Saving Seafood

Charitable seafood program serves both fishermen and the food insecure

September 13, 2021 –The past year’s decrease in restaurant and wholesale markets, domestically and overseas, made it difficult for Maine fishermen to get a fair price for their catch.

But a charitable seafood program implemented a year ago has helped provide a reliable revenue stream to some small-boat fishermen – while also contributing to food security around the state.

Since last September, Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association in Brunswick raised nearly $1 million from grant funding and individual donors to purchase fish directly from fishermen and donate it to local schools, food banks and community groups. To date, the program, called Fishermen Feeding Mainers, has purchased 170,000 pounds of fish, in turn providing 230,000 meals.

Last week, 29,000 pounds of fresh fish were landed at the Portland Fish Exchange, the highest volume Portland has seen in one day since before the pandemic, according to a news release. Of that, the association bought 10,000 pounds to donate for 15,000 meals.

Read the full story at Mainebiz

 

From hake to skate: Behind the push to bring ‘unknown’ fish to New England’s dinner table

July 29, 2021 — It’s exceptionally rare to dine at a restaurant and hear someone say, “I’ll have the scup,” or, “I’ll have the conger eel.”

Salmon, cod and tuna dominate the plate in the U.S. – but why? The world’s oceans are home to more than 30,000 species of fish, and most of the edible ones have never been marketed to the average consumer’s tastebuds.

All along New England’s coastline, small boat fishermen are catching a wide array of fish for which there’s barely any market – hake, dogfish, butterfish, skate and countless others. They struggle to sell these lesser-known species, and in turn, people are missing out on high-quality, delicious seafood, industry advocates contend.

Some have historically labeled them as “trash fish,” but Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, takes major exception to that.

“We don’t call any other type of food ‘trash’ except for seafood,” said Martens. “It’s coming out of the ocean, it’s not like we’re talking about highly processed fast food. I always get very prickly at that term ‘trash.’ We’re talking about food, and we’re talking about some of the best food for your body, mind and the environment.”

Rather, Martens says, these fish are “unknown” to most eaters.

There’s virtually no marketing behind them, he said, and organizations like his are trying to change that – through education, distribution and community projects. They’re partnering with restauranteurs, holding “meet the fishermen” events, and connecting food-insecure and multicultural populations with diverse seafood selections.

Read the full story at The Providence Journal

Maine tightens up proposed offshore wind farm area, but fishermen still don’t like it

July 15, 2021 — Maine fishermen said they appreciate the effort by the Department of Marine Resources to get their input on the site for a proposed offshore wind-turbine array.

After collecting input over the past few months about fishing activity, marine wildlife and navigation in a 770-square-mile “area of interest” off the southern Maine coast, the Governor’s Energy Office on Monday announced a “narrowed area of interest” of 16 square miles.

But industry representatives said they’re still concerned about potential impact on fisheries.

“I’m concerned with this narrowed focus on an already heavily fished area,” Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, said during a virtual work session held yesterday by the Governor’s Energy Office on the latest proposal.

Carl Wilson, director of the Department of Marine Resources’ Bureau of Marine Science, who has spearheaded the effort to gather fishermen’s input, said he agreed that not all of the fishing data is in on fisheries such as lobster and groundfish.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Covid helped connect small fishermen to the emergency food network. Can the link last

June 25, 2021 — By now, last year’s food supply chain chaos has been widely reported. We’ve also learned about all the chain’s desperate fixes and ingenious workarounds: Fruit, veg, meat, seafood, eggs, and dairy produced for Covid-shuttered restaurants, cafeterias, and other institutions were diverted to grocery co-ops, local CSA programs, the frozen/canned/preserved market, and even reef restoration projects.

Some fresh food also made its way into the emergency food system. It was a welcome counterpoint to shelf-stable goods like peanut butter and beans, at food banks and pantries that struggled to feed up to 70 percent more hungry Americans than in 2019. “We had a lot of people in the industry reaching out to us, saying, ‘We’ve got pork! How can we move this food that’s just sitting on farms?’” said Joe Weeden, who sources protein for the food bank network Feeding America.

Weeden was also approached last November by a Massachusetts-based fishermen’s association, looking to forge a partnership between Feeding America food pantries and small-boat fishermen who needed a new market for their catch. The resulting program—one of 21 funded by a nonprofit called Catch Together—was so well-received that Weeden and other organizers want to continue and maybe expand it, even as the pandemic winds down and the usual purchasers of high-quality fish re-open for business. There’s also hope among some fishermen that this may provide a way to reconnect with local communities that their business models have left behind, and to provide themselves with a layer of stability in an unpredictable sector.

In the charitable food sector, seafood is considered a nutritious “food to encourage.” But the good stuff can be hard to come by, because it’s expensive—$7 per pound or more, compared to less than $1 per pound for bulk chicken. Small-boat fishermen contend with quotas and fluctuating prices; they garner the most stable profit by sending most of their catch abroad or into food service. When Covid-19 upended these supply chains, Catch Together saw an opportunity to feed ever-more hungry local people while keeping fishermen and processors financially afloat.

Catch Together normally exists to offer low-interest loans to buy fishing quotas that are then leased affordably to community-based fishermen. But in early 2020, “We saw a total collapse that caused fishermen to tie up because the pricing wouldn’t support a harvest. It was a really scary time,” said Paul Parker, Catch Together’s president. Some state and local governments had begun loosening regulations to help, like allowing fishermen to sell “over the wharf” (straight off the boat to customers). Nevertheless, many fisheries still faced abysmal market prices that didn’t justify their opening.

Read the full story at The Counter

MAINE: Freeport artist’s work to benefit Brunswick-based fishermen’s association

May 19, 2021 — Brunswick-based Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association has partnered with Freeport artist Maegan Monsees, owner of Mae in Maine, to offer a Fishermen’s Association rope gathering bucket.

The association is a non-profit that works to enhance the sustainability of Maine’s fisheries by advocating for the needs of community-based fishermen and the environmental restoration of the Gulf of Maine. Online retail sales of products like Mae in Maine’s Evergreen Gathering Bucket, along with apparel and other gifts, directly benefit the association.

To make the buckets, Monsees dyes and sews cotton rope. The Evergreen Gathering Bucket is then constructed on a sewing machine and coiled by hand.

Read the full story at The Times Record

Fishing industry blasts Netflix ‘Seaspiracy’ documentary for suggested seafood boycott

April 12, 2021 — A Netflix original documentary about the environmental impact of fishing has drawn the ire of local and national seafood experts, who have criticized “Seaspiracy” for a portrayal of the commercial fishing industry that they say is dangerous and misleading.

A group of industry professionals shared what they thought the 2021 documentary got wrong and what they wish it had done instead during a virtual panel hosted by the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association on Friday.

The controversial movie encourages viewers to boycott the seafood industry as the most effective way to help save the oceans. It is directed by British filmmaker Ali Tabrizi and is from the same team that created “Cowspiracy,” a similar film about the farming industry.

“Seaspiracy,” which has come under fire for using questionable data and studies, explores the role of plastic, whaling, marine parks and others for their impact on the oceans, but lays most of the blame on the commercial fishing industry, claiming that the idea of a sustainable fishery is a myth and accusing the industry of mass animal abuses.

It paints a dramatic picture: victims of the slave trade warn Tabrizi that his life is at risk if he keeps filming; dozens of dead sharks have their fins hacked off on a warehouse floor; the water turns red as whales are slaughtered; the filmmakers don hidden spy cameras and are tailed by police.

The imagery is effective, but critics warn that its overarching message, that there’s no such thing as a sustainable fishery and that the only way to save the oceans is to give up seafood, is not only fishy, but flat out wrong.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: 100 fishing boats gather off Monhegan in protest of offshore wind development

March 23, 2021 — Fishermen in nearly 100 boats from the midcoast gathered in waters near Monhegan Island on Sunday to protest the development of offshore wind energy infrastructure, including an array of wind turbines proposed by the state.

Boats came from towns including South Bristol, Boothbay, Port Clyde, Tenants Harbor, Vinalhaven, Friendship, Spruce Head, Monhegan and Owls Head, Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, told Mainebiz in a subsequent email.

The Brunswick association is an industry-based nonprofit that supports and advocates for Maine’s community-based fishermen. The protest was organized by the fishermen themselves, not by an industry association, he noted.

“We fully support their efforts,” he added.

Martens continued, “Fishermen and waterfront communities throughout Maine are increasingly concerned at the speed at which offshore wind development is taking place in Maine. Maine has funding to create a full roadmap to better ensure that our fisheries and fishing communities are respected and protected, yet we seem to be full steam ahead on putting 700-foot industrial structures out on the ocean.

