Saving Seafood

Impending whale protections worry fishermen

March 5, 2019 — With the majority of American lobsters caught in Maine, the state’s lobster fishermen could bear the brunt of changes in federal fishery regulations to save the endangered right whale.

At the March 1 Fisherman’s Forum update on the threat of extinction for the North Atlantic right whale, it became clear regulators believe changes to fishing gear will be announced sometime this year.

Much of the presentation focused on changes to the vertical lines that attach buoys floating on top of the water to the lobster traps down on the ocean floor. The colored buoys identify the owner of the traps and their location, and the line is used to haul the heavy traps out of the water

In 2009, a whale protection regulation required fishermen to eliminate the floating rope they used to connect strings of lobster traps, and replace it with rope that lies on the ocean floor. That process took five years and a rope buyback program to accomplish, according to Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, who was in the audience. Switching out vertical lines cannot be done in one year, she said.

Read the full story at The Camden Herald

Maine Lobstermen Share Anxieties Over New Regulations In The Industry At Annual Forum

March 4, 2019 — At Maine’s annual Fishermen’s Forum in Rockport Friday, a historic $600 million harvest season coincided with a slight increase in lobster landings and lingering concerns over potential changes to gear rules around protecting endangered right whales. But looming over the forum are major cutbacks in the quota of crucial herring bait fish — which could ripple across the industry.

Patrice McCarron is executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA). She is worried about the severity of herring restrictions imposed by the federal government after the species failed to reproduce in sustainable numbers last year.

“It’s about as bad as we can imagine, but we don’t yet know what it’s going to translate to for the fishermen,” McCaroon says.

McCarron says that Maine fishermen face a shortage of some 50-million pounds of bait in the coming season.

Fisherman are used to catching the traditional lobster baitfish in Maine’s coastal herring fishery all summer and into the fall, but McCarron says that will change under the new quotas.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Maine’s lobster catch, value grew last year, officials say

March 1, 2019 — Maine lobstermen brought more than 119 million pounds (54 million kilograms) of the state’s signature seafood ashore last year, an increase that helped to propel the total value of Maine’s seafood to the second-highest value on record, state officials said Friday.

The value of the 2018 lobster catch was more than $484.5 million, and the total value for all Maine seafood was more than $637.1 million, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

The state is by far the biggest lobster producer in the United States, and the industry is in the midst of a multiyear boom. However, the catch and its value have fluctuated wildly in recent years.

According to updated department numbers, the 2017 lobster haul was a little less than 112 million pounds (51 million kilograms) and was valued at more than $438 million. That was a drop from the previous year.

Preliminary data from 2018 show that trend reversed, for the year at least. The productive year by lobstermen coincided with high demand from consumers and strong retail prices.

“The demand for lobsters will always stay strong,” Kristan Porter, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said Friday to a packed audience at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum, a trade show taking place in Rockport this week.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Maine lobster industry facing bait, potential regulation issues in 2019

March 1, 2019 — On the heels of the Maine Department of Marine Resource’s announcement that the lobster industry topped USD 600 million (EUR 527 million) in value in 2018, the Maine Lobstermen’s Association was discussing the multiple outside factors that could make 2019 a difficult year for fishermen.

At the MLA’s annual meeting in Rockport, Maine, on Friday, 1 March, two issues loomed large for fishermen: Potential regulations related to the endangered North Atlantic right whale, and the drastic cuts to herring quotas that will heavily impact the industry’s bait supply. Both issues have the potential to make life difficult for lobstermen as regulations that are coming could reduce the amount of traps or the types of gear they can use, and the reduction in bait supplies could leave fishermen struggling to fill traps with increasingly expensive bait.

“We now know that our 2019 quota is going to be 15,000 metric tons (MT),” Patrice McCarron, executive director of the MLA, said during the meeting. “It translates to almost 77 million pounds of herring that won’t come into the fishery.”

Substantial declines in recruitment and biomass in the latest surveys resulted in the New England Fisheries Management Council to slash the herring quotas from nearly 50,000 MT to just over 15,000 M, a 70 percent reduction in the supply of herring. That’s compounded by previous decreases, leaving the lobster industry with a much lower supply of bait.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Over a bait barrel: Cuts in herring quota fueling rise in lobstermen’s costs

February 27, 2019 — When, on Feb. 15, NOAA Fisheries finalized a rule that cut the 2019 Atlantic herring quota by more than half from the previous year, the reverberations were felt instantly from Maine to the mid-Atlantic and in at least two separate but interlocked fisheries.

In Gloucester, Gerry O’Neill of Cape Seafoods studied the numbers and blanched, knowing they represented a talisman of misery for the company’s associated mid-water trawlers that harvest herring and Cape Seafoods’ bait business that helps supply lobstermen in the state’s most lucrative lobstering port.

“These cuts are infrastructure killers,” O’Neill said. “Certainly, not everybody’s going to come out unscathed. We’ll keep going, but I’m not entirely sure how yet.”

Across the Everett R. Jodrey State Fish Pier, where Johnny “Doc” Herrick ties up his F/V Dog & I, the longtime lobsterman absorbed the numbers and came to a simple conclusion: Bait was going to start getting scarce and prices — even for alternatives from herring, such as the redfish heads and hide skins Herrick often uses — were about to head north.

