Saving Seafood

MAINE: Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve gets grant for lobster research

September 13, 2019 — The Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve will receive about $250,000 over two years to study how warming coastal waters are affecting lobsters in the Gulf of Maine, the National Sea Grant Office has announced.

The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than most waters around the world.

Since lobsters thrive in cold water, this warming trend has raised concerns about the future of the Gulf’s lobster fishery. Southern New England has already seen dramatic declines in lobster counts and the fishery there is in jeopardy.

“Lobsters prefer cold water and will move to deeper, offshore areas to find it,” said Jason Goldstein, research director at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve. “We plan to discover how the inshore and offshore movements of female lobsters are affected by warming waters, and whether their young can settle and grow in shallow nursery habitats as coastal waters become warmer.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

NOAA Fisheries Seeks Comments on a Control Date for the American Lobster Fishery

August 22, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is seeking comments on a control date (a date that may be used to establish eligibility) of April 29, 2019 for the American lobster fishery, as we consider ways to reduce threats of entanglement by fixed-gear fisheries to North Atlantic right whales.

In April 2019, NOAA Fisheries convened the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team (TRT) to discuss management measures to reduce the risk of serious injury and entanglement of endangered whales in fishing gear. At the meeting, the New England states and the offshore lobster industry committed to reducing the risk of serious injury and mortality from lobster gear to the North Atlantic right whale by 60 percent in all lobster management areas. The specific measures to achieve this goal are not yet finalized, but will focus on reducing the number, and lowering the breaking strength of, vertical lines used in the lobster trap fishery.

Following the TRT meeting the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s  Lobster Management Board established a control date of April 29, 2019, and recommended that NOAA Fisheries do the same for federal waters.

Read the full release here

New Jersey weighs measures to protect lobsters as harvests shrink

July 25, 2019 — The US east coast state of New Jersey is undertaking a “full review of its lobster management” practices, including possible changes to the minimum size, following a continued drop in landings, the New Jersey Evening Post reports this week.

The state landed just 193 metric tons in 2018, down even from the 268t harvested in 2011, according to the newspaper. However, lobster remains New Jersey’s most valuable commercial species, with its landings accounting for about half of the fishing fleet’s annual income.

That was $190.5 million in 2017, down from $193.0m in 2017, according to the latest available data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The current review is looking at all management measures and has had input from scientists and fisheries managers in  European countries, according to the newspaper, which notes that several harvesters have been taken to court recently for exceeding minimum catch sizes.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobstermen rally against delay in opening season

May 10, 2019 — South Shore lobstermen rallied Thursday morning at Town Wharf to protest the decision by the state Division of Marine Fisheries to delay the opening of the season until May 14 to protect right whales.

“There’s a lot of people that are suffering with this closure,” said rally organizer Sheryl Holmes, whose husband, Roscoe “Stoney” Holmes, is a commercial lobsterman who owns the F/V Haley’s Comet out of Plymouth.

The seasonal speed reductions and trap-gear bans imposed by the state to protect right whales typically end May 1, but have been extended first to May 8, and now to May 14.

Read the full story from the Cape Cod Times at the Patriot Ledger

Despite tariff impacts, Maine lobster market remains robust

March 15, 2019 — Just over eight months since the start of a trade war between China and the United States, the Maine lobster industry is still coping with the affects of a 25 percent tariff on their goods.

Maine had been on track to more than double the value of exports to China, with USD 87 million (EUR 76.9 million) worth of the crustacean being sold through June 2018, compared to roughly half that value through the same period in 2017. However, once China implemented a 25 percent tariff on a wide list of goods from the U.S., shipments of live lobster from Maine to China plummeted to the point that they were almost nonexistent compared to the start of the year – and things haven’t changed much since then.

“The tariff story has dominated the media, and lobster has been the case study,” Annie Tselikis, executive director of the Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association, told SeafoodSource. “We’ve been vocal about it because it really has impacted the business.”

The market, which had seen explosive growth in the past few years, suddenly dried up overnight, for reasons completely out of the hands of Maine companies shipping live lobsters to China.

Even with the challenges, however, companies that focused on live lobster shipments have managed to make up ground by re-focusing efforts in other areas.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Black sea bass gobbling up lobsters

March 12, 2019 — Black sea bass, a saltwater fish taken commercially and recreationally in Massachusetts, have increased in number throughout southern New England waters and rattled the lobster industry with their wolfish appetites.

“They feed aggressively,” Rutgers University marine biologist Olaf Jensen said. “They’re not picky eaters. If it’s the right size and it’s alive, they’ll eat it.”

The young of New England’s iconic crustacean fall into the right size category. “Black sea bass love little lobsters,” Michael Armstrong, assistant director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, said.

That’s of deep concern to Beth Casoni, president of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, who says lobster traps are being pillaged by these fish. They are often hauled up with the bass inside the traps, alongside lobsters they couldn’t fit in their mouths, she said. Even more concerning to Casoni is their alleged habit of picking off undersize lobsters tossed overboard by lobstermen.

Read the full story at The Martha’s Vineyard Times 

MSC delivers a pinch to Canada’s snow crab fishery

March 6, 2019 — Canada’s snow crab fishery is looking ahead at another year without its Marine Stewardship Council certification, but the real risk may be at the hands of the ecolabel.

Last March, the MSC scrambled to suspend its certification of Eastern Canada’s snow crab fishery after a high rate of right whale entanglements and deaths traced back to the fishery in 2017.

What happened next was a little surprising — the lack of a label didn’t have much effect on prices. Despite a buoyant market, Canada’s fixed-gear fleets as well as federal and provincial managers set about on an international mission to work with their neighbors to the south who have long been fighting the good fight to reduce right whale interactions.

Maine’s lobster fishery has been at the forefront of gear innovations to coexist with right whale migratory and feeding patterns. Ten years ago, the fleet made an expensive conversion to sinking groundline instead of using floating rope between pots on a trawl. But the population of an estimated 411 right whales has been expanding its territory into Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence, where regulations haven’t been as robust.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Gulf of Maine Research Institute receives $790K grant to study impact of warming ocean on key species

March 6, 2019 — The National Science Foundation awarded the Gulf of Maine Research Institute a $789,659 grant to examine the impact of a warming climate on growth and population patterns in cod and lobster in the Gulf of Maine.

The study will also document marine habitat shifts across the northwest Atlantic caused by rising temperatures, according to a March 4 news release issued jointly by the offices of U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine.

The funding will aid the institute in its work to better understand and mitigate the impacts of changing ocean conditions on Maine communities, marine ecosystems and economy, King and Collins said in the release.

The grant was awarded through the National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences.

Read the full story at Mainebiz

 

Atlantic Lobster Board Moves Toward Reducing Rope In Effort To Save Right Whales

February 6, 2019 — A consortium of Atlantic states fisheries managers is calling for broad changes to the gear lobstermen use, in an effort to reduce risks posed to the endangered North Atlantic right whale and to ward off potential federal action that could be even more challenging for the industry.

There are roughly 410 right whales left in the world, and they are at risk of potentially fatal entanglements with vertical rope lines lobstermen and other marine harvesters use to position and haul their traps. At a meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Council in Virginia, its lobster board voted unanimously to set in motion the process that could lead to major changes in the East Coast’s lobster industry.

“I don’t want NOAA making decisions on what this lobster fishery is going to look like in the future,” says Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources for Maine, home to the country’s dominant lobster fishery, which landed some 110 million pounds of lobster in 2017 worth more than $450 million at the dock.

Keliher says that the National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration is developing a “biological opinion” that could include a formal “jeopardy” finding for the right whales, which under the federal Endangered Species Act could lead to severe restrictions on the state’s harvest.

Read and listen to the full story at Maine Public

 

‘Lobster-Whale Work Group’ Faces Complicated Balancing Act As It Works To Protect Right Whales

February 1, 2019 — Fisheries’ managers in the Atlantic states are considering a more proactive approach to regulating the lobster industry in order to reduce risks it may pose for the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

Under pressure from lawsuits and the requirements of the federal Endangered Species Act, the federal government is closely reviewing the health of the right whale population, which is hovering around 410 animals. The result could be the imposition of new gear and other restrictions to reduce the risk of whale entanglement with the rope lobstermen use to position and haul their traps.

That process was slowed by the recent government shutdown and, in the meantime, a new “Lobster-Whale Work Group,” made up of state officials in the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, has proposed a slate of possible actions with the dual goals of protecting the whales and the “viability and culture of the lobster fishery.”

“We’re doing everything we can to appease the people who think it may be us,” says Stephen Train, a lobsterman in Long Island, Maine.

Read the full story at Maine Public