Saving Seafood

Maine proposes targeted exemptions to help lobster industry weather whale crisis

November 6, 2019 — The state is proposing a modified plan to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale while creating less hardship for the lobster fishing industry than a proposed federal plan.

Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher presented the proposal in Ellsworth Monday night, at the first of three meetings being held this week by the agency.

Maine’s lobster industry, many said, was being unfairly targeted.

“We’ve seen bad science against lobster fishermen in the state of Maine,” said Rocky Alley, president of the Maine Lobstering Union and a Jonesport lobsterman. “When will they come up with new science that makes sense? How many whales have we killed?”

“In the last decade, directly, with Maine gear on them? None,” responded Keliher.

But, he added, “as long as we’re 64% of all endlines on the East Coast, and 90% within all the lobster management areas, we’ll continue to have a bull’s-eye on our back.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz

MAINE: Lobstermen at Ellsworth whale meeting ask state to resist federal pressure

November 5, 2019 — A growing number of Maine lobstermen are asking the state to resist federal pressure to change how they fish to protect the endangered right whale and called for state legal action to protect the $565 million a year fishery.

At a hearing in Ellsworth on Monday night, lobstermen chimed in on a state whale protection proposal that calls for a combination of weak rope, gear marking and more traps on offshore buoy lines to reduce the risk to right whales by about 58 percent.

It’s better than earlier plans, which called for the elimination of 50 percent of buoy lines, but it’s still dangerous for Maine fishermen who will be mired waist-deep in rope on deck, and won’t do anything to help the whales, they argued.

“It’s not going to work, there’s got to be a different way,” said Jim Hanscom, a Bar Harbor lobsterman who spoke out against adding more traps to weaker rope. “You’ve got to just buck up and say we can’t do this. it’s just not going to work.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: Lobster industry braces for right whale changes amid turbulent times

November 4, 2019 — Maine lobstermen have had a lot to juggle this year, with hugely fluctuating bait bills and a dismal start to the season, but nothing has caused as much anxiety for Maine’s most valuable fishery as the changes coming to protect the endangered right whale.

“Right now, we’re all fishing hard, so it’s taking our mind off it some, but it feels like we’ve been waiting and worrying about what whales might do to us for so long now,” said Jake Thompson, a Vinalhaven lobsterman. “We can manage the rest of it, but whales? Everybody’s worried about whales.”

Lobstermen will have a chance to weigh in on Maine’s plan to protect the endangered right whale from buoy line entanglements at Maine Department of Marine Resources meetings in Ellsworth, Waldoboro and South Portland this week. The state’s final plan will go to federal regulators later this month.

The proposal would require lobstermen to add more traps to buoy lines set farther from shore, use rope that whales can break free from if entangled, report where and how they fish on each trip out, and mark their gear purple and green so it can be identified as Maine lobster gear if it is found on a whale.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Lobstermen To Get A Look At New Plan To Save Right Whales

November 4, 2019 — Maine’s lobstermen are getting a look at new rules that will affect their fishery and are designed to protect endangered right whales.

A federal team has called for a reduction of the vertical lobster trap lines in the Gulf of Maine to reduce risk to the whales. Maine fishery officials say their latest proposal to meet the requirements would remove 25 percent of the lines, not including an exemption for lobstermen who fish inshore waters.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources is holding three meetings this week to discuss the proposal. The first is scheduled for Monday in Ellsworth, and it’ll be followed by meetings Tuesday in Waldoboro and Wednesday in South Portland.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Maine Public

Ropeless Science Advances, Aiming to Save Right Whales

November 1, 2019 — With the North Atlantic right whale population inching ever closer to extinction, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association has awarded $350,000 in grants to help reduce large mammal bycatch in the heavily fished waters off the coasts of New England and Canada. The grants, which will go to the New England Aquarium and a research-based nonprofit called the Sea Mammal Education Learning Technology Society (SMELTS), were awarded last week to develop and study ropeless or breakable rope fishing technology for lobstermen and other trap fishermen. Although the technology has been in development for some time, a slew of money and research has been poured into making ropeless gear a commercial reality — especially as right whale mortalities continue to climb and many lobstermen have to halt their fishing operations due to federally-mandated area closures.