“We’re going to have to catch a (loads) of lobsters just to pay for the bait,” Herrick said. “Who knows how high the prices will go.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

China opening up new seafood supply lines

February 26, 2019 –One of China’s largest and most inward cities, Lanzhou, is the latest to get an air cargo link to fly seafood from Southeast Asia. As China negotiates an end to trade tensions with the U.S. it has also been busily opening up new seafood trading routes and supply lines under its “One Belt, One Road” (also known as the New Silk Road) blueprint for opening up trade through new transport routes.

Not long ago, seafood imports into China were funnelled through just a handful of ports and airports, one of the reasons why smuggling such a popular route to get seafood into the country. Yet, recently, a 15-ton shipment of ribbonfish, grouper, and shrimp from Thailand was landed at Zhongzhou Airport, located in the desert outside Lanzhou – the latest in a series of inland ports and airports now allowed to handle seafood imports.

“With this new service seafood from Southeast Asia, we will now quickly reach local peoples’ tables,” a statement from the airport’s management proclaimed. Increasing the supply of imports of staple species like ribbonfish has also been central to China’s goals of keeping prices level.

Similarly, in the southern city of Nanning (capital of Guangxi Province), the Air Asia commercial service from Kuala Lumpur into Wu Wei Airport has become a supply line for both Indonesian grouper, Chilean salmon, and Canadian lobster, all transhipped through to Nanning, which last year was granted the right to handle customs for food imports.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Clearwater changes lobster fishing practices, asks for early MSC audit

February 25, 2019 –Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada-based Clearwater Seafoods has changed its controversial lobster fishing practices, which resulted in a fine from the Canadian government and a downgrade in the Ocean Wise recommendation for its lobster fishery.

Clearwater, via CS ManPar, was convicted of repeatedly storing 3,800 lobster traps on the ocean floor more than the limit of 72 hours. The offenses took place in Lobster Fishing Area 41, which is a unique territory exclusively licensed to Clearwater. Area 41 runs 80 kilometers from the shore out to the 200-mile limit from Georges Bank to the Laurentian Channel.  Clearwater paid a CAD 30,000 (USD 22,770, EUR 20,075) fine in relation to its guilty plea.

On 15 February, the CBC reported the fishery was downgraded in the recommendations made by Ocean Wise for sustainable fisheries.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MAINE: Fishermen’s Forum opens Feb. 28

February 22, 2019 — No matter what the weather may be doing, the evidence that spring is just around the corner is incontrovertible.

Last week, pitchers and catchers reported to Major League Baseball training camps throughout Florida and Arizona. Next week, hundreds of fishermen, fisheries regulators, scientists and merchants selling everything marine from massive lobster boats and the gear needed to build and equip them to buoy sticks and health insurance will gather at the Samoset Resort for the 44th edition of the annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum.

The Forum opens on Thursday, Feb. 28, and runs through Sunday, with most of the activities crammed into the intervening Friday and Saturday. In addition to a huge maritime trade show and dozens of serious seminars, the Forum includes a variety of social activities and a silent auction and dinner that funds a significant scholarship program for children of fishing families pursuing postsecondary education.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Generations of Maine fishermen keep shuckin’ in the cold

February 22, 2019 — The salt water of Casco Bay is in Alex Todd’s blood.

“I can’t imagine doing anything else,” he said as he headed out off Chebeague Island with the sun just starting to peak above the horizon.

His boat, the Jacob & Joshua, named after his sons are out on these waters year-round.

Todd’s 17-year-old son Joshua was spending his February school vacation out on the boat fishing for scallops.

Joshua and sternman Levi Gloden pulled in shellfish in subzero temperatures as ice started to build up on the deck.

“It’s harder on them than it is on me,” Alex Todd said.

As the boat’s captain, Todd careful picks locations to drag the ocean floor for the prized shellfish, all from the comfort of the heated cabin where he sips his morning coffee.

“Every once in a while I’ll open the door and say, ‘Now do you think I should take a shirt off or? You know what I’m getting a little hot,’” Todd said. “I get a kick out of it but they don’t see the humor as much.”

That sense of humor is what keeps the crew going through the harsh winter months.

With every catch, Joshua and Levi alternate jobs, then sort and measure every shellfish by hand and throwing them in baskets.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

Maine’s lobster industry braces for ‘catastrophic’ cuts to bait fish catch

February 21, 2019 — For the second year in a row, federal regulators have dramatically reduced the amount of Atlantic herring fishermen can haul after scientists counted far fewer juvenile Atlantic herring in the waters from Canada to New Jersey.

While determining that Atlantic herring, the chief bait used by lobstermen, is not overfished, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said “recruitment” — the number of juvenile herring — is so low that last Friday they finalized a rule reducing by more than half the amount of Atlantic herring that fishermen may catch in 2019, from 50,000 metric tons to 21,000 metric tons.

Regulators hope the dramatic cut will prevent or reduce the risk of the fishery becoming depleted, NOAA said in a release.

The new limit has prompted predictions of bait shortages and sky-high prices and has members of Maine’s fishing community describing the situation as “catastrophic” and “devastating.”

“It’s huge,” Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, said. “Prices are going to go up, and lobstermen are going to be struggling to find as much bait as they are accustomed to.”

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News