Saving Seafood

MAINE: Deer Isle lobstermen offer whale rule alternative

June 17, 2019 — For Maine lobstermen, 2019 is likely to bring a summer of discontent.

Fuel prices are high. Cuts in herring fishing quotas — with further cuts likely — mean that bait is likely to be extremely scarce, and whatever’s available extremely expensive as the season develops. And that’s the good news.

What really has lobstermen worked up is the demand by federal regulators that they reduce the risk of death or injury to endangered right whales in the Gulf of Maine by 60 percent. To do that, Maine lobstermen will have to reduce the number of vertical endlines in the water — the lines that link traps on the bottom to buoys on the surface — by 50 percent.

Despite the harsh restrictions, the recommendations of NOAA’s Large Whale Take Reduction Team were a victory of sorts. For the time being, there is no suggestion of closing areas of the Gulf of Maine to fishing and the demand by some conservation organizations for the use of “ropeless” fishing gear was quashed.

Last Thursday, Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher drew a packed house to a meeting of the Zone C Lobster Management Council, held at the Reach Performing Arts Center in the Deer Isle-Stonington Elementary School, to explain the regulatory process and to hear suggestions from lobstermen as to how best to meet the line reduction goal in the area where they fish.

It was the second of seven meetings Keliher has scheduled with the state’s seven zone councils this month. Carl Wilson, DMR’s chief scientist, and most of the department’s upper echelon, were on hand as well.

DMR is working on a very tight timeline, Keliher said.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Feature: The Entanglement Tango

June 14, 2019 — Despite an ongoing federal trade war with China imposing tariffs on seafood exports and a looming bait crisis as herring quota were slashed in the Atlantic, Maine’s lobster fleet still managed to haul in crustacean cash. The fleet landed 120 million pounds of lobster worth $484 million in 2018, the fishery’s third-highest annual value ever.

Coming off a profitable year, lobstermen might normally be energized gearing up for the peak summer and fall — but the latest news in the industry’s labored relationship with the Atlantic’s endangered right whale population had them focused on the future of their livelihood instead of the upcoming summer.

In April, NOAA informed the industry that in order to reduce mortality and serious injury to right whales, the U.S. fishing industry would need to reduce risks to whales by 60 to 80 percent throughout New England.

To reach those goals, fishing stakeholders on the federal Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team agreed to attempt a drastic measure: significantly reducing the number of vertical lines used by the region’s lobstermen. In Maine, where thousands of small-scale lobstermen catch the majority of the U.S. lobster haul, that means reducing vertical lines in the water by at least 50 percent.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

New England council calls for further curbs on herring catches

June 12, 2019 — Recommendations made by the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC) will further reduce Maine lobster harvesters’ access to herring as a baitfish.

According to the Associated Press, the council has recommended that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cut herring catch levels to 25 million pounds (11,400t) for 2020, down from 15,875t this year. Five years ago, herring catch limits were set at 90,718t, the news service said.

“Maine lobstermen will continue to identify new bait sources to further diversify our bait supply and develop efficiencies in our bait use,” Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, told the news service.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

MAINE: Lobster ‘shack’ keeping Portland waterfront working

June 12, 2019 — In Portland in the summer, you can pretty much find lobster on every block along the water. One week ago, the latest fishing shack opened at the end of Portland Pier. But Luke’s Lobster is anything but a shack; and it’s not just another restaurant taking up waterfront space.

The owner, Luke Holden; his chef, Zac Leeman; and quite a few members of his staff come from fishing families, so preserving a working waterfront has been the focus of their brand new space – starting with fixing up the docks and making the space useful again.

Order a lobster, and it comes directly from one of the holding tanks adjacent to the restaurant; a lobster that came directly from one of the boats tied to the docks surrounding the deck of Luke’s Lobster. Visitors can sit, sip a cocktail and watch their catch come in.

These guys take their waterfront relationship seriously, with a slogan “No middlemen, just lobstermen.” Even their coasters reflect that.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

New restrictions considered to help protect whales off coast of Maine

June 11, 2019 — Dozens of lobstermen showed up for tonight’s meeting at Kennebunk High School.

They say the proposed restrictions are way too tough and could severely hurt Maine’s lobster industry.

The Department of Marine Resources is looking to remove hundreds of lobstermen’s vertical lines from the Gulf of Maine.

These lines are what connect the buoy to the trap.

Experts say right whales, which are near extinction, are getting entangled in them.

Roughly 411 right whales are estimated to be alive today.

While the department confirms no right whale deaths have occurred in the Gulf of Maine, the state still has to play its part due to federal law.

The department says the goal is to reduce the risk of entanglement deaths by sixty percent.

Lobstermen say if right whales aren’t getting hurt in their lines, it shouldn’t be their responsibility.

Read the full story at WGME

‘Why not lobsters?’: Mainers plead with Trump to help an industry suffering from his trade war

June 7, 2019 — The mild-mannered independent senator from Maine, Angus King, got angry as he watched President Trump announce a $16 billion bailout two Thursdays ago to help farmers who are losing money because of the U.S. trade war with China.

A guy from Idaho wearing a “Make Potatoes Great Again” hat stood appreciatively at the president’s side. So did producers of corn, soybeans, wheat and pork. They’re all getting another round of handouts from the Department of Agriculture.

But many of King’s constituents have also been suffering, and they’re getting the shaft from their government. Lobster exports to China, which had been booming for years, have plummeted 84 percent since Beijing imposed retaliatory tariffs last July, according to new data from the Maine International Trade Center. The growing Chinese middle class is eating more lobsters from Canada, which now cost them a quarter to a third less but taste no different.

“We’ve got an industry that’s suffering exactly the same kind of negative effects,” King said in an interview. “Why not lobsters? There’s no logical distinction that I can see. … I’m sure a lot of people in Maine had the same reaction I did watching that press conference: What are we, chopped lobster?”

To be sure, chopped lobster from Maine sounds delicious – especially if it’s thinly coated in mayonnaise and stuffed into a hot dog bun that’s been lightly toasted in butter. But, in all seriousness, King’s frustration underscores the degree to which Trump and his political appointees in Washington have been picking winners and losers. The lobster industry has been one of the losers.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Possible whale-protection strategies? Lobster trap reductions, more traps on one line

June 6, 2019 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources is in the midst of a first round of meetings with the lobster industry, to discuss strategies to cope with an expected 50% cut in the number of “endlines” in the water.

Endlines are the vertical lines that connect lobster traps that are on the ocean bottom with a buoy at the sea surface. The buoy identifies where the traps are, and the vertical lines are used to haul up the traps.

The agency is holding the meetings with Maine’s seven Lobster Management Zone Councils during June to facilitate the development of a proposal that meets targets established by the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team for protecting right whales, according to an agency news release.

The team has recommended broad measures for Maine that include removing 50% of vertical lines from the Gulf of Maine and the use of weak rope in the top of remaining vertical lines. The measures put forward by the team are driven by federal laws designed to protect whales. The laws are the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Maine’s fishing community braces for new wave of catch limits and monitoring

June 6, 2019 — Setting fishing limits for Atlantic herring for the next two years, further discussions about how to monitor the groundfish catch, and proposals for regulating and setting catch limits for scallops are among the topics the New England Fishery Management Council will discuss during three days of meetings beginning June 11 in South Portland.

The council, charged with managing New England’s fisheries, is made up of 18 voting members including the regional administrator of the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Fisheries in the Greater Atlantic Region, the five principal state officials with marine fishery management responsibility or their designee, and 12 members nominated by governors of New England coastal states and appointed by the secretary of commerce.

Among the topics of most interest to Maine fishermen are setting Atlantic herring catch limits for 2020 and 2021.

Final numbers won’t be available until they are discussed Tuesday, but Janice M. Plante, public affairs officer for NEFMC, said, “The catch limits at best will be about the same as this year or a little bit lower.”

The 2020 numbers will be set, but 2021 numbers may be updated following a stock assessment update, she said.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Lobstermen at state hearing wary of regulations to protect whales

June 5, 2019 — In private conversations, local fishermen all tell David Horner, a longtime Southwest Harbor lobsterman, the same thing: they’d be willing to fish fewer traps to get the whale advocates off their backs, but not if their sacrifices are going to be exploited by other fishermen.

If the state wants to cut the number of traps each fisherman can set to reduce the number of buoy lines in the water, and protect right whales from entanglements, Maine can’t keep letting new lobstermen into the fishery or allow people in other territories to fish here, Horner said.

“Behind the scenes, they all say exactly the same thing,” Horner, the chairman of the local lobster zone council, said at a state hearing on new right whale protection regulations. “Fishermen could accept (a trap cut), I think, but not if we are going to have more people coming in to fill the gap, especially those from outside.”

The Maine Department of Marine Resources kicked off a monthly series of public information sessions on the new whale rules Tuesday. More than 100 lobstermen from the local zone, which runs from Franklin to Frenchboro, turned out.

Carroll Staples, a third-generation Swans Island lobsterman, agreed with Horner, saying that any kind of concessions made by existing lobstermen to reduce the number of buoy lines in the water to protect whales will help only if the state actually caps the number of people in the fishery.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

How ocean mapping changed the way a seafood giant fishes

June 5, 2019 — North America’s largest shellfish company showcased some of its advanced ocean-mapping technology Tuesday at an Oceans Week conference in Dartmouth, N.S., illustrating how it is making the industry more efficient and sustainable.

Geographic information systems, or GIS, has transformed the way Clearwater Seafoods fishes, said Jim Mosher, the company’s director of harvest science.

Ocean mapping reduced the fuel bill in its offshore lobster fishery by shaving nearly 10,000 kilometres a year in vessel transiting, or movement in the fishing ground, he said.

In the scallop fishery, this technology reveals areas that should be closed because scallops are too young to harvest.

Read the full story at CBC