“We’re cranking on this,” said Richard Riels, an engineer with SMELTS who invented his organization’s ropeless fishing technology after seeing one too many entangled sea mammals. “I’m hoping to do more testing in the next couple of days with the grant money.”

With 30 deaths in the last three years, there are now approximately 400 right whales left in the Atlantic Ocean. According to data from NOAA, seven of the 21 deaths in Canadian waters showed evidence of gear entanglement. So did five of the nine in American waters—- meaning that nearly half of all mortalities in recent years resulted from fishing gear.

Read the full story at The Vineyard Gazette 

Maine lobster group re-engages with NOAA whale protection effort

October 31, 2019 — A lobster industry group in the US state of Maine has re-engaged with a federal government process to reduce risks to endangered right whales, The Center Square reported.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA) said that it was encouraged by recent actions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service to address the group’s concerns regarding the agency’s Take Reduction Team (TRT) process to protect right whales.

“MLA is pleased that NOAA has taken our concerns seriously,” the group said. “MLA continues to work diligently with our members and in close collaboration with Maine’s Department of Marine Resources to identify management approaches that are both effective in minimizing risk to whales and proportionate to the risk from Maine fishery gear,” the MLA said.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Decrease in Maine lobster catches this season raises concerns

October 31, 2019 — Early numbers show Maine’s lobster catch has declined as much as 40 percent this year; equaling roughly 50 million pounds.

State officials calculated these results using data gathered from September 2018 to September 2019. However, there are still a few months worth of data from lobster landings left out of these results.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources says that some locations had an uptick in catches after September, but as the season wraps up, lobstermen have reported that the pickings this year were substantially reduced.

Gene Robinson, a lobster captain off of Chebeague Island, has been fishing in Maine for the past 50 years.

“It was a wet, cold spring and the lobsters just never showed up,” said Robinson.

The cold spring may have stalled the shedding process in the early summer months when lobsters move toward the coast.

Read the full story at WCVB

Lobster processor expands into new markets thanks to high pressure processing machine

October 31, 2019 — Stonington, Maine, U.S.A.-based seafood processor Greenhead Lobster has upgraded its operations with a new Hiperbaric high pressure processing (HPP) machine.

The company is using the 420i Hiperbaric model for extracting lobster meat from shells at its recently opened production facility in Bucksport, Maine, it confirmed in a press release. The machine also works to fortify Greenhead Lobster’s food safety procedures, inactivating harmful foodborne bacteria and extending shelf-life.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Despite trade war, US seafood companies still see positives in China

October 31, 2019 — Since the start of the trade war between the United States and China over a year ago, certain sectors of the seafood industry have seen sharp drops of trade between the two countries.

The United States and China have taken turns ramping up tariffs on each other’s products, starting at 10 percent tariff rates and escalating to 25 percent duties on most products, including seafood, traded between the two countries.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Maine lobster landings ‘are way off,’ down 40% from last year

October 28, 2019 — The state’s year-to-date lobster catch is “way off” this year, according to Maine’s top fishing regulator.

As of the end of September, Maine fishermen had landed less than 50 million pounds of lobster, according to Commissioner Pat Keliher of Maine Department of Marine Resources. That is 40 percent less than what had been landed by September 2018, and 38 percent off from the five-year average.

Keliher told the American Lobster Management Board on Monday that some of the year-to-date decline could be because lobsters molted late this year. The bulk of Maine’s lobster fleet catches new shell lobster, or lobsters whose new shells are just starting to firm up after shedding their old ones.

“Maine lobster landings are down significantly, below 50 million pounds to date,” Keliher told the board. “Our landings are way off. Now that doesn’t mean the sky is falling. That means we certainly had a very big delay in the shed.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald