Saving Seafood

Maine 2019 statewide baby eel harvest value exceeds $20M for second straight year

June 3, 2019 — For two consecutive years, Maine baby eel fishermen have netted more than $20 million statewide and earned an average price of more than $2,000 per pound.

With a preliminary total value of $20.1 million, Maine’s 2019 baby eel harvest as the fourth-most lucrative ever, and as the second-most since a statewide annual catch limit was imposed in 2014. The average statewide price of $2,093 ranks as the third-highest such average that fishermen have earned for the lucrative baby eels, also known as elvers.

The 2019 elver fishing season effectively ended this past week. As of Thursday, May 23, just shy of 99.7 percent of the statewide catch limit of 9,636 pounds had been harvested, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

Maine’s annual season begins each year on March 22 and runs either until the quota is reached or on June 7, depending which comes first.

Last year, when Maine had $21.7 million worth of landings and an average price of $2,366, was the first time the value of the statewide catch exceeded $20 million and elver fishermen were paid on average more than $2,000 per pound. The 2018 average price is the highest annual average ever in the fishery.

The elver fishing season last year was cut short, however, when state officials found out that some fishermen were illegally selling eels under the table to dealers for cash in an attempt to avoid having those eels count toward the statewide catch quota. Despite some arrests, there were no reports of widespread illegal activity in the fishery this year.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Maine’s congressional delegation asks feds to reduce impact of right whale protections on lobster industry

May 30, 2019 — Maine’s congressional delegation wrote Tuesday to federal officials to express concern that ongoing efforts to decrease the death of right whales will have a significant impact on Maine’s lobster industry.

The delegation asked National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration leaders to ensure that decisions made by the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team are based on “sound” and “comprehensive” science, that risk reduction standards are equitable across the United States and Canada, and that the lobster industry is consulted throughout the decision-making process, according to a release from Maine’s four members of Congress.

The new efforts to protect right whales are driven by the federal Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Because of the current endangered status of right whales, if Maine fails to come up with a plan to protect the whales, NOAA will determine what action is taken, according to Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

The task force set a goal of reducing right whale mortality by 60 percent to 80 percent, and met last month with a group of approximately 60 fishermen, scientists and conservationists joining state and federal officials to discuss ways to further reduce serious injury and mortality of endangered North Atlantic right whales caused by trap/pot fishing gear.

They hope to agree on measures that would reduce serious injuries and deaths of right whales caused by fishing gear in U.S. waters from Maine to Florida to fewer than one whale per year, the level prescribed by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, according to NOAA.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

Growth of Maine oyster farming prompts debate, disputes about aquaculture

May 23, 2019 — A short line of black floating tubes comes into view rounding Hopkins Island in Cundy’s Harbor. While they’re large enough for passing boaters and fishermen to spot, they don’t rise out of the water much higher than a lobster buoy. This is one of Peter Rand’s aquaculture leases.

He’s among the hundreds in Maine getting involved in the burgeoning aquaculture industry that has pumped millions into the state’s economy, but is under fire from lobstermen who compete for the same fishing grounds and homeowners who don’t want to see aquaculture sites from their waterfront properties.

With the situation coming to a head,  the Department of Marine Resources began the process at a meeting Wednesday of examining whether it should amend its rules to limit the size and location of aquaculture lease sites.

In March, the Department of Marine Resources received a petition with 189 signatures seeking an immediate