January 30, 2017 — We here at FishOn love lobsters for so many reasons. They taste great. They generate employment here in the commonwealth’s most lucrative lobster port and they provide the only real use for that gigantic pot in our cupboard.
Value of Maine lobster exports to China on pace to triple for 2016
January 30, 2017 — Live lobster exports to China are on pace to triple in value in 2016, despite the incursion of some new lobster suppliers to the growing Asian market.
Final figures for 2016 won’t be known until February, but through November, the value of live lobster shipments from Maine to China climbed to $27.5 million, nearly tripling from the $10.2 million reported in November 2015. That’s roughly half the total export of live lobsters from Maine to date, excluding Canada, where many Maine lobsters are processed and then imported back into Maine for distribution.
And those figures don’t include the traditional year-end surge leading up the Chinese New Year on Jan. 28, when Chinese celebrants have been serving up lobster from Maine, Massachusetts and Canada in ever-increasing numbers.
SOUTHEASTERN FISHERIES ASSOCIATION: Eat More Sustainable Seafood for Health and Taste Benefits
January 20, 2017 — The following was released by the Southeastern Fisheries Association (SFA):
SFA President Peter Jarvis Says: “Eat More Sustainable Seafood for Health and Taste Benefits”
WASHINGTON — Soon after he’s sworn in as the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump will dine on Maine lobster, Gulf shrimp, and Seven Hills Angus beef, to name a few dishes.
These foods are all on the menu for the inaugural luncheon, a long-standing tradition in which the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies hosts a meal for the president and vice president at the Capitol following the inaugural address.
The committee organized its first luncheon in 1953, when lawmakers welcomed President Dwight Eisenhower for creamed chicken, baked ham and potato puffs in the Capitol’s Old Senate Chamber.
Dishes, consumed between toasts, gift presentations and speeches, often encompass foods from the home states of the new leaders, though Trump’s menu owes heavily to California, not his home state of New York or Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s state of Indiana.
President Barack Obama’s 2013 luncheon boasted a menu of steamed lobster, grilled bison and apple pie.
Trump’s, which will be held in the Statuary Hall, will feature three courses.
The first, Maine lobster and Gulf shrimp with saffron sauce and peanut crumble, will be accompanied by a J. Lohr 2013 Arroyo Vista Chardonnay.
The Gulf shrimp may be a tribute to Florida, where Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is located and which the President-elect has called his “second home.”
Warming Signs: Climate Change Means A Sea Change for Fishermen and Scientists
January 23, 2017 — Lobsters used to lurk in the waters of Long Island. But these days, New York fisherman have trouble finding any—while their peers 500 miles away in Maine are seeing bumper crops. Instead, the lobstermen of Long Island now catch more crabs and other shellfish—which, in turn, leaves crabbers further down the East Coast worried about the future of their own livelihoods.
Last week I wrote about how climate change is prompting a fish migration that will directly affect what’s served—or not served—for dinner. But these rapid marine changes won’t just affect our appetites; they also represent a sea change for the fisherman and communities that depend on the sea for jobs and income.
Fishing Regulations Struggle to Catch Up
Of course, catching new fish in your usual fishing haunt is trickier than just changing your bait. Regulations guide what you may catch and how much of it, usually state by state—and they aren’t changing as fast as the environment is. John A. Manderson, a research biologist at the NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), noted that sea creatures are moving north 10 times faster than their land-based animals.
“Our ideas of property rights and laws are purely land-based,” Manderson told The New York Times. “But the ocean is all about flux and turbulence and movement.”
To get around these increasingly obsolete laws, some fishermen are catching fish further north and then traveling to areas where it is legal to bring large quantities to shore. Such slippery adherence to regulations sparked mackerel wars in the North Sea back in 2010, and the dispute wasn’t settled for four years.
Furthermore, such an expensive round-about the law is not an option for everyone, especially those with smaller fishing operations.
To buoy its budget, Maine marine resources department seeks higher fees for fishing licenses
January 16, 2017 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources wants to raise the price of commercial fishing licenses for the first time in seven years, using the $600,000 the hikes would generate to pay for spending increases while honoring Gov. Paul LePage’s request to keep the department’s budget flat.
If approved by the Legislature, the proposed fee increases would range from as little as $1 for a Maine resident to harvest green crabs to as much as $114 for a lobsterman with two sternmen. Under the new fee schedule, which would take effect January 2018, the cost of securing a Class III lobster license would top $1,000 for the first time, hitting $1,002.
The fee hike would enable the Department of Marine Resources to hire an additional lobster biologist, outfit its science staff with field technology and pay for Marine Patrol officer raises and ballistics vests, among other things, without increasing the department’s $21.3 million bottom line, department spokesman Jeff Nichols said.
For example, the fee increases would pay for remote data entry technology. Currently, department science staffers spend 28 percent of their time entering data gathered in the field, Nichols said. With the new technology, staff scientists would spend more of their time conducting the research and data analysis needed to sustain the state’s valuable marine resources in a changing ocean environment, he said.
Lobstermen rescued offshore after wave causes boat to sink
January 16, 2017 –YORK, Maine — The Coast Guard says it rescued two lobster fishermen off the coast of Maine after their vessel began to sink.
The sinking happened Friday when a wave hit the 45-foot lobster boat Miss Mae & Son about 17 miles off shore from York. The Coast Guard says the boat’s pumps couldn’t keep up with the water.
The Coast Guard says the fishermen jumped into the water when a response boat arrived and the boat’s crew was able to pull them on board. The water temperature was 42 degrees Fahrenheit.
The fishermen were returned to Portsmouth Harbor without injuries. The Coast Guard says the fishermen did the right thing by signaling for help and bringing survival gear.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Times
Seafood Industry Fights Back Against Obama’s Fish Fraud Laws
January 13, 2017 — Even your humble local sushi joint will (hopefully) offer a dizzying array of seafood, from fluke to lobster to sea urchin. But chances are high that your sashimi isn’t what it seems: According to one report a couple years back from the ocean advocacy group Oceana, as much as 74 percent of fish sold at sushi spots in the US is fraudulent. Per that report, 92 percent of what’s sold as “red snapper” and 71 percent of what’s sold as “tuna” are actually imposter species of fish.
Seafood fraud is nothing new, and another Oceana report found that overall, 20 percent of all types of seafood sold nationally was mislabeled. Often, endangered fish of dubious origin can be passed off as more sustainable types of fish.
Last month, in an effort to enhance transparency for consumers and allow traceability of fish coming to US shores from foreign waters—where shady international fishing operators often use illegal methods to haul in catch en masse—the Obama administration announced rules that would require seafood importers to be able to trace the origin of each and every fish sold in the US back to an individual boat or fish farm.
Now, however, fishing industry players are fighting back, and have sued the government for placing what they say is an onerous and expensive burden on importers who already follow the rules.
The rule, which would go into effect on January 1 of 2018, requires importers to keep track of sourcing information for 13 priority species including tuna, swordfish, cod, and other species that are often mislabeled and overharvested. Importers would need to specify when and where a fish was caught, and would have to hold onto the data for two years. A new Seafood Import Monitoring Program within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would oversee the program.
When the program was announced, Kathryn Sullivan, a NOAA Administrator said, “As a global leader in sustainable fisheries management and seafood consumption, the US has a responsibility to combat illegal practices that undermine the sustainability of our shared ocean resources. We designed this program to further ensure that imported seafood is legally harvested and truthfully represented, with minimal burden to our partners.”
Lobster prices high as catch drops and China imports climb
January 11, 2017 — Lobster lovers are used to adjusting to high prices, but this winter, they’re shelling out even more for the cherished crustaceans because of a lack of catch off of New England and Canada and heavy exports to China.
Winter is typically a slow season for U.S. lobster fishermen and an active one off Atlantic Canada. But catch is slow in both countries this year, in part because of bad weather, industry sources said.
And the winter months are also an important time for exports to lobster-crazy China, which celebrates its New Year holiday Jan. 28. It’s increasingly popular to celebrate the Chinese New Year with American lobster. That’s causing demand at a time when supply is low.
American consumers who were paying $9 to $11 per pound for a live lobster in September — already higher than the previous year — are now sometimes paying upward of $13 per pound. There are enough lobsters to go around, but China’s demand is likely to only grow, said Bill Bruns, operations manager at The Lobster Company of Arundel, Maine.
“They are building infrastructure to meet more demand,” Bruns said, who added that China’s middle class “hasn’t stopped growing, and they keep eating.”
American lobster exports to China have topped 12 million pounds and $85 million in value for three years in a row. The country imported a fraction of that amount as recently as 2010, when it imported less than a million pounds of the crustaceans.
Meanwhile, prices charged by wholesalers in the U.S. are rising, too. The wholesale price of a 1 ¼-pound live hard shell lobster rose about a dollar in the New England market from December to January, when it was $7.75 per pound, according to Urner Barry commodities publishing service.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Times
Lobstermen brace for third year of fishing ban
January 9, 2017 — It’s a classic New England scene, colorful lobster traps stacked up along a dock.
But for fishermen in South Shore lobster ports, those grounded traps are a symbol of hard times ahead.
A ban that keeps most of their gear out of the water for the winter is entering its third year, despite arguments that it causes them unfair economic hardship.
“If it made sense, that would be one thing,” Irvine Nash, a lobsterman for 48 years, said as he stood on a dock in Green Harbor. “But it don’t,” he said.
Behind him, fishermen were pulling traps out of the water and loading them on trucks. They will sit empty in yards and garages until May, when the government lifts the ban.
Under a recent rule from the National Marine Fisheries Service, all traps from outer Cape Cod to Cape Cod Bay and parts of Massachusetts Bay must be out of the water by Feb. 1. That’s an area just under 3,000 square nautical miles.
The federal agency first imposed the ban in 2015, to decrease the likelihood of endangered North Atlantic right whales, which come to Cape Cod Bay every winter, from entangling themselves in lobster lines.
There are now only about 520 right whales left, according to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, up from about 300 in the 1990s.
Lobster Boat Owner Facing Manslaughter Charges Is Freed On Bond
December 23, 2016 — A Cushing lobsterman has been charged with manslaughter in the deaths of two crewmen who were lost at sea when his boat capsized and sank near Matinicus Island during a storm in 2014.
Federal prosecutors have accused Christopher A. Hutchinson of taking oxycodone, using marijuana and drinking alcohol before taking out his boat, No Limits, early on Nov. 1, 2014, with two crewmen aboard. Tomas Hammond, 26, and Tyler Sawyer, 15, were never found after the boat flipped in heavy seas and sank several miles west of Matinicus as it was headed back to its home port in Tenants Harbor. Hutchinson, 28, made it into a life raft and was rescued.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges at a hearing in U.S. District Court in Portland on Monday. Dressed in a tie-dyed T-shirt and blue athletic pants, Hutchinson responded to questions from Magistrate Judge John Rich and appeared shaken and tired.
Hutchinson had a court-appointed attorney during the hearing, but said he had retained an attorney to represent him. His family attended the hearing but declined to comment about the case. The families of Hammond and Sawyer didn’t return calls seeking comment Monday.
Hutchinson, who was arrested Monday, will be held in detention until a bail hearing scheduled for Thursday. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Hutchinson has been charged under the Seaman’s Manslaughter Statute, a little-used statute in the U.S. criminal code dating to the 1800s that is used in cases of misconduct or negligence by anyone responsible for managing a vessel, including a captain, pilot or owner.
The indictment charged Hutchinson in the deaths of Hammond, of Richmond, and Sawyer, of St. George and Waldoboro, on Nov. 1, 2014.
The boat was headed for a fishing area called Eleven Mile Ridge, despite National Weather Service warnings of dangerous weather and sea conditions.
After hauling lobster traps for several hours, Hutchinson decided to return to Tenants Harbor about 10:30 a.m., court documents say. Hutchinson tried to “surf” the waves, capsizing the boat.
In an interview a few days after the sinking, Hutchinson said the No Limits was on the way back to the mainland when the seas and winds quickly intensified, causing the 45-foot lobster boat to flip.
Hutchinson said that when the trio left the Linda Bean dock in Tenants Harbor early that morning, the wind was not blowing. He said he had fished that area off Matinicus for six years. He said his boat was large enough that he was not concerned about the weather.
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