“We need clean energy, but just because wind is renewable, doesn’t mean it’s green and it doesn’t mean it is the right choice for Maine.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Mental Health and the Modern Fisherman

March 18, 2021 — In 2005, Randy Cushman spent two days trolling through the Gulf of Maine, searching for Gary Thorbjornson’s body. Thorbjornson was family—not by blood, but in all the ways that really count. The men had grown up together, fishing the gulf’s waters since they were kids, and the intervening decades had sculpted their lives into similar shapes: careers in commercial fishing, marriages at about the same time, children of about the same age, and a tight-knit fishing community around Port Clyde, Maine.

While fishing on a foggy day in mid-July, the distress call came through: Thorbjornson’s boat was flooding, and the crew were panicking. “We have to get the fuck off this boat,” Thorbjornson yelled. By the time Cushman arrived, the crew, including Thorbjornson’s own son, were alive and safely aboard a rescue boat, but their fishing vessel was at the bottom of the ocean and Thorbjornson had vanished. The search began, hours lapsing into days as teams traversed the waters, looking for a body that might offer the Thorbjornson family a scrap of closure.

“His father called me, told me to stay,” Cushman says. “The coast guard gave up and then the other boats. I stayed like four to six hours longer and I called him back and said, ‘I can’t do this anymore. It’s killing me.’”

In Brunswick, Maine, 90 minutes west of Port Clyde, Monique Coombs has watched this silent stoicism play out over and over again in fishing communities. Coombs is the director of community programs for the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association (MCFA), a nonprofit trade group dedicated to restoring commercial fishing in the Gulf of Maine. She’s seen fishermen just like Cushman endure the pain of lost loved ones, life-changing injuries, economic hardships, and the barrage of stresses endemic to the commercial fishing industry without seeking help, and she’s seen the legacy of depression and substance abuse that often follows. These problems have gotten worse, she says, ever since COVID-19 disrupted the state’s US $674-million seafood industry, shoving already unstable families even closer to financial collapse. But Coombs has a plan to fight back. Just over one year ago, her team won a grant to launch a pilot program aimed at addressing mental health in commercial fishing communities. The grant, awarded by the Fisher Charitable Foundation, is small—only $5,000, all of which goes to producing informational materials on managing anxiety and depression. But Coombs has much bigger ambitions.

Read the full story at Hakai Magazine

Statement from Maine’s Fishing Community on Offshore Wind Development

January 28, 2021 — Editor’s Note: This opinion piece is written on behalf of Patrice McCarron, Maine Lobstermen’s Association; Ben Martens, Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association; Annie Tselikis, Maine Lobster Dealers Association; Rocky Alley, Maine Lobstering Union; Paul Anderson, Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries; and Sheila Dassatt, Downeast Lobstermen’s Association

Maine fishermen are deeply committed to clean energy and protecting the environment. We draw our livelihoods from the ocean and recognize the fragility of our shared marine environment. Maine fishermen understand and support the need to develop clean renewable energy sources, but do not share the Governor’s vision to achieve this through rushed offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine.

While the Gulf appears vast and without borders, it is, in reality, an area well‐managed by generations of fishermen who feed our nation with healthy, sustainably harvested seafood.

Read the full story at Seafood News

Struggling fishermen and hungry Mainers have found a way to help each other through the pandemic

November 19, 2020 — The first rays of yellow light slashed through the indigo gloom Monday morning while the city awoke and rubbed its eyes. All was still quiet up the hill in the business district, but down on the docks the day was already humming. By 6:30 a.m., a hardy, rubber-booted crew of workmen were on a smoke break after unloading their first boat of the day at the Fish Exchange. They still had two boats — and more than 10,000 pounds of ice-packed fish — to go.

It’s cold, hard, slimy work but they welcomed it. Business has been more than slow.

Under current pandemic pressures, the Portland Fish Exchange and the state’s groundfishing fleet are struggling to survive. Fish prices have bottomed out, forcing some boats to stay docked. At the same time, droves of newly hungry Mainers are facing coronavirus-induced economic hardships and asking their local food pantries for help. With uncaught fish at sea and famished people on land, the situation is a mismatched, ironic tragedy.

But the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association has a plan to help.

Armed with an anonymous, $200,000 grant, it’s buying fish before it hits the auction and donating the catch to local schools and food banks. The move helps keep auction prices steady while also making hard-to-find, healthy protein available to folks who need it most.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News