Saving Seafood

‘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

MAINE: Two seafood companies team up to fund UMaine lobster research

June 4, 2019 — A $75,000 gift from two seafood companies will fund a fourth field season for a University of Maine deep-water lobster settlement monitoring program.

The deep-water research is an extension of the American Lobster Settlement Index, which was initiated in 1989 by Rick Wahle, a research professor in the School of Marine Sciences who was named director of the Lobster Institute last fall. The index includes collaborators and monitoring sites from Rhode Island to Newfoundland.

The original surveys were conducted by divers, which confined data collection to shallower waters. In 2016, Wahle expanded monitoring to include greater depths with a novel collector deployed from fishing vessels. The addition of this data helps scientists evaluate how temperature affects the nursery potential of seabed for larval lobsters, and subsequent bottom movements by older juveniles.

Maine Sea Grant sponsored the first two years of deep-water monitoring in collaboration with Ready Seafood Co. of Portland and the Maine Department of Marine Resources. When the Maine Sea Grant project ended, Ready Seafood stepped in with a $75,000 gift to support a third research field season in 2018.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative creates promotional “Content Hub”

May 30, 2019 — The Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative has announced the creation of a new tool for retailers, distributors, and more to promote lobster, the state’s most valuable seafood product.

The Content Hub, located on the MLMC website, contains logos, infographics, fact-sheets, videos giving details about the industry, high-quality photos, and more. The hub, according to MLMC Executive Director Marianne LaCroix, is intended to aid anyone buying or selling the product and journalists looking for information.

“The Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative (MLMC) developed its new Content Hub to support the promotional efforts of Maine lobster distributors, foodservice operators, retailers, restauranteurs and anyone selling or promoting Maine lobster worldwide,” she said. “The digital library of assets aims to ensure those buying and selling Maine lobster have a cohesive, easy-to-navigate resource packed with the tools and information needed to both promote and make informed decisions about lobster products.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Maine’s congressional delegation asks feds to reduce impact of right whale protections on lobster industry

May 30, 2019 — Maine’s congressional delegation wrote Tuesday to federal officials to express concern that ongoing efforts to decrease the death of right whales will have a significant impact on Maine’s lobster industry.

The delegation asked National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration leaders to ensure that decisions made by the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team are based on “sound” and “comprehensive” science, that risk reduction standards are equitable across the United States and Canada, and that the lobster industry is consulted throughout the decision-making process, according to a release from Maine’s four members of Congress.

The new efforts to protect right whales are driven by the federal Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Because of the current endangered status of right whales, if Maine fails to come up with a plan to protect the whales, NOAA will determine what action is taken, according to Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

The task force set a goal of reducing right whale mortality by 60 percent to 80 percent, and met last month with a group of approximately 60 fishermen, scientists and conservationists joining state and federal officials to discuss ways to further reduce serious injury and mortality of endangered North Atlantic right whales caused by trap/pot fishing gear.

They hope to agree on measures that would reduce serious injuries and deaths of right whales caused by fishing gear in U.S. waters from Maine to Florida to fewer than one whale per year, the level prescribed by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, according to NOAA.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

Fishermen face another quota cut, could hit lobster prices

May 28, 2019 — Fishermen already dealing with a dramatic reduction in the amount of a key bait fish they are allowed to harvest will likely face an additional cut next year that could drive up the price of lobster for consumers.

Regulators on the East Coast are contending with a drop in the population of herring, a key forage fish species that has been used as lobster bait for generations. Cuts in catch quota this year will mean the total haul for 2019 will be less than a fifth of the 2014 harvest, which was more than 200 million pounds (90 million kilograms).

A fishery management board is due to make a decision about the 2020 catch limits in early June. The options include maintaining this year’s levels or reducing them further, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said in public documents.

The agency wants to avoid overfishing at a time when a scientific assessment has shown a below-average number of young herring are joining the population. Scientists have said it’s not clear why that’s the case, but two possibilities they’ve cited are climate change and an abundance of predators.

The lobster industry has enjoyed large hauls in recent years, but it’s dependent on bait to load traps. A spike in the price of bait could ultimately be felt by consumers in restaurants and fish markets.

For lobster fishermen, another cut to the quota will mean finding new sources of bait, said Beth Casoni, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association. It’s possible there won’t be enough to go around, and prices are sure to be high.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the San Francisco Chronicle

Growth of Maine oyster farming prompts debate, disputes about aquaculture

May 23, 2019 — A short line of black floating tubes comes into view rounding Hopkins Island in Cundy’s Harbor. While they’re large enough for passing boaters and fishermen to spot, they don’t rise out of the water much higher than a lobster buoy. This is one of Peter Rand’s aquaculture leases.

He’s among the hundreds in Maine getting involved in the burgeoning aquaculture industry that has pumped millions into the state’s economy, but is under fire from lobstermen who compete for the same fishing grounds and homeowners who don’t want to see aquaculture sites from their waterfront properties.

With the situation coming to a head,  the Department of Marine Resources began the process at a meeting Wednesday of examining whether it should amend its rules to limit the size and location of aquaculture lease sites.

In March, the Department of Marine Resources received a petition with 189 signatures seeking an immediate moratorium on aquaculture leases larger than 10 acres. The petition also sought to create a new rule requiring that regulators consider alternate locations before approving aquaculture leases.

The petition triggered a rule-making process that began with Wednesday’s hearing.

In 2017, Maine aquaculture brought in 2.8 million pounds of oysters – a nearly fivefold increase since 2011 – and had an estimated $13.6 million economic impact.

That number is dwarfed by the landings value of Maine’s most famous shellfish – lobsters. Maine lobster landings were valued at a $484 million in 2018.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald