Saving Seafood

A New Device Tracks Lobsters as They Move Through the Supply Chain

January 11, 2021 — Lobsters are big business in Maine. In 2019 alone, the state netted almost US $500-million from this popular crustacean. Profits would likely be even higher, though, if the seafood industry could reduce “shrink”—the number of lobsters that die on their way through the supply chain. Every one percent in shrink means almost $5-million in unrealized income, says Eric Thunberg, an economist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. “Those aren’t small losses.”

“There’s a lot of interest in reducing shrink,” says Rick Wahle, a zoologist at the University of Maine. “Unfortunately,” he says, “there’s very little hard data to work with.”

“In most cases, it’s not going to be rocket science to mitigate these problems,” says Wahle. “It may just be shorter handling times, reducing time between the dock and the holding tank, dropping more aerators in the water, or lowering storage density.” The question is where along the supply chain those changes should be applied.

A new project, led by Wahle and supported by NOAA, is now tackling that question with two purpose-designed technologies to record the health and environment conditions of lobsters as they move from trap to distributor. One sensor package, called MockLobster, measures temperature and acceleration of a crate of lobsters as it’s moved around. The team wants to add other sensors for dissolved oxygen and acidity, but these features are still being prototyped.

Read the full story at Smithsonian Magazine

MASSACHUSETTS: Seasonal Ban on Lobstering Aims to Protect Right Whales

December 21, 2020 — With the North Atlantic right whale population at a dangerously low ebb, the state Division of Marine Fisheries is proposing a statewide seasonal ban on lobstering in a last-chance effort to save the critically endangered species from extinction.

Floated by the DMF during public hearings on Dec. 8 and 9, the proposed regulations come in the wake of a report that estimated right whale populations at only 366 marine mammals — down from the 481 estimated in 2011 — and a continued “unusual mortality event” that has seen more than 30 right whale deaths in the past three years.

The dramatic rule changes propose extending the state’s existing Feb. 1 through April 30 lobster trap closure in Cape Cod Bay to all waters under the jurisdiction of the commonwealth, including the Vineyard and Nantucket Sound. Buoyed recreational lobster and crab trap fishing would also be closed. The recreational closure would run from the Tuesday after Columbus Day through the Friday preceding Memorial Day.

Read the full story at the Vineyard Gazette

Right whale estimate plummets while Maine lobstermen await restrictions

October 29, 2020 — A new scientific estimate has found the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale population is declining.

The estimate, from the National Marine Fisheries Service, comes as the lobster fishery awaits a draft of new federal restrictions that aim to reduce the potential for fishing gear to entangle the whales.

The number of right whales worldwide has declined from just over 400 to about 360, new data is showing.

Oceana, an ocean conservation nonprofit in Washington, D.C., is calling on the service to take immediate action to save the species from extinction.

“The new estimates that only about 360 North Atlantic right whales remain underscores the need for immediate action to protect this critically endangered species,” Oceana campaign director Whitney Webber said in the release.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Maine lobster industry nets $2 million for research

September 3, 2020 — For the second straight year, $2 million has been awarded for lobster research in the Gulf of Maine. Four of the nine NOAA Sea Grant projects will be conducted by Maine organizations, totaling $559,181 in funding for Maine-based research projects.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, announced the Sea Grant American Lobster Initiative funding on Thursday, saying, “This critical federal funding will build on their efforts to support the health of Maine’s lobster fishery and help ensure its continued success.”

The $2 million will support Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank American lobster research priorities, which is aimed at understanding how environmental changes are affecting American lobster in the Gulf of Maine.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

Second coronavirus wave would be ‘catastrophic,’ Massachusetts fishermen say

August 4, 2020 — Commercial fishermen and lobstermen in Massachusetts already “crippled” by the coronavirus pandemic say they fear a second wave in the fall would sink the industry.

“If there’s a shutdown then, it could be catastrophic,” said Joey Ciaramitaro, co-owner of Gloucester-based Captain Joe & Sons wholesale lobsters.

The state’s spring lockdown hurt local fishermen on two fronts: seafood-selling restaurants closed, and air travel nearly ground to a halt. Contrary to popular belief, most local fishermen and lobstermen don’t just sell their catch to tourist-flocked seafood restaurants and markets in New England.

Read the full story at The Boston Herald

MAINE: Microplastics are harming the Gulf of Maine’s baby lobsters, study finds

July 14, 2020 — A study by scientists at a marine research laboratory indicates that plastic pollution in the Gulf of Maine likely is creating problems for the lobster population.

Researchers at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay examined how microplastics — pieces of plastic broken down into tiny particles — affect lobster larvae in the gulf. They found that lobster larvae, which float in the water column and typically are found in shallow water, get fibers caught under their shells and sometimes ingest particles.

The issue of pollution in the Gulf of Maine, where millions of pounds of lobster fishing gear is deployed each year, has environmental and economic implications for Maine. The commercial statewide lobster harvest in 2019 alone accounted for more than $485 million in fishing revenue in the state, nearly three-quarters of all of Maine’s fisheries landings value that year.

The study, published in the scientific journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, showed young larvae are more likely to get microplastic fibers trapped under their shells that protect their gills, and were the least likely to survive heavy concentrations of microplastics. Older larvae had less fiber accumulation under their shells but were shown to ingest the plastic, which could pose health consequences as they get older.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

ROB MOIR: The Monument Watch and How Trump Took the Bait to Strengthen Protections of Atlantic Ocean Realm

June 16, 2020 — The trap had been set up by boisterous environmental groups arguing with fishermen. Not seeing the forest for the trees, or rather the school for the fish, President Trump stepped squarely into it. He opened the Northeast Canyons and Seamount Marine National Monument to commercial fishing while strengthening protections of the ocean park area.

Deeply unfair, it’s a terrible thing, said the president addressing fishermen in Bangor. A representative of the Maine Lobstermen’s Union said he was “a little disappointed” so much time was spent on a monument that “has nothing to do with Maine.” The monument is 140 miles Southeast of Nantucket. Of greater interest are the millions of dollars lost in lobster exports due to the China tariffs. A hardship they hold Trump responsible for.

Lobstermen sued the government while continuing to work the resource. Just when the window for lobstering by the fourteen vessels was closing, Trump decreed they may continue. He maintained the status quo. The actually taking of fish is directed by the National Marine Fisheries Service with advice from the fishery councils. The quotas for catching fish or lobsters did not change, just the rhetoric.

Trump spared the NE Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument the damage he inflicted on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Here, Trump took away from native American tribal nations, the twin buttes of sacred lands packed with ancestral Pueblo artifacts. He made these lands available, for a price, to cattle, mining, oil and gas drilling. The monument was broken into two parts. Bears Ears National Monument was reduced by 85%, down from 1.35-million acres. Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument was reduced to nearly half the size, down from 1.88-million acres. The resulting monuments now have a combined area of 201,876 acres. This is a reduction of 85% of monument acres.

Read the full opinion piece at Medium

China unlikely to consider lowering of lobster tariffs, despite Trump’s threat

June 11, 2020 — On Friday, 5 June, at a meeting with commercial lobstermen from the U.S. state of Maine, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose new tariffs on imported Chinese and European Union goods if they did not eliminate their tariffs on U.S. lobsters.

At the meeting, Trump appointed U.S. Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Director Peter Navarro the task of identifying additional Chinese and European products to hit with tariffs as a means of pressuring Beijing to eliminate all tariffs on American lobsters.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Judge: NOAA Violated Endangered Species Act By Allowing Lobster Traps That Threaten Right Whales

April 10, 2020 — A federal judge ruled Thursday that federal fisheries regulators are illegally allowing lobster traps that pose a threat to the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

U.S. District Judge James Boasburg says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration violated the Endangered Species Act by authorizing the lobster fishery without appropriate attention to its impact on the whales.

Specifically, he faults the feds for failing to produce an assessment of the potential that whales will be entangled in lobster trap rope and face injury and death.

Read the full story at Maine Public

University of New England Shares NSF Grant on Lobsters and Climate Change

April 7, 2020 — A study on how warming ocean water impacts the early life stages of lobster will bring together two undergraduate colleges, a premier research institution, and a state agency.

The University of New England applied for the $860,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and intends to share it with Hood College in Maryland, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, and the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

Read the full story at Seafood News