Saving Seafood

Lower herring quotas squeeze lobster trade

October 19, 2018 — Nothing new, but for the fishing industry nothing is as constant as change.

Last year, according to the Department of Marine Resources, lobster was Maine’s most valuable fishery with landings of 110,819,760 pounds — the sixth highest ever — worth some $450,799,283.

Despite all the talk about high value species such as scallops and elvers, according to DMR herring were the state’s second most valuable commercial fishery in 2017.

Herring boats like the Sunlight and the Starlight owned by the O’Hara Corp. in Rockland or the Portland-based trawler Providian landed some 66,453,073 pounds of herring worth about $17.9 million at a record price of 27 cents per pound.

Most of those landings went to the dealers who supply herring — the primary source of bait for the lobster industry — to fishermen up and down the coast. And most of those herring came from what is known as “Area 1-A,” the inshore waters of the Gulf of Maine.

All that is going to change.

Faced with data that indicates the herring population, an important source of food for whales, tuna and seabirds, among other species, regulators at the New England Fisheries Management Council last week recommended drastic steps to reduce the amount of herring that fishermen will be allowed to catch.

If approved by NOAA Fisheries, the 2019 landings quota for herring would be set at just 14,558 metric tons (about 32 million pounds). That cut comes on top of an already sharp reduction imposed this past summer.

In the middle of the year, the quota was cut by more than half, from 110,000 metric tons (242.5 million pounds) to about 50,000 metric tons (some 110.2 million pounds).

Maine lobstermen were already worried about what last summer’s cut would do to bait availability. Last week’s decision suggests that herring will be in extremely short supply and that what is available will be extremely expensive.

In 2013, Maine Lobstermen’s Association Executive Director Patrice McCarron said, fishermen were paying $30 a bushel for bait. Last summer, a bushel cost about $45 on the coast, $60 on the islands.

On the O’Hara Lobster Bait website this week, the price of herring was quoted at $175 for a 400-pound barrel (44 cents per pound) or $690 for an 1,800-pound tank (about 38 cents per pound).

Whatever the cost, lobstermen use a lot of bait — thousands of pounds in a year.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

ASMFC: 77th Annual Meeting Supplemental Materials Now Available

October 17, 2018 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Supplemental materials for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s 77th Annual Meeting are now available at http://www.asmfc.org/home/2018-annual-meeting for the following Boards/Committees (click on “Supplemental” following each relevant committee header to access the information). For ease of access, supplemental materials have been combined into one PDF – http://www.asmfc.org/files/Meetings/77AnnualMeeting/2018AnnualMeetingCombined_Supplemental.pdf

American Lobster Management Board – Revised Agenda & Meeting Overview; ME DMR letter on NOAA Technical Memorandum on North Atlantic Right Whales—Evaluating Their Recovery Challenges in 2018; Memo on Recent Meeting of Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team; American Lobster FMP Review; and Report of the Electronic Reporting Subcommittee

Atlantic Herring Management Board – Memo on 2019 Specifications for Area 1A; Amendment 3 Spawning Re-Closure Protocol; and Public Comment

Strategic Planning Workshop – Draft Agenda & Summary of Strategic Planning Workgroup Meeting

Business Session – Draft 2019 Action Plan & Anticipated Board Activities for High Priority Species

Coastal Sharks Management Board – Advisory Panel Meeting Summary

Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board – Public Comment

Executive Committee – Draft Recommendations for Revising the Appeals Process & Awards Committee SOPPs

Weakfish Management Board – FMP Review

Horseshoe Crab Management Board – FMP Review & Public Comment

ISFMP Policy Board – Revised Draft Agenda & Meeting Overview; Public Comment; and Living Shorelines Factsheet

South Atlantic State/Federal Fisheries Management Board – Public Comment Summary on Cobia PID (including hearing overviews and submitted comment); Black Drum, Spotted Seatrout and Spanish Mackerel FMP Reviews; Advisory Panel Nomination

As a reminder, Board proceedings will be broadcast daily via webinar beginning October 22nd at 8:30 a.m. and continuing daily until the conclusion of the meeting (expected to be 1 p.m.) on Thursday, October 25th. The webinar will allow registrants to listen to board/section deliberations and view presentations and motions as they occur. No comments or questions will be accepted via the webinar. Should technical difficulties arise while streaming the broadcast the boards/sections will continue their deliberations without interruption. We will attempt to resume the broadcast as soon as possible. Please go to https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4350173068754736387 to register.

 

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD: Proposed lobster rules not based on science

October 16, 2018 — A scientific paper that called for stricter regulations on Maine’s lobster fishery to protect endangered right whales plainly illustrates a two-sided problem.

We need policymakers who will rely on science. And they need science that they can rely on. If either side of the equation is missing, nothing works.

When we talk about climate change, we are used to politicians who ignore the science. But this time, it was the scientists who let us down.

A report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in advance of a big regulatory conference singled out stronger ropes, which, they said, are being used by Maine lobstermen and are entangling whales as they migrate through Maine waters.

The report’s authors proposed more gear changes and possible closures in some areas to respond to a rising number of whale deaths. They attributed the fatal entanglements to an unintended consequence of earlier regulations, which limited the number of vertical lines in the water, thus requiring longer strings of traps. “While this reduced the number of lines, it also meant that lines had to be stronger to accommodate the increased load of multiple traps,” the report’s authors wrote.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

With right whales at risk of extinction, regulators consider drastic action that could affect lobstermen

October 16, 2018 — With North Atlantic right whales increasingly at risk of extinction, federal regulators are considering drastic protection measures that could have sweeping consequences for the region’s lucrative lobster industry.

The species is in dangerous decline, with a record 17 right whale deaths and no recorded births last year, and entanglements in fishing gear are believed to be the leading cause of premature deaths. Three have died in US waters this year, including one 35-foot-long whale found Sunday about 100 miles east of Nantucket, federal officials said.

In an effort to protect the dwindling species, regulators last week hosted a series of often emotional meetings with fishermen, environmental advocates, and other federal and state officials about what to do.

The goal is to find a way to protect the whales while limiting the impact on lobstermen, who have hundreds of thousands of fishing lines that extend from their traps on the seafloor to their buoys on the surface of the Gulf of Maine.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Report ‘erodes trust’ for lobstermen

October 15, 2018 — A new federal report on right whales was intended to set the stage for a weeklong meeting of groups trying to save the endangered species, but a lack of documentation for one of its central claims left the fishing industry feeling unfairly targeted.

Lobstermen accused the Northeast Fisheries Science Center of incompetence after it claimed a 2015 rule requiring fishermen to reduce the number of surface-to-seabed ropes had prompted some fishermen to start using stronger rope, which poses a bigger threat to whales.

“While this reduced the number of lines, it also meant that lines had to be stronger to accommodate the increased load of multiple traps,” the report reads. “This natural adaptation … contributed to an increase in the severity of entanglements.”

The lobster industry jumped on this sentence in the 24-page report, saying the center had no data to back it up, and knew it. Its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, gave Maine a $700,000 grant to collect this kind of data in April.

“You have an agency who’s been managing you for over 20 years fundamentally not understanding your fishery, publishing a technical memo that, quite frankly, felt more like an opinion piece,” said Patrice McCarron, director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

Such mistakes make it difficult for industry leaders to persuade constituents to participate in surveys like the one Maine is conducting if they believe federal regulators already believe the Maine lobster industry is to blame for the decline of the right whale population.

Read the full story at the Sun Journal

Herring, key to coastal health, slowly returning to rivers

October 15, 2018 — A little fish on the East Coast that once provided vital protein for American colonists and bait for generations of New England lobstermen is slowly making a comeback after falling victim to lost habitat and environmental degradation.

River herring once appeared headed to the endangered species list, but they’re now starting to turn up in rivers and streams at a rate that fishing regulators say is encouraging. The fish is a critical piece of the ecosystem in the eastern states, where it serves as food for birds and larger fish.

The comeback is most noticeable in Maine, the state with by far the largest river herring fishery in the country. Maine fishermen capture alewives, a species of river herring, and their catch of nearly 1.7 million pounds last year was the second largest in the last 37 years.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The News Tribune

Advisory group grapples with right whale protection measures

October 15, 2018 — A week of meetings about how commercial fishermen could reduce harm to the imperiled North Atlantic right whales ended Friday with an immediate focus on exploring more temporary area closures with possible testing of new technologies, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries biologist Colleen Coogan, an organizer of the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team.

“There was extremes on both ends,” Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association president Arthur Sawyer said of pitches made at the monthly take reduction team meeting in Providence, Rhode Island.

Interest seemed to land on the possibilities of weaker rope, with 1,700 pounds as maximum breaking strength. That could allow right whales to break free of entanglements more easily, Sawyer said. “That was kind of middle of the road,” he said, and might be able to be put in place in the near future, although it might not be useful in deep water.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Lobster pots becoming research platforms

October 11, 2018 — Massachusetts boasts more than 1,200 commercially licensed lobstermen who set more than 300,000 traps in state waters each season — and most of the gear is set without much in the way of credible scientific data on habitat or ocean conditions.

A project call LobsterNet is looking to change the old world approach to the analytics of harvesting lobsters by attaching sensors to the traps to collect data on ocean conditions such as acidity, or pH, and temperature.

The enhanced traps, which automatically will upload the marine data to a satellite network when pulled from the water, will be woven into a data collection network to help advance understanding of ocean conditions and potentially develop new business elements of a “Blue Economy.”

“It’s really kind of a transformative,” said Tom Balf, a Gloucester-based marine consultant on the LobsterNet project. “We’re taking an existing device, a lobster trap, and turning it into a research platform. At the same time, we’re adding value to the existing practice of going out and putting traps in the water by turning lobstermen into data collectors and researchers.”

LobsterNet received a $133,156 grant from the state Seaport Economic Council on Tuesday to begin developing and deploying the low-cost network of lobster pots that can collect and distribute key environmental data for fishermen and researchers alike.

The project’s other partners are Gloucester Innovation, the UMass Gloucester Marine Station, the Angle Center for Entrepreneurship at Endicott College, the SigFox network provider and the Scituate-based Lobster Foundation of Massachusetts.

“Data such as temperature and pH will be captured at depth and in greater spatial and temporal resolution than is now possible,” the Seaport Economic Council said in a release announcing the grants through its Grand Challenge program to promote Internet of Things, or IoT, technologies to bolster the state’s marine economy. “This information will help fishermen and researchers better understand what is affecting lobster habitats in general and individual lobster fertility, lifespan or health in particular.”

The sensors used in the project already have been developed, though Balf said they now will undergo further, more rigorous testing as the project ramps up. He said the project’s organizers expect to conduct trials with lobstermen “in the early fall and winter” across Cape Ann while simultaneously testing the SigFox wireless communication network.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Federal court rules against fishermen in Northeast Canyons monument lawsuit

October 10, 2018 — A federal judge last week dismissed a lawsuit brought by commercial fishing groups that challenged the creation of a marine national monument in 2016.

The organizations, which included the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association and the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, claimed the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama did not have the authority to establish the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.

The monument is the first national marine monument established in the Atlantic Ocean. Because of the designation, commercial fishing – except for certain red crab and lobster fishing – is prohibited in the 5,000-square-mile area. The crab and lobster fishing will continue until their permits expire.

While the administration of current U.S. President Donald Trump has been considering reopening it and other marine monuments for commercial fishing, it did seek the dismissal of the lawsuit, claiming the Antiquities Act gave presidents the right to establish and define such monuments.

“This is not a joke, jobs will be lost and thousands of people’s lives will be impacted through a back-door process that did not require formal federal review,” said Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association in a Facebook post.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

MAINE: Gubernatorial candidates vow to back lobster industry in upcoming fight

October 9, 2018 — All four candidates for governor pledged to defend Maine’s $434 million-a-year lobster industry a week before regulators consider new rules that could severely affect the industry.

Specifically, the candidates addressed aggressive right whale protections that environmental groups are seeking in court from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, proposals such as moving from a rope-based industry to a ropeless fishery, seasonal closures of western Gulf of Maine lobster fishing in April, and cutting in half the number of traps or vertical lines that could entangle whales.

Independent Alan Caron, Democrat Janet Mills, Republican Shawn Moody and independent Terry Hayes took turns answering some questions, dodging others and hailing the importance of Maine fisheries on Thursday at a forum on the seafood industry in Rockland attended by about 150 people and watched live online by more than 1,000 others.

Moody, a self-made millionaire from Gorham, called the concept of ropeless fishing a joke, something “you can’t even say with a straight face,” which pleased all the lobstermen in the audience. Caron, a political strategist, said NOAA doesn’t understand the whale problem well enough yet to take drastic actions against the fishery that could hurt the Maine economy and put people out of work.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald