Saving Seafood

Lobster Shortage Sends Prices Rising ‘Off the Charts’: Report

April 25, 2018 — If rising temperatures have you dreaming about that first lobster roll of the season, be prepared to get sticker shocked.

The price of lobster has surged over the past few months as Maine, the state the dominates the U.S. lobster haul, saw the catch fall due to a long winter and chilly spring while global demand remains on the rise, according to The Boston Globe. Cold weather in Canada is keeping its fisheries iced over, adding to the shortage.

Hard-shell lobster prices have shot up to about $15 a pound, nearly double from last year’s $8 a pound. And restaurants looking to buy pre-shucked lobster meat for their rolls can expect to shell out about $40 a pound.

The Globe surveyed seafood prices in restaurants around Boston and found the cost of many lobster dishes to be “off the charts,” the paper reports. A lobster roll at Chef Chris Coombs’ restaurant Deuxave will set you back $49, instead of the usual $22. And another area restaurateur told the Globe that it currently costs $47 to prepare his lobster rolls, but has kept the menu price at $29.

Read the full story at NBC New York

Trump administration seeks dismissal of Northeast Canyons and Seamounts monument lawsuit

April 19, 2018 — Despite its willingness to review the designations made by its predecessor, the Trump Administration is at least defending former President Obama’s ability to create national monuments. That’s according to a filing in federal court earlier this week.

Jeffrey H. Wood, acting assistant attorney general for the environment and natural resources division, entered a motion on 16 April to dismiss a lawsuit filed last year by the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association. The Lobstermen and other fishing groups filed the suit in response to the Obama Administration designating the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in September 2016.

The Northeast Canyons was the first national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean, and with that designation, commercial fishing – with certain exclusions for red crab and lobster fishing – is not permitted in the nearly 5,000-square-mile area. Crab and lobster fishing would continue until a seven-year permit expires.

Last year, Trump ordered Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review the monuments, which were created under the Antiquities Act. While Zinke has not recommended removing any designation for marine monuments, he has encouraged Trump to open monuments for more commercial fishing opportunities.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Regulators push for rope removal to save North Atlantic right whale

April 18, 2018 — In a multinational drive to protect the North Atlantic right whale, fisheries along the east coasts of the Canada and the United States are being mandated, legislated, or volunteering to reduce rope use as much as possible.

The Canadian government has instituted steps that requires snow crab fishermen use less rope, use more easily breakable rope and report any lost gear as soon as possible. These conditions apply to all fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

While Canada’s federal effort has been heavily on the snow crab fishery, the Prince Edward Island Fishermen’s Association (PEIFA) recently laid out its own plan to reduce potential entanglements and involvements with the endangered whales.

No right whale has been found entangled in lobster gear, but nevertheless, the lobster fishermen in Area 24, along Prince Edward Islands’s North Shore, have agreed to voluntarily reduce what the gear they put in the water by at least 25 percent – setting their traps in bunches of six rather than a one trap set or smaller bunches.

“We feel we’re eliminating somewhere around 16,000 Styrofoam buoys out of the system and each of those buoys is responsible for 130 or 140 feet of rope, which go from the buoy down to the trap,” Francis Morrissey, of the Area 24 Lobster Advisory Board, said. “So we feel that by doing this, there’s 16,000 less chances for marine mammals to get entangled.”

South of the border, an op-ed in The Boston Globe by John K. Bullard, the retiring regional administrator for NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, challenged the U.S. lobster industry to take the lead in heading off the extinction of the North Atlantc right whale.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Fate of the Lobster Fishery May Depend on Fate of the Right Whale

April 18, 2018 — The North Atlantic right whale was once seen as an inexhaustible natural resource. It was hunted for its oil and enriched New England. That ended one-hundred years ago, but the right whale’s numbers have never been the same. Now, the whales that are left are in direct conflict with the harvesting of another rich natural resource: lobsters.

About the time when the first crocuses start to bloom, the North Atlantic right whale comes back in numbers to feed in Cape Cod Bay, and researchers go out on the water to count them.

A research vessel from the Center for Coastal Studies is off the coast of Provincetown and coordinating with a crew in a spotter plane. There are so few whales left, the scientists can often identify individual animals.  They see two: Elf and Ruffian.

When commercial whaling ended in the 1930s, there were only about 100 North Atlantic right whales left in the world. Now that people weren’t killing them on purpose, their numbers slowly climbed, topping out at about 550 in the year 2010. Then something happened. Their numbers started to drop. But why? Their relatives, the Southern right whales, are doing fine.

Michael Moore is a biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who has been examining dead whales for 30 years to figure out what happened to them. Moore says, “The two pieces that make the difference between the Southern right whale’s success and the Northern Atlantic right whale’s struggle has been vessel collisions and entanglement in fixed fishing gear.”

He says, in the southern oceans there are fewer ships and less fishing gear, and that has allowed Southern right whales to grow to a population of 15,000. There are now fewer than 450 North Atlantic right whales here off the coast of New England.

Read the full story at WCAI

 

Court Battle Continues Over Atlantic Ocean’s First-Ever National Monument

April 18, 2018 — Commercial fishing groups are joining in federal court to challenge the creation of the Atlantic Ocean’s first-ever marine national monument. But the federal government is now asking for the case to be tossed out.

At stake is the future of roughly 5,000 square miles off the coast of Massachusetts, called the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts.

President Barack Obama used the federal Antiquities Act to protect the zone in 2016. His office said it contained critical wildlife habitat.

The order stopped commercial fishing there, but did allow red crab and lobster fisheries a seven-year window to close up shop.

