Saving Seafood

MAINE: Lobstermen’s Association rejects DMR whale proposal

November 14, 2019 — Efforts to find consensus over how to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales from entanglement in fishing gear without decimating the Maine lobster industry took a blow last week.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA) announced that it would not support a plan developed by the Department of Marine Resources “because it seeks reductions that exceed the documented risk posed by the Maine lobster fishery” and “creates unresolved safety and operational challenges for some sectors of the lobster industry,” MLA Executive Director Patrice McCarron said in an email Saturday.

The MLA decision came late last week after DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher held a series of meetings with lobstermen in Ellsworth, Waldoboro and South Portland.

The meetings were held to present the department’s response to a proposal by the National Marine Fisheries Service that would require a 50 percent reduction in the number of vertical endlines, which connect lobster traps to buoys on the surface, used by Maine lobstermen.

The goal, according to NMFS, was to reduce the risk of right whale entanglement in fishing gear by 60 percent.

Throughout the summer, DMR developed an alternative plan that called for many Maine lobstermen to “trawl up” by fishing more traps in strings attached to one or two endlines.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Maine lobstermen group pans state whale plan

November 13, 2019 — The state of Maine has opted to go it alone against NOAA Fisheries and the plan drafted by the federal Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction team to impose new right whale protections. But that decision seems to have hit a sizable snag.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association, the state’s largest and most influential lobster trade group, has said it will not support the state’s autonomous draft plan, not even over the more rigorous and restrictive plan developed by the take reduction team.

According to the MLA, both plans place too much onus and blame on the state’s $500 million lobster industry for entanglements that may lead to critical injuries or deaths for the imperiled North Atlantic right whales. Estimates are there are only about 400 of the whales.

“The Maine Lobstermen’s Association voted not to support the Maine Department of Marine Resources whale plan because it seeks reductions that exceed the documented risk posed by the Maine lobster fishery as demonstrated in MLA’s analysis of (NOAA Fisheries) data,” the MLA said in a statement. “The MLA conducted a thorough analysis of fishing gear removed from entangled right whales which revealed that lobster is the least prevalent gear. The MLA is also concerned the state’s plan creates unsolved safety and operational challenges for some sectors in the lobster industry.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Second Maine lobstering group rejects state’s plan for protecting whales

November 11, 2019 — The state’s biggest lobster trade group will not support Maine’s right whale protection plan, saying it asks the state’s most valuable fishery to make concessions that exceed the risk it poses to the endangered species.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association staked out its position on the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ proposal with a board vote Thursday night. Director Patrice McCarron would not disclose the vote breakdown, calling that a private matter. The group did, however, release a statement about why it couldn’t support the plan.

“It seeks reductions that exceed the documented risk posed by the Maine lobster fishery,” the statement said of the state plan. “The MLA conducted a thorough analysis of fishing gear removed from entangled right whales which revealed that lobster is the least prevalent gear.”

The MLA has decided to come up with its own whale protection plan based on right-sized risks posed by the industry that it will submit to the National Marine Fisheries Service. The federal agency is drafting a new regulation, which is due out early next year, to protect right whales from fishing entanglements.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Maine Lobstermen’s Association won’t support new right whale rules

November 11, 2019 — After a week of hearings on a proposal to implement new rules to protect endangered right whales, a leading group has decided not support the plan.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources held three hearings on the plan, including one in South Portland Wednesday, to take public comments, most coming from lobstermen against the proposal.

On Thursday, the Maine Lobstermen’s Association voted “not to support” the plan “because it seeks reductions that exceed the documented risk posed by the Maine lobster fishery,” the association said in a statement posted on its website.

The plan calls for a reduction of the vertical lobster trap lines in the Gulf of Maine. Maine fishery officials say they would remove 25 percent of the lines, not including an exemption for lobstermen who fish inshore waters.

Read the full story at WPFO

BANGOR DAILY NEWS: Better marking for lobster gear can help answer important whale question

November 8, 2019 — “I don’t like this,” isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for a government proposal — particularly when those words are coming from the head of the state agency making the proposal.

But that’s what Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher told lobstermen at a meeting in Ellsworth Monday night, where he outlined the department’s new plan to reduce the risk posed to endangered North Atlantic right whales from Maine lobster gear.

