Saving Seafood

MAINE: Lobsters remain plentiful in Maine, but outside forces cast uncertainty on industry

September 1, 2026 — There was a time when lobsters were so abundant along the Maine coast that they could be plucked by hand from shallow water. Those days are long gone, but for most people — whose interactions with lobsters happen on plates and rolls — it might be hard to say how lobsters and the lobster industry are doing. Lobster rolls might cost more, like everything else, but they’re still available.

Lobstermen are at the mercy of a range of outside forces: economic, ecological, regulatory. Trends in the lobster harvest and its value suggest lobstering is in a healthy position right now. But zooming out to include factors such as global trade and climate change show there is much uncertainty.

In the long view, the number of lobsters coming across wharfs is way up. From 1950 until the end of the 1980s, Maine lobstermen were landing around 20 million pounds of lobster each year. Some years the amount deviated, as low as 16 million and as high as 24 million, but the catch looks pretty consistent through those four decades.

Read the full article at Harpswell Anchour

MAINE: What’s the biggest threat to the lobster industry?

September 1, 2026 — Lobstermen are under threat. They all agree on that much. The threats they describe vary from one to the next. But they are worried about their future, and the future of a livelihood that many learned from their fathers and grandfathers and want to pass to their children and grandchildren.

The risks are larger than any one lobsterman — or even the industry as a whole. Lobstering “is not only an economic driver of coastal and island communities, it is an identity of our communities,” said Kristin Garabedian, a community development officer with the Island Institute’s Center for the Marine Economy. In other words, losing lobstering would make a town like Harpswell less like Harpswell.

Most lobstermen see the biggest threats coming from outsiders pursuing their own aims without regard for the lobstermen who live and work here. Those might be wind-power proponents, whale protectors, big businesses or homebuyers.

Few, if any, see climate change as an immediate or catastrophic threat, although they are deeply in tune with the changes happening in the Gulf of Maine and are worried about human impacts on the environment they depend on.

Read the full article at Harpswell Anchor 

House to take up bill extending right whale regulatory pause to 2035

August 31, 2026 — A bill that would extend the current pause on the new North Atlantic right whale regulations affecting the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries until 2035 is moving toward a vote in the U.S. House, with fishing industry groups renewing calls for lawmakers to pass the measure.

H.R. 9436, the Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act, would extend the existing regulator pause from its current 2028 expiration to 2035. The legislation was introduced by Rep. Mike Lawler, R-New York, and Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine.

As National Fisherman reported in July, the House Natural Resources Committee advanced the bill in a bipartisan 22-13 vote on July 15. The committee has since formally reported the legislation, and it is moving toward consideration by the full House.

The New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA), one of several commercial fishing organizations supporting the extension, sent a letter to Congress ahead of the expected House consideration urging lawmakers to pass the bill.

“As H.R. 9436 comes before the full House, we respectfully ask you to support its passage and to help ensure that this bipartisan committee-supported legislation moves forward without delay,” NEFSA Vice President John Drouin wrote to Congress.

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Maine lobster protected: Canada removes seafood from retaliatory tariffs

August 28, 2026 — Lobstermen in Maine breathed a sigh of relief on Thursday after Canada amended its retaliatory tariffs against the United States, removing seafood and fish products from the items that will face the new fee.

In an announcement late Wednesday night, Canada’s Department of Finance said the Canadian government was working with Canadian industries to assess the effectiveness of retaliatory tariffs. Based on feedback, the department said it made “select adjustments to protect against broader economic harms.”

Read the full article at WMTW

MASSACHUSETTS: A challenging but ‘priceless’ life of a lobsterman

August 3, 2026 — A lot has changed since Tom O’Reilly threw his first lobster pot in the ocean more than four decades ago.

Back then he was using wooden traps which had to be laden with rocks so they would sink to the sea floor. Once the wood became waterlogged the rocks were no longer needed, but they were heavy even when empty. Each pot was hauled up one at a time using only muscle power, a slow and arduous task. And he worked year ‘round.

Now 65, O’Reilly – a big, affable man with short cropped white hair and piercing blue eyes – employs a “stern man,” currently 18-year-old Kyle Moyen, of Manomet. Wooden traps have been replaced by lighter, coated wire traps strung together in groups of 15, each separated from the others by 90 feet of rope. To get the traps up to the boat, Moyen uses a grappling hook to grab the rope just underneath each buoy and O’Reilly threads the rope onto a winch-like device mounted on the starboard rail. He calls it a hauler (brand name: Hydro Slave) and it does most the heavy lifting until each trap is brought alongside the boat where Moyen wrangles it onto the rail. As for lobster fishing year ‘round, that, to O’Reilly’s chagrin, has been reduced by state regulation to help save the endangered North Atlantic right whale, of which fewer than 400 remain.