Read the full story at New England Public Radio

 

Lobster shell disease nudges up slightly off of Maine

April 13, 2018 — PORTLAND, Maine — A disease that disfigures lobsters has ticked up slightly in Maine in the last couple of years, but authorities and scientists say it’s not time to sound the alarm.

The disease, often called epizootic shell disease, is a bacterial infection that makes lobsters impossible to sell as food, eating away at their shells and sometimes killing them. The Maine Department of Marine Resources said researchers found the disease in about 1 percent of lobsters last year.

Circa the early- and mid-2000s, they almost never found it in Maine. But overall prevalence of the disease remains low, especially compared to southern New England waters, where it’s in the 20 percent to 30 percent range, the department said.

Scientists who study the fishery, such as microbiologist Deborah Bouchard of the University of Maine, said it remains important to monitor for the disease, which appears to correlate with warming temperatures.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Globe

 

Can anyone save the North Atlantic right whale?

April 12, 2018 — By the time Mike Lane shoves off the Cohasset docks, it’s past 8 a.m. — practically lunch time for a lobsterman. But it’s early spring, and the South Shore fisheries are mostly closed, so Lane is keeping a somewhat relaxed schedule. Lobsters tend to hole up for the season several miles farther offshore, and Lane would like to be there, fishing his 800 traps. That area also happens to be a feeding area for North Atlantic right whales — one of our planet’s most endangered species. And so, four years ago, the federal government closed these grounds for much of the winter and spring. That means all Lane can do right now is set a few traps in a small area just outside Cohasset Harbor.

Lane knows he won’t catch much there. But he has two small kids and says he can’t afford not to go. He bundles up a couple of times a week and makes the trip, often returning with just a handful of lobsters.

As he motors out on this raw morning, Lane maintains a casual grip on the boat’s wheel, his hands chapped and bare. Standing next to him is Amy Knowlton, a senior scientist at the New England Aquarium. Together, the scientist and lobsterman have been working to study the impact of fishing gear on endangered whales. Their talk is sparse and familiar — about Lane’s mom, who has Alzheimer’s, and whether his dad, a lobsterman who taught his son the ropes, will be able to get out and fish his own traps this year. Their conversation soon turns to whales. “Virginia,” says Lane. He shakes his head. “Another one.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

Bay State Wind Announces Plans For Grants to Protect New England Fisheries, Whales

April 12, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Bay State Wind, an offshore wind developer, announced on Tuesday that they plan on providing more than $2 million in grants for research and programs to protect New England’s fisheries and whale populations.

The grants would be spread out amongst different organizations. The developer plans to offer $1 million for a Bay State Wind Marine Science Grant Program for directed fisheries resources research on the Bay State Wind lease area. Woods Hole Oceanography Institute, which has been working on a ropeless fishing concept to protect whales, would receive a $500,000 multi-year grant to use for the development of advanced whale detection systems. The New England Aquarium Right Whale Research Project and the Lobster Foundation of Massachusetts would each receive $250,000 to prevent gear entanglement of the North Atlantic Right Whale. Bay State Wind also plans on offering grants to Whale Alert Project, Center for Coastal Studies and the National Ocean Science Bowl/ Blue Lobster Bowl.

“These grants demonstrate Bay State Wind’s commitment to environmental responsibility,” Bay State Wind environmental manager and whale biologist Laura Morse said in a press release. “We are taking steps to strengthen the population of the North Atlantic Right Whale, which is weakened by boat strikes and fishing gear entanglements. In addition, Bay State Wind will address two of the main threats to marine life – rising ocean temperatures and ocean acidification – with the clean energy that is wind farms will produce.”

Bay State Wind is currently in the running to supply offshore wind power to Massachusetts, a hot topic for the Massachusetts fishing industry. Just this week a group of fishing industry officials set a letter to Governor Charlie Baker suggesting changes to “make offshore wind more palatable.” The group suggested that the state’s first offshore windfarm be “modest in size and scope” so that the impacts on commercial fishing can be studied.

Bay State Wind, which is a joint venture between Ørsted, the offshore wind global leader, and Eversource, a New England transmission builder, released a statement reaffirming their commitment to the fishing industry in Massachusetts: “We are the only project that has hired a marine biologist to ensure that we protect marine species and do not interfere with migration patterns, and we will continue to work closely with the fighting industry in the South Coast to minimize disruption and to preserve fish stocks for future generations.”

This story originally appeared on Seafood News, it is republished with permission.

 

Massachusetts: Hoping for a state contract, Bay State Wind offers more than $2 million in environmental research grants

April 11, 2018 — NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — In what could be the final weeks before Massachusetts awards its first offshore wind contract, Bay State Wind has announced more than $2 million in grants it would provide for fisheries research and whale protection, contingent upon Bay State Wind winning a contract.

The grants include:

• $1 million for a marine science grant program to be administered by Bay State Wind. It would fund research in the Bay State Wind lease area designed to address specific questions and concerns raised by the fishing industry.

• $500,000 to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for a multi-year grant to develop advanced whale detection systems.

• $250,000 each to the New England Aquarium right whale research project and the Lobster Foundation of Massachusetts to prevent gear entanglement of the North Atlantic right whale.

The deadline for the state and electric companies to announce one or more winners of offshore wind contracts is April 23, but the decision could be delayed, State House News Service reported last week.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

 

Lobstermen will get extension on medical waivers

April 11, 2018 — AUGUSTA, Maine — A Maine law is now on the books to extend the amount of time some commercial fishing license holders can receive a medical waiver.

Harpswell Democratic Rep. Jay McCreight’s measure allows the Maine Department of Marine Resources commissioner to renew a temporary medical waiver for lobster and crab fishing licenses up to one year.

McCreight says she was motivated to make the proposal at the request of a Harpswell lobsterman who needed help because he’s struggling with a terminal illness, but still needs to work.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald