Saving Seafood

Maine Gov. Janet Mills Calls on Commerce Secretary to Delay Implementation of Gear Marking & Modification in Right Whale Rule

September 27, 2021 — The following was released by the Office of Maine Governor Janet Mills:

In a letter today to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, Governor Janet Mills urged swift action by NOAA Fisheries to reduce the unnecessary economic harm to Maine fishermen that the recently announced Federal whale protection rule will cause.

“I don’t believe this rule, as written, should take effect at all, and, at the very least, I urge you to direct NOAA Fisheries to delay the rule’s implementation of gear marking and gear modifications (including both trawling up and insertion of weak points) to July 1, 2022,” wrote Governor Mills.

“It is entirely unfair that Maine lobstermen continue to be the primary target of burdensome regulations, despite the many effective mitigation measures they have taken and despite the data showing that ship strikes and Canadian fishing gear continue to pose significant risk to right whales,” she wrote.

On August 31, 2021, the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) issued the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Rule. In response, Governor Mills joined U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King and U.S. Representatives Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden is opposing the rule.

In her letter today, Governor Mills highlighted gear marking requirements that are “alarmingly different than what was in the proposed rule.” Maine implemented a state-specific gear marking regulation in 2020 that provided flexibility to fishermen who move gear from offshore to inshore waters. After communicating with NOAA, Maine anticipated it would be reflected in the final rule. Instead, the final rule will require many fishermen to “purchase a second set of endlines,” wrote Governor Mills. She pointed out that the cost to fishermen for a second set of endlines is estimated to be over $9 million.

Revenue loss associated with the May 1, 2022 implementation deadline for required gear marking and modification will also unfairly burden Maine fishermen. “Fishermen who fish year-round usually do not begin to rotate their gear inshore until May. However, in order to meet the rule’s new requirements, fishermen anticipate a month or more of gear work to become compliant. Due to the NOAA deadline, gear will need to be brought back to port in March or April, when the price of lobster is very high,” wrote Governor Mills.

The expected loss from the implementation date, which was established without input from industry, is between $15 million and $25 million.

Governor Mills has repeatedly stood up for Maine’s vital lobster industry and its working men and women in the face of the Federal government’s right whale proposal. Last year, she wrote to the Commerce Department urging it to deny a petition by Pew Charitable Trusts that asks for three seasonal offshore closures in the Gulf of Maine and that would prohibit the use of vertical lines in the American lobster and Jonah crab fisheries in four areas of the New England coast.

She also filed comments with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on the draft Biological Opinion for ten fishery management plans in the Greater Atlantic Region, focusing on the North Atlantic Right Whale, expressing “grave concern” and warning it will be economically devastating and will fundamentally change Maine’s lobster fishery.

Her Administration, through the Maine Department of Marine Resources, also plans to file for intervenor status in the pending litigation Center for Biological Diversity v. Ross in the U.S. District Court in the D.C. Circuit in an effort to avoid having the court vacate the biological opinion (BiOp). If the biological opinion is vacated by the court, the potential outcome is a closure of the entire fishery. The Governor is supporting the effort by funding the use of specialized outside counsel through the Governor’s Contingent Account.

A copy of the letter is attached (PDF).

 

MAINE: Mills Administration To Fight Right Whale Lawsuit That Could Lead To ‘Draconian’ Effects On Lobster Industry

September 15, 2021 — The Mills administration says it’s pursuing several actions to contest recently-released lobstering restrictions designed to protect endangered right whales. It’s also intervening in an ongoing lawsuit that officials say could be more devastating to the industry.

Marine Resources chief Patrick Keliher says that Gov. Janet Mills is hiring private attorneys to help fight a lawsuit in the U.S. D.C. Circuit Court brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and other conservation groups that are challenging the data used by the federal government to issue lobstering regulations to protect right whales.

Keliher says prevailing in that lawsuit won’t undo the new federal lobstering regulations that effectively close off traditional lobstering for 950 square miles of the Gulf of Maine from October through January.

Read the full story at Maine Public

 

Maine won’t sue over right whale restrictions, but isn’t giving up fight

September 15, 2021 — Maine won’t be suing federal regulators over new commercial lobstering restrictions intended to protect an endangered species of whale, but it isn’t giving up the fight entirely.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources has been advised against suing federal officials over a controversial new set of rules designed to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale from being harmed by the lobster industry, but Commissioner Patrick Keliher told Maine lawmakers during a briefing Tuesday that the department has not abandoned all plans for legal action.

Instead of suing over the rules directly, he said, the department is planning to intervene in an existing case against the National Marine Fisheries Service that was filed by a group of environmentalists who contend the agency hasn’t done enough to protect the critically endangered whales.

The department has hired Linda Larson, a lawyer specializing in environmental and natural resource law, from Nossaman LLP in Seattle. According to Keliher, Gov. Janet Mills has already committed to covering legal fees in what he said will be a “very expensive process.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Maine lawmakers urge Biden to rescind whale protection rules

September 13, 2021 — Maine lawmakers are calling on President Joe Biden to rescind new whale protection rules that will make a nearly 1,000 mile section of the state’s coastline off limits to lobstermen during the lucrative winter months.

In a letter signed by more than 150 lawmakers – including House Speaker Ryan Fecteau, D-Biddeford, and Senate Minority Leader Jeffery Timberlake, R-Androscoggin – they said the new restrictions aimed at protecting North Atlantic right whales “threaten to irreparably harm Maine’s iconic, sustainable lobster fishery.”

“Maine lobstermen will suffer significant economic harm for a measure that provides a little conservation benefit to right whales,” the lawmakers wrote. “For the sake of our fishermen and women, our coastal communities, and our great state, we request that you take the steps necessary for your administration to immediately rescind the closure area.”

Read the full story at The Center Square

 

Ropeless fishing guide in the works, lobstermen skeptical

September 13, 2021 — Federal officials are working on a road map for the implementation of ropeless fishing in the Atlantic Ocean after announcing a seasonal closure of a large swath of prime lobstering ground last week.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it was expecting to have the guide for the developing technology available in May 2022.

The agency announced that it would be closing a 967-square-mile area largely off the Midcoast to lobstering between October and January, some of the most lucrative months for offshore lobstering. The move is part of an effort to reduce the number of vertical lines in the water in order to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

Lobstermen, however, could continue to fish in the area if they used ropeless fishing equipment that doesn’t use the persistent vertical lines that traditional lobstering does.

“The primary goal behind having these restricted areas open to ropeless fishing is to test it so that we can figure out how it might be able to be implemented in the fishery in the future,” said Marisa Trego, an Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction team coordinator at NOAA. “This will help us deal with different issues like gear conflicts and figuring out how to locate here and have everybody on the same page.”

Traditionally, lobstermen have a buoy on the surface to mark the location of their traps on the ocean floor. The traps are connected to the buoy by a vertical line.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

 

Bipartisan group of 151 Maine legislators call on Biden to rescind new lobster fishing regulations

September 10, 2021 — State legislators have submitted a letter to President Joe Biden requesting that his administration take steps to immediately rescind new regulations on lobster fishing.

The new regulations, which are intended to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale, were announced on Aug. 30 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Maine lawmakers are now asking federal agencies to re-engage with the state of Maine to find a different path forward. Rep. Billy Bob Faulkingham, R-Winter Harbor, a lobster fisherman, initiated the letter. It includes signatures from 151 Republican, Democrat, and Independent state legislators from across Maine.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

 

MAINE: Lobstermen and conservationists sound off on new lobster regs 

September 9, 2021 — The day after new rules for the lobster fishery aimed at preserving the North Atlantic right whale came down from the federal government, Richard Larrabee Jr., an offshore lobsterman, was fuming.   

“I’m pissed as hell,” he said. “This makes no sense.”   

He wasn’t the only one. Both supporters of Maine’s lobster industry and conservation groups were displeased with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s new rules, though largely for different reasons.  

Larrabee, who fishes out of Stonington, called it a textbook example of government overreach and said it wasn’t based in science. The Center for Biological Diversity, which has been waging legal battles on behalf of the critically endangered species, called them “half measures” that can’t be expected to save the whales.   

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

 

NOAA looks at other fisheries in effort to help whales 

September 7, 2021 — With new rules for the lobster fishery issued last week, federal regulators are now looking at potential changes to other fisheries on the east coast to cut down on the risk of injuries to several types of whales.   

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration plans to hold two scoping sessions this fall to get input on their efforts to cut down potential entanglements and whale mortalities.   

Officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are considering changes to other trap and pot fisheries other than lobster and Jonah crab in Maine and other New England states, as well as amendments to the east coast gillnet fishery.   

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

 

Maine lobstermen fear lasting impacts on industry from new regulations

September 3, 2021 — Mainers that make their living fishing for lobster in the Gulf of Maine are coming to terms with new federal regulations this week. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued new guidance for the fishery this week in an effort to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale, but those in Maine’s lobster fishing community say the new rules go too far.

“We knew a lot of this was coming,” said Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher. “But when it finally happens, it’s still a gut punch.”

Leaders in Maine’s fishing community have been working with NOAA for more than a decade to protect right whales. Fishermen told NEWS CENTER Maine that while they were not surprised to see the regulations, they were more extreme than expected.

“I see these regulations as having the potential of injuring fisherman, creating more ghost gear and debris on the ocean flood and costing us a lot more money to rig over for it, for something we’re not doing already. We’re not entangling these whales,” said Casco Bay-based lobsterman Steve Train.

The regulations will close a roughly 950-square-mile area in the Gulf of Maine to traditional lobster fishing from October to January. Rope-less fishing can continue there, but that technology has not been widely adopted in Maine.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

 

MAINE: New federal lobstering restrictions spark backlash from industry and elected officials

September 2, 2021 — After long hours hauling traps off the coast of South Thomaston on Wednesday, Barry Baudanza hadn’t had the chance to fully absorb all the changes headed his way after federal officials announced new rules governing the lobster industry the day before, but he knew one thing right off the bat: “This was the worst-case scenario.”

Among other changes, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s newly released Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan will put more than 950 square miles of the Gulf of Maine off-limits to traditional lobstering from October through January – the area’s most lucrative season. The goal is to reduce risk to endangered North Atlantic right whales by at least 60 percent.

But lobstermen, the fishing industry and elected officials are pushing back. They say the new rules will be expensive, dangerous, burdensome and impractical, and won’t reduce the risk to whales.

And despite lobstermen’s concerns and protestations that they aren’t even seeing right whales in Maine waters, conservationists argue that the plan does not go far enough to protect the critically endangered animals.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald