Saving Seafood

Maine fishermen worried that protections for whales will damage industry

November 10, 2020 — Maine’s fishermen are concerned about potential closure of fishing grounds under new federal rules being considered for right whale protections.

“Anytime you talk about closing areas, there are profound impacts to the fishing communities and the ecosystem,” Ben Martens, Executive Director of The Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association (MCFA) told The Center Square.

“You could put it in an area that could decimate an entire community.”

Maine Public Radio recently posted documents from the Maine Department of Marine Resources (MDMR), including a letter from MDMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher that details concerns about closing Lobster Conservation Management Areas (LCMA) to fishing.

“These lobster zones are among the most productive and lucrative areas in the Maine lobster fishery,” Keliher wrote.

Read the full story at The Center Square

WPRFMC Spotlights the History of Hawaiian Lobster Fishery in Latest Publication

November 9, 2020 — The following was released by the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:

The Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council is publishing the first of seven new issues in its historical Pacific Islands Fishery Monographs series. Taking a deep look into the history and current state of some of Hawai‘i’s most important fisheries, the series provides a comprehensive view on the social, cultural and economic impacts of Hawai‘i’s fishing industry.

Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Lobster Fishery, the first of these new monographs and the ninth overall in the series, is now available. Written by Michael Markrich, the monograph charts the history of what was once the most lucrative fishery in the State of Hawai‘i and the factors that led to its current closure.

Beginning in the 1970s, the Hawaiian lobster fishery quickly boomed in the 1980s, where spiny lobsters like those caught off the coast of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands fueled the growth of “surf and turf” items at fine dining restaurants nationwide. The fishery entered a period of decline in the following decades, due to factors such as the expansion of marine protected areas in what used to be lobster fishing grounds, such as the marine national monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. In the two decades it was most active, from 1977-1999, the fishery landed $50 million worth of lobsters.

Read the full release here

On Election Day in the US, much hangs in the balance for the seafood industry

November 3, 2020 — Tuesday, 3 November is Election Day in the United States, and the results of the national election could have a significant impact on the nation’s seafood industry and the global economy.

Thus far, the tenure of U.S. President Donald Trump – who is up for reelection to a second and final four-year term – has been marked by both positives and negatives for the seafood industry. The Trump administration instigated an ongoing trade war with China by placing tariffs on Chinese goods in July 2018, a move that China reciprocated by placing its own tariffs on U.S. goods – including seafood. Those tariffs had drastic impacts on certain parts of the seafood industry, such as Maine’s lobster industry, which saw an 84 percent drop in exports to China. Total estimates of the impact in 2018 found the trade war cost U.S. seafood exporters USD 350 million (EUR 299 million) that year alone.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Ropeless gear gains new urgency in bid to save right whales

November 2, 2020 — The sight of a field of brightly colored lobster buoys bobbing on an otherwise featureless ocean is as ironically New England as a lobster roll. These buoys number in the millions, and are each connected by a line to the traps below creating a maze, in some areas a kind of wall, that whales, including the world’s most endangered great whale, must navigate in its search for food.

With over 80% of North Atlantic right whales bearing scars of entanglements in fishing line, the task is formidable, and eliminating some, if not all, of these buoys and lines has been the subject of lobster management and litigation.

For the past two years, it has also been the subject of intense research as scientists in the U.S. and Canada race to find an affordable and reliable technology that will allow lobstermen and other fixed-gear fishermen to find and retrieve their gear without running a line from the surface to the bottom.

Before the first ropeless buoy workshop in 2018, fishing without a buoy line was considered fantasy or science fiction, said Sean Brillant, manager of marine programs for the Canadian Wildlife Federation.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobster Stocks Found in Steep Decline, With Future in Doubt

October 30, 2020 — Southern New England lobster stocks, once robust, have declined to record lows in recent years according to scientists and regulators, jeopardizing the future of a storied fishery even as Vineyard lobstermen continue to report strong seasons on the water.

In a benchmark assessment released late last week, an interstate regulatory agency found that lobster populations in southern New England are “significantly depleted,” reaching their lowest levels on record and threatening the lobster industry from the southern Cape through Long Island Sound.

But some Vineyard lobstermen said that despite the decreasing abundance in the entire southern New England region — which stretches from south of New York to Monomoy and Nantucket — their catch around the Island remains healthy.

And interestingly, just as lobster populations have declined in more southern waters in recent years, scientists have seen a historic boom in the Gulf of Maine, where lobster abundance and fishery performance have reached record highs, according to the report. The Vineyard sits just south of the halfway point between the two American lobster stock units, which are divided by geography and small differences in the biology of the crustaceans.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

MAINE: Zone C lobster council OK’s trawl limit plan

October 27, 2020 — With the National Oceanic Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) under a fast approaching, court-imposed deadline to develop new whale protection rules, the Zone C Lobster Management Council held a special meeting on the internet in late September to get an update on the situation from Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher and consider a zone-specific plan for gear modifications that will likely be required by NMFS.

On Aug. 19, U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg gave NMFS nine months to craft new rules to protect endangered right whales from entanglement in lobster fishing gear. In April, Boasberg had ruled that NMFS violated the federal Endangered Species Act in 2014 when it adopted new rules governing the lobster fishery by failing to adequately consider the risk right whales might face if they become entangled in the vertical lines that connect lobster traps on the sea floor to marker buoys on the surface.

The judge vacated the NMFS “biological opinion” required by the ESA, which allowed continuation of the lobster fishery as it is currently practiced.

In August, the judge gave NMFS and the lobster industry until May 31, 2020, to come up with a new biological opinion and new lobster fishing regulations. He ordered NMFS to submit progress reports to the court every 60 days beginning Sept. 30.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Indigenous people in Nova Scotia exercised their right to catch lobster. Now they’re under attack.

October 27, 2020 — When Mike Sack handed out lobster licenses to Indigenous fishers in Nova Scotia last month, he expected some pushback from commercial fishers. But the Sipekne’katik First Nation chief did not foresee the violence to come.

Mi’kmaq fishers say non-Indigenous commercial fishers in the Maritime province have threatened them, cut their lines, pulled their traps from the water and formed flotillas to intimidate them on the waters of St. Mary’s Bay.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Study finds lobster population healthy off Maine, poor in southern New England

October 26, 2020 — The American lobster population is in decent shape off of Maine and Canada, but continues to decline in southern New England, according to an assessment by an interstate regulatory group.

The stock assessment released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s American Lobster Board lines up with previous analyses of the lobster fishery. Lobster fishermen pulled in record catches of the crustaceans off Maine in the last decade, but the catch collapsed off more southern states such as Connecticut.

Environmental changes have made the more southern waters less hospitable for lobsters, scientists have said. Warming temperatures off southern New England have made it difficult for them to grow and reproduce.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

American Lobster Benchmark Stock Assessment Finds GOM/GBK Stock Not Overfished nor Experiencing Overfishing & SNE Stock Significantly Depleted: Assessment Introduces Regime Shift Methodology to Address Changing Environmental Conditions

October 22, 2020 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The 2020 American Lobster Benchmark Stock Assessment presents contrasting results for the two American lobster stock units, with record high abundance and recruitment in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank stock (GOM/GBK) and record low abundance and recruitment in the Southern New England stock (SNE) in recent years. The GOM/GBK stock is not overfished nor experiencing overfishing. Conversely, the SNE stock is significantly depleted with poor prospects of recovery. Stock status was assessed using the University of Maine Stock Assessment Model for American Lobster (UMM, Chen et al. 2005), a statistical catch-at-length model that tracks the population of lobster by sex, size and season over time.

“On behalf of the American Lobster Board, I want to applaud the members of the Technical Committee and Stock Assessment Subcommittee for their exceptional work on the 2020 Benchmark Stock Assessment Report,” stated Board Chair Dan McKiernan from Massachusetts. “This assessment made a notable advancement in considering the impact of changing environmental conditions on lobster population dynamics.”

Extensive research has highlighted the influence of the environment on American lobster life history and population dynamics. Among the critical environmental variables, temperature stands out as the primary influence. Further, its range is experiencing changing environmental conditions at some of the fastest rates in the world. Therefore, considering these environmental influences is vital when assessing the lobster stocks and was a focal point of this stock assessment. Environmental data time series included water temperatures at several fixed monitoring stations throughout the lobster’s range, average water temperatures over large areas such as those sampled by fishery-independent surveys, oceanographic processes affecting the environment, and other environmental indicators such as lobster prey abundance.

Environmental time series were analyzed for regime shifts, which indicate a significant difference in the lobster’s environment and population dynamics from one time period to another. Regime shifts can change a stock’s productivity, impacting the stock’s level of recruitment and its ability to support different levels of catch. Temperature time series were also analyzed to quantify the effect of temperature on survey catchability of lobster and correct trends in abundance estimated from surveys by accounting for temperature-driven changes in catchability through time.

Read the full release here

NOAA Provides Funding to Lobster, Jonah Crab Research Fleet as Fishery Undergoes Landings Jump

October 16, 2020 — Last month, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center provided funding to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to support the Lobster and Jonah Crab Research Fleet, organized by the Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF). NOAA explained that both the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries need additional research and data.

For lobster, managers have recently noted the need for more data for the most valuable species in the United States. When it comes to Jonah crab on the other hand it was once considered bycatch of the lobster fishery, but growing landings mean more biological and fishery data is needed to create a stock assessment for the crab species.

Read the full story at Seafood News