When I moved to Plymouth in late 2024, I was surprised the following spring to see so many lobster buoys bobbing in Plymouth waters. It was widely reported that even Maine’s coastal waters were becoming too warm to sustain the lobster population, forcing them north into Canadian waters.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the waters of Cape Cod Bay and the Gulf of Maine, of which Cape Cod Bay is a part, are warming faster than most global marine environments. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute concludes climate change has caused average summertime water temperatures in the Bay to warm by more than 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit since the 1970s. That may not sound like a lot, but even a one-degree average rise can mean the difference between thriving and dying for some species. Local oystermen cite warming waters for a drastic reduction in the local mussel population, for example.

O’Reilly doesn’t dispute the data, but says over the past ten years the temperature has been stable.

“People may disagree with me on this,” O’Reilly says, “but I’ve monitored the water temperature every day for the past ten years, and I don’t see it rising.”

He points to one of the monitors on his boat, the 36-foot Karen M, built in Maine in 1991 and named for O’Reilly’s wife. The monitor shows the water temperature is 65 degrees. “Normally, this time of year, it should be about 70,” he says, “and the lobster population is stable.”

Read the full article at the Plymouth Independent 

MAINE: Scientists have begun to re-deploy ocean monitoring equipment yanked from Pacific Northwest waters by the Trump administration in September.

August 3, 2026 — Every lobsterman expects to lose gear.

Strong tides, boat traffic, and tangled lines make losing lobster traps an unavoidable part of fishing Maine’s rugged coastline. But when those traps settle on the seafloor, they can impact marine life for years, creating problems for both the environment and the state’s most valuable fishery.

That’s why Buzz Scott has made it his mission to bring them back.

Scott has spent nearly two decades as a commercial fisherman off the Maine coast. While he still operates a lobster boat, much of his time is now dedicated to recovering abandoned traps as executive director of the nonprofit OceansWide.

Read the full article at News Center Maine

New regulations to protect right whales may be paused until 2035

July 20, 2026 — A bill cosponsored by U.S. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine’s 2nd District that would further delay new protections for North American right whales has advanced out of Committee.

Golden has cited government layoffs and other slowdowns as reasons for extending a moratorium on new regulations from 2028 to 2035.

Golden said in remarks to the House Natural Resources Committee that the extended moratorium would provide time to collect more data, ensuring that Maine fisheries aren’t unfairly burdened. The Maine Department of Marine Resources and the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association wrote letters of support for the legislation.

“We need more time to make sure that any new measures we ask lobstermen to take will strike a very careful balance between protecting marine life and protecting the livelihoods of fishermen themselves,” Golden said at the committee hearing.

But Gib Brogan of ocean protection nonprofit Oceana said the science is clear.

“All of the available evidence shows that the protections that are in place right now are not enough to support the recovery of North Atlantic right whales.”

Read the full article at Maine Public

Golden-sponsored bill to extend pause on new lobster fishing rules

July 16, 2026 — The Maine lobster industry may be getting an extended reprieve on new regulations aimed at protecting North Atlantic right whales.

A bill, the Northeast Lobstermen Protection Act, co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), will extend a moratorium on those regulations for Maine lobster fishermen until 2035. Yesterday, the bill passed the House Natural Resources Committee by a vote of 22-13.

In remarks to the committee, Golden noted that many communities in Maine rely on the lobster industry, and are being threatened by the new regulations.

Read the full article at Spectrum News

US congressional committee votes to extend moratorium on new right whale regulations through 2035

July 16, 2026 — In a 22-13 vote, the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee advanced legislation that would extend a five-year pause on new lobster regulations related to North Atlantic right whales through 2035.

“Protecting the North Atlantic right whale and supporting America’s fishing communities are goals that can and must go hand in hand. By extending the current regulatory framework through 2035, the Northeast Lobsterman Protection Act provides the time needed to develop durable, science-driven solutions that protect this endangered species without imposing unnecessary burdens on fishermen,” U.S. Representative Mike Lawler (R-New York) said in a release.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MAINE: Lobstermen sought for ventless trap program

February 15, 2024 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources, in cooperation with the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation, seeks four industry participants for the Regional Ventless Trap Program through a competitive bid process. This is an opportunity to participate in a cooperative research project between industry and scientists from Maine through Rhode Island.

Read the full article at Mount Islander