Saving Seafood

MAINE: Lobstermen (and Women) Pounded by Winter Storms, Closing Docks and Restaurants

January 30, 2024 — The January storms that rocked the coast of Maine may have taken aim at an unexpected victim – the lobster industry, The Boston Globe reported.

Beal’s Lobster Pier, a 92-year-old lobster joint, had to shutter its doors after the January 10 storm temporarily. The restaurant will be closed until the spring “to focus on repairs,” according to its website.

“The storm that started on Jan. 9 and led into Jan. 10 devastated Maine’s fishing community,” said Monique Coombs of the Maine Coast Fisherman’s Association told National Fisherman. “Wharves that have been in families for generations were picked up and unceremoniously carried away by massive waves and a very high tide.”

Read the full article at the Messenger

Maine’s having a lobster boom. A bust may be coming.

June 15, 2021 — Ask any outsider what Maine brings to mind, and the response might well be: Bone-chilling winters. Forests. Moose. Quaint fishing villages along a rocky coast. Flannel shirts and Bean boots. And lobsters—lots of lobsters.

These cold-water-loving, bottom-feeding crustaceans are top of mind for many Mainers too, including Monique Coombs. She’s the director of community programs for the Maine Coast Fisherman’s Association, in Brunswick. She’s also the wife of Maine lobsterman, Herman Coombs, and the mother of 16-year-old Joceylne, who’s going into the family trade. Homarus americanus—the American lobster—is what keeps bread on the Coombs’ table.

Last year during the pandemic shutdown, Maine didn’t get its usual blast of summer visitors, but there were plenty of lobsters. Signs are promising for a revived tourism season in 2021, and Monique expects it to be another good year for lobsters.

But that doesn’t stop her from worrying. The waters off Maine’s coast are warming, and no one knows what that’s going to mean for the state’s half-billion-dollar-a-year lobster industry—the largest single-species fishery in North America. Some fear that continued warming could cause the lobster population to collapse.

Read the full story at National Geographic

Fishermen Hope for Change as the Seafood Industry Faces a Crisis

June 25, 2020 — Earlier this month, President Trump traveled to Maine to announce plans to reopen a vast marine preserve, created by President Obama in 2016, to commercial fishing. While ostensibly aimed at helping New England fishermen catch more fish and expand their businesses, Maine fishermen—and fishermen across the United States—are grappling with a sobering reality that the president’s controversial plan won’t solve: They can’t sell their fish.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, only half of the fish harvested by Maine fishermen in May sold, and prices averaged 18 percent less in comparison to May the prior year. Landings were also down by more than half, at 44,495 pounds, because many fishermen aren’t going out to sea while the restaurants that are their main markets remain shuttered.

“It’s been a difficult slog over the past couple of months,” says Ben Martens, executive director of Maine Coast Fisherman’s Association, emotion rising in his voice. “It’s just really scary right now, with the marketplace and COVID, and thinking about how we protect the fishing heritage.”

For Martens, the president’s visit was a missed opportunity to address the real problems facing Maine fishermen. Very few, he says, even fished in the Northeast Canyon and Seamounts stretch of deep ocean before Obama designated it a marine monument to protect its fragile ecosystem and the sea turtles, mammals, and other life it supports.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

Working Waterfronts bill passes in the US House

December 11, 2019 — The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, 10 December, passed legislation that would help ensure those who make a living on the water will have the space and resources they need to do their job.

U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) said that while 30,000 residents of her state rely on marine industries, such as commercial fishing, only 20 miles of Maine’s shoreline is considered suitable for work. That’s why she sponsored HR 3596, the Keep America’s Waterfronts Working Act.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

The electronic monitoring of groundfish industry

June 13, 2017 — Randy Cushman rises before dawn each day, drives down to his trawler at Port Clyde Harbor and meets his crew. They prep their boat and head out for another day of chasing flounder and halibut. These days, Cushman and his crew rest easier and sleep in a little later, thanks to the camera installed in the boat’s wheelhouse.

“We used to have to take observers to help count our catch,” said Cushman.

Regulations had required observers appointed to certain vessels by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association to help keep track of fish stock.

“Taking an observer out with you is cumbersome,” Cushman said. “You have to train them, get down to the boat an hour early. Sometimes they clash with the crew. And you have to worry about another body on your boat. The camera eliminates those issues. And there are a lot more advantages than that.”

For three years, Cushman has been participating in the Maine Coast Fisherman’s Association’s Electronic Monitoring System pilot project. The project swaps out the observers with surveillance cameras in order to count fish and take other observations on board New England groundfish vessels.

In the groundfish industry, 15 percent of trips must be covered by observers. The data gleaned from those trips is then used to portray industry norms.

All legal fish are counted at the docks, but until recently only human observers could properly count fish that were thrown back in the ocean.

Read the full story at The Times Record