resources landing statistics show that the fishery brought in USD 21.7 million (EUR 19.3 million) in 2018, with an average seasonal price of USD 2,366 (EUR 2,105) per pound, making it the second-most valuable fishery in the state behind lobster.

This year, the numbers are tracking significantly lower than the same period in 2018. In 2018, by 1 April, the fishery had already generated USD 1.4 million (EUR 1.25 million) in value, with a catch of 559 pounds. However, on 3 April of this year, the value has been reported at half of what it was in 2018, at USD 755,869 (EUR 672,844) and the total harvest sits at just over 460 pounds.

Despite the smaller numbers, 2019 is still well above average compared to years past, Maine Department of Marine Resources Director of Communications Jeff Nichols told SeafoodSource. Average price-per-pound in 2010, for example, was just USD 185 (EUR 164.68).

“At over USD 1,600 [EUR 1,424] a pound, the value is still significant relevant to the historic norm,” he said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

New controls in Maine to prevent poaching of valuable eels

February 25, 2019 — Maine’s lucrative baby eel industry will likely face tighter controls this year designed to thwart poaching, as officials consider requiring state law enforcement officers to oversee the packing and shipping of the wriggling critters.

Baby eels, called elvers, are an important part of the worldwide supply chain for Japanese food. Maine fishermen harvest them from rivers and streams every spring, and they are typically worth more than $1,000 per pound. No other U.S. state has a significant elver fishery.

But poaching has dogged the industry. Last year’s season was shut down by state regulators two weeks early after investigators unearthed concerns about illegal sales.

This year, the Maine Department of Marine Resources is looking to add a requirement that elver exporters in the state must notify the Maine Marine Patrol 48 hours before preparing to pack and ship the eels. The officer will witness the weighing and packing of the elvers and then mark the package with a seal that must remain intact and untampered with until the eels reach their destination.

“That is a way to secure the shipment and ensure that the package is not tampered with and elvers illegally harvested will not end up in those shipments,” said Jeff Nichols, a spokesman for the marine resources department.

Read the story from the Associated Press at the Bangor Daily News

2 Maine eel dealers face charges after illegal sales cut lucrative fishing season short

January 28, 2019 — Illegal sales of baby eels that caused last year’s abrupt closure of Maine’s elver fishery have resulted in criminal charges for two baby eel dealers and new rules from the state proposing closer oversight of the lucrative fishery.

The alleged criminal behavior, in which some dealers are accused of using prohibited cash transactions to conceal baby eel purchases from the state’s mandated electronic sales monitoring system, is the latest illicit scheme to be uncovered in Maine’s baby eel fishery.

Ever since the value of the eels, also known as elvers, jumped from an average price of $100 per pound a decade ago to more than $2,300 per pound last year, fishery regulators have had to contend with increased poaching and smuggling.

The Maine dealers accused of making illegal cash purchases of elvers last spring are Roger Bintliff and Freddie Mei, according to Jeff Nichols, spokesman for the state Department of Marine Resources.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

Maine lobster harvest topped 100m lbs again

January 23, 2019 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources is still auditing its 2018 lobster catch and won’t issue a report until February, but department spokesperson Jeff Nichols has reportedly confirmed that the US state landed more than 100 million lbs for the eighth year in a row.

Speaking at the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference, in San Diego, California, last week, Keith Moores, president of Gloucester, Massachusetts-based frozen seafood supplier J.W. Bryce, estimated that Maine’s 4,500 harvesters landed about 119m lbs of lobster in 2018, an 8m lb increase over 2017, the Portland (Maine) Press Herald reported.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

In wake of menhaden quota increase, some states rejoice as others push back

April 9, 2018 — Changes to the menhaden quota allocation on the East Coast of the U.S.A. have been met by support from some states, while others are pushing back.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) decided in November 2017 to increase the menhaden catch limit from 200,000 metric tons to 216,000 metric tons for the 2018 and 2019 seasons. Menhaden typically are utilized for the high amount of omega-3 fats they contain, and their oils are used dietary supplements, animal feed, lipstick, and many other products. The fish also serves as bait for a number of commercial fisheries along the coast, particularly in the crab and lobster industries.

While the overall quota was increased, it was also redistributed. Some states, like Maine, saw their quotas jump enormously.

“Maine’s quota jumped to 2.4 million pounds (1 million kilograms) – 13 times the quota available in 2016 and 2017,” said Jeff Nichols, director of communications for the Maine Department of Marine Resources. “The number of harvesters that reported landings associated with Maine’s total allowable catch (TAC) in 2017 is too few to report because of confidentiality provisions in law. However, 17 vessels participated in the episodic event fishery and 13 in the incidental catch fishery, both of which are triggered once the TAC is met.”

An episodic event was triggered last year in Maine, allowing fishermen to catch far more than the typical quota. The Interstate Fishery Management Plan for menhaden allows the Atlantic Menhaden Management board to set aside one percent of the total allowable catch for “episodic events.”

“Episodic events are defined as any instance when a qualified state has reached its individual state quota, prior to 1 September, and has information indicating the presence of unusually large amounts of menhaden in its state waters,” said Max Appelman, fishery management plan coordinator for the ASMFC.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Maine disputes study that predicts sharp decline in Gulf of Maine lobsters

The Department of Marine Resources won’t be using researchers’ model to make management decisions, saying that forecasting fishery populations 30 years out is extremely difficult.

January 29, 2018 — The state agency that oversees Maine’s marine fisheries is questioning the reliability of a new study that predicts a sharp decline in Gulf of Maine lobsters over the next 30 years.

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the University of Maine and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration built a computer model that predicts the population will fall 40 to 62 percent by 2030.

But Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources, won’t be using the model to help him decide how to manage the state’s most valuable fishery, which pumped $533.1 million into the state economy in 2016.

“(He) does not have confidence in a model that simulates what might happen decades in the future,” spokesman Jeff Nichols said. “This is a wild resource, making predictions extremely challenging.”

Thirty years ago, when landings were less than 20 million pounds, no one could have predicted that the Maine lobster fleet would be landing more than 130 million pounds a year in 2016, Nichols said.

“The commissioner and his science staff don’t question the science, but rather see this as an unreliable tool on which to base management decisions,” he said.

The department isn’t alone in having doubts about the study. Maine lobster dealers voiced skepticism, too, recalling previous erroneous lobster forecasts by some of the same scientific organizations.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Maine: Deadline Looming For Maine’s Elver Fishing Lottery

January 10, 2018 — The deadline to enter Maine’s lottery for new elver fishing licenses is coming next Monday, Jan. 15.

Maine Department of Marine Resources spokesman Jeff Nichols says this year, there are 13 new licenses available for Maine residents who haven’t had their eligibility suspended, and who are at least 15 years old.

“This is a nice opportunity for people to get into this – what is, by far, the most lucrative fishery we have on a per-pound basis,” Nichols says.

In the last season, elvers were worth more than $1,300 per pound. Overall, the fishery brought in $13 million.

Read the full story at Maine Public