While Keliher’s presentation may have lacked enthusiasm, it included a healthy dose of pragmatic reality.

A couple of fishermen did signal a willingness to give the state proposal a try, but frustration seemed the prevailing response Monday night. Keliher clearly shared some of that frustration, but correctly pointed out that the industry and the state find themselves facing pressure from the federal government and in the courts, where conservation groups are suing for stronger action to protect the endangered right whale.

The state plan is a counter offer of sorts to a federal proposal that would require a 50 percent reduction in the vertical lines in the water that connect to lobster traps. Keliher said the state plan would amount to a 25 percent line reduction.

Read the full opinion piece at the Bangor Daily News

Maine Scallop Lottery To Let New People In Lucrative Fishery

November 8, 2019 — Maine fishing regulators are collecting the final entrants into a lottery to participate in one of the most lucrative marine industries in the state.

The state uses a lottery system to give out new licenses for the scallop fishery. Friday’s the final day for fishermen to enter the lotteries.

Maine scallops were worth more than $10.50 per pound at the docks last year. The scallops often sell for more than $20 per pound in grocery stores.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Maine Public

MAINE: Lobstermen weigh-in on new restrictions to protect right whales

November 7, 2019 — Lobstermen had the chance to weigh-in Wednesday night on potential new restrictions, designed to protect right whales.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources held the meeting in South Portland, to get feedback on the current plan, based on data from a federal team.

That plan calls for a reduction of the vertical lobster trap lines in the Gulf of Maine.

Maine fishery officials say they would remove 25 percent of the lines, not including an exemption for lobstermen who fish inshore waters.

The department says they working to find a balance, meanwhile lobstermen say they have done nothing wrong.

Read the full story at WGME

Maine lobster industry, officials push back against federal right whale protection plans

November 7, 2019 — The U.S. state of Maine’s lobster industry, in addition to some state officials, are pushing back against proposals requiring fewer vertical lines in the industry in order to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

At a meeting on 6 November, Maine’s Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher called the state’s counter-proposal – using weaker rope and more traps per line in deep waters – the “line in the sand,” according to the Portland Press Herald. The state has been fighting back against the federal government’s proposal to reduce lines by 50 percent, a proposal that the state’s governor, Janet Mills, called “foolish.”

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Maine says data will prove lobstermen aren’t to blame in right whale deaths

November 6, 2019 — Calling a state proposal to reduce the amount of rope lobstermen use “a line in the sand,” Maine’s top fisheries official said Monday that he hoped the state plan generates data that absolves Maine’s lobster fishery from blame in right whale deaths.

Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, told a group of fishermen Monday in Ellsworth that the state’s proposal for reducing the risk to whales of getting tangled in lobster fishing gear does not meet federal regulators’ goal of cutting the number of vertical buoy lines in the water by half. But he said the state’s plan focuses its fishing line reductions in deeper waters offshore, where whales are more likely to come into contact with fishing gear.

“The further offshore you go, the higher the [risk] goes up,” Keliher told roughly 100 people, most of them lobstermen, at The Grand Auditorium. “The way I look at it, this is Maine’s line in the sand.”

Monday’s meeting was the first of three the state is holding about its response to expected new federal regulations that would require lobstermen to use less fishing line and weaker rope from which entangled whales could more easily break free.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Maine proposes targeted exemptions to help lobster industry weather whale crisis

November 6, 2019 — The state is proposing a modified plan to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale while creating less hardship for the lobster fishing industry than a proposed federal plan.

Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher presented the proposal in Ellsworth Monday night, at the first of three meetings being held this week by the agency.

Maine’s lobster industry, many said, was being unfairly targeted.

“We’ve seen bad science against lobster fishermen in the state of Maine,” said Rocky Alley, president of the Maine Lobstering Union and a Jonesport lobsterman. “When will they come up with new science that makes sense? How many whales have we killed?”

“In the last decade, directly, with Maine gear on them? None,” responded Keliher.

But, he added, “as long as we’re 64% of all endlines on the East Coast, and 90% within all the lobster management areas, we’ll continue to have a bull’s-eye on our back.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz