Saving Seafood

Changes to lobster fishery to help whales might arrive 2021

June 28, 2019 — Changes to the Maine lobster fishery designed to help a critically endangered species of whale might arrive in 2021 after a lengthy rulemaking process.

A team assembled by the federal government has called for the removal of half the vertical trap lines from the Gulf of Maine to reduce risk to North Atlantic right whales. The Maine Department of Marine Resources has been meeting with lobstermen around the state to begin the process of crafting rules to achieve that goal.

The state held the last of several meetings with lobstermen about the new rules on Thursday in Freeport. Hundreds of members of the state’s lifeblood industry have attended the meetings.

Maine hopes to present a plan to the federal government by September, department spokesman Jeff Nichols said before the meeting. The industry is getting ready to grapple with the task of getting so much gear out of the water, said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

“There’s definitely concern among lobstermen because they will be changing how they fish,” she said. “It’s not a simple task, but once guys are thinking it through and making changes, there seems to be viable strategies for each person.”

Read the full story at the Associated Press

MAINE: Atlantic salmon returns to Penobscot River now highest since 2011

June 27, 2019 — After a record-setting 107-fish day earlier this month, solid Atlantic salmon returns have continued at Milford Dam, according to marine resources scientist Jason Valliere of the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

In a regular email report that he filed on Tuesday, Valliere said the total number of salmon counted at Milford had reached 597.

“Looks like we are having the best salmon year since 2011,” Valliere reported, referring to a year when salmon were still being counted at the Veazie Dam farther downstream. That dam has been removed, and since 2014 the first upstream barrier to sea-run fish has been in Milford.

This year’s total is actually a bit higher than it sounds, as another 18 salmon have been captured at the Orono fish lift, bringing the total count this year to 615.

That total is dwarfed by the 2011 count for the same date — 2,362. But it is the highest recorded since, and may bode well for this year’s run. The total salmon returns by June 25 over the past several years: 2018: 432, 2017: 520, 2016: 351, 2015: 470, 2014: 74, 2013: 311, 2012: 549.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Green crabs are wreaking havoc on our coastal habitat. So let’s eat them

June 26, 2019 — “When life gives you lemons,” the saying goes, “make lemonade.” And when life fills the ocean with invasive green crabs that prey on the local shellfish population and wreak havoc on the coastal habitat, The Green Crab R&D Project says eat them. Not only will you be helping the environment, you will enjoy a culinary specialty that has been celebrated in Venice for generations.

Green crabs (which, despite the name can be any color, even multi-hued) are native to parts of Western Europe and North Africa. They first appeared on the East Coast of North America in the early 1800s, but did not proliferate until the late 20th century. Today they have invaded nearly every continent, and their populations and range are expected to increase with climate change. Though relatively small, they are fierce and prey on a variety of shellfish. In their search the crabs cut through eelgrass, damaging essential sea life habitats. Each female can lay 185,000 eggs per year, and according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources, a single crab can eat 40 half-inch clams in a day.

The Green Crab R&D Project (greencrab.org), established in 2017, is a nonprofit dedicated to developing markets for green crabs, both to remove the predatory creatures from the water and to help fishermen and -women develop alternative sources of revenue. In February the group released “The Green Crab Cookbook,” written by executive director Mary Parks and Thanh Thai and contributors to the Project. All proceeds from the book go to the organization.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

State of the Science Conference set for UMaine-Machias

June 17, 2019 — Big science is coming to Downeast Maine next week.

On Monday and Tuesday, June 17 and 18, the Eastern Maine Coastal Current Collaborative (EM3C) will host a State of the Science Conference at the University of Maine at Machias.

The conference will discuss ecosystem-based fisheries management in eastern Maine and will bring together experts from local governments, fishing, science and academic communities. It is the first step toward producing a comprehensive understanding of the region’s watersheds, intertidal, nearshore and offshore ecosystems, including their governance and socioeconomic factors.

EM3C is a partnership among three fisheries organizations: the Stonington-based, nonprofit Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries; the Maine Department of Marine Resources; and NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency that manages fisheries at the state and federal level.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

MAINE: Deer Isle lobstermen offer whale rule alternative

June 17, 2019 — For Maine lobstermen, 2019 is likely to bring a summer of discontent.

Fuel prices are high. Cuts in herring fishing quotas — with further cuts likely — mean that bait is likely to be extremely scarce, and whatever’s available extremely expensive as the season develops. And that’s the good news.

What really has lobstermen worked up is the demand by federal regulators that they reduce the risk of death or injury to endangered right whales in the Gulf of Maine by 60 percent. To do that, Maine lobstermen will have to reduce the number of vertical endlines in the water — the lines that link traps on the bottom to buoys on the surface — by 50 percent.

Despite the harsh restrictions, the recommendations of NOAA’s Large Whale Take Reduction Team were a victory of sorts. For the time being, there is no suggestion of closing areas of the Gulf of Maine to fishing and the demand by some conservation organizations for the use of “ropeless” fishing gear was quashed.

Last Thursday, Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher drew a packed house to a meeting of the Zone C Lobster Management Council, held at the Reach Performing Arts Center in the Deer Isle-Stonington Elementary School, to explain the regulatory process and to hear suggestions from lobstermen as to how best to meet the line reduction goal in the area where they fish.

It was the second of seven meetings Keliher has scheduled with the state’s seven zone councils this month. Carl Wilson, DMR’s chief scientist, and most of the department’s upper echelon, were on hand as well.

DMR is working on a very tight timeline, Keliher said.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

New restrictions considered to help protect whales off coast of Maine

June 11, 2019 — Dozens of lobstermen showed up for tonight’s meeting at Kennebunk High School.

They say the proposed restrictions are way too tough and could severely hurt Maine’s lobster industry.

The Department of Marine Resources is looking to remove hundreds of lobstermen’s vertical lines from the Gulf of Maine.

These lines are what connect the buoy to the trap.

Experts say right whales, which are near extinction, are getting entangled in them.

Roughly 411 right whales are estimated to be alive today.

While the department confirms no right whale deaths have occurred in the Gulf of Maine, the state still has to play its part due to federal law.

The department says the goal is to reduce the risk of entanglement deaths by sixty percent.

Lobstermen say if right whales aren’t getting hurt in their lines, it shouldn’t be their responsibility.

Read the full story at WGME

Maine elver fishermen come close to record year

June 10, 2019 — Fishermen who catch baby eels in Maine came close to topping a record for the value of the tiny fish this year.

Maine has the only significant fishery for baby eels, which are also called elvers, in the U.S., and the fishing season ended on Friday. The elvers were worth more than $2,090 per pound this year, according to preliminary state data, the Maine Department of Marine Resources said.

The figure is the third highest on record. Fishermen set a record high last year with a price of $2,366 per pound. The amount of eels caught this year was close to the annual quota of a little less than 10,000 pounds, according to the preliminary figures.

The eels are worth so much money because they are used as seed stock by Asian aquaculture companies that raise them to maturity for food use. Worldwide availability of the baby eels has declined in recent history, and that has pushed up the value of Maine’s eels.

They are eventually used all over the world in eel dishes such as kabayaki, which is a skewered fillet of eel that is popular in restaurants in Japan and elsewhere, including the U.S.

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

Possible whale-protection strategies? Lobster trap reductions, more traps on one line

June 6, 2019 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources is in the midst of a first round of meetings with the lobster industry, to discuss strategies to cope with an expected 50% cut in the number of “endlines” in the water.

Endlines are the vertical lines that connect lobster traps that are on the ocean bottom with a buoy at the sea surface. The buoy identifies where the traps are, and the vertical lines are used to haul up the traps.

The agency is holding the meetings with Maine’s seven Lobster Management Zone Councils during June to facilitate the development of a proposal that meets targets established by the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team for protecting right whales, according to an agency news release.

The team has recommended broad measures for Maine that include removing 50% of vertical lines from the Gulf of Maine and the use of weak rope in the top of remaining vertical lines. The measures put forward by the team are driven by federal laws designed to protect whales. The laws are the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

MAINE: Lobstermen at state hearing wary of regulations to protect whales

June 5, 2019 — In private conversations, local fishermen all tell David Horner, a longtime Southwest Harbor lobsterman, the same thing: they’d be willing to fish fewer traps to get the whale advocates off their backs, but not if their sacrifices are going to be exploited by other fishermen.

If the state wants to cut the number of traps each fisherman can set to reduce the number of buoy lines in the water, and protect right whales from entanglements, Maine can’t keep letting new lobstermen into the fishery or allow people in other territories to fish here, Horner said.

“Behind the scenes, they all say exactly the same thing,” Horner, the chairman of the local lobster zone council, said at a state hearing on new right whale protection regulations. “Fishermen could accept (a trap cut), I think, but not if we are going to have more people coming in to fill the gap, especially those from outside.”

The Maine Department of Marine Resources kicked off a monthly series of public information sessions on the new whale rules Tuesday. More than 100 lobstermen from the local zone, which runs from Franklin to Frenchboro, turned out.

Carroll Staples, a third-generation Swans Island lobsterman, agreed with Horner, saying that any kind of concessions made by existing lobstermen to reduce the number of buoy lines in the water to protect whales will help only if the state actually caps the number of people in the fishery.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Facing predictions of dangerous floodwaters decades in the future, this coastal Maine town is acting now

June 3, 2019 — When Kathleen Billings was a kid, she could count on high tide falling several feet short of topping the causeway between Deer and Little Deer islands.

Today, high tide goes almost level with the road and, with heavy storms or especially strong winds, salt water covers at least some portion of the road, said the 56-year-old Billings, who has been Stonington’s town manager since 2007.

“When you go over it, you can really notice a lot more water that is level with your car. It makes you look like you are driving across the tide,” Billings said Friday. “You don’t worry about it when it’s at low tide, but when the water looks like it’s right alongside you, it’s a different story.”

That rising sea level, and predictions of bigger problems decades from now, are among the reasons why Billings’ town is paying for an engineering study aimed at safeguarding Stonington’s vital assets, she said.

The engineering study, which will cost $95,222, will target areas that are most susceptible to flooding within the next 100 years and provide suggestions on how to prevent or mitigate the flooding’s impact, according to the town’s grant proposal.

The funding package includes a $60,000 grant from the 2019 Coastal Communities Grant Program of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, plus $20,000 in cash and $10,722 in labor from the town. Another $4,500 in labor and cash will come from the Stonington Sanitary District, the proposal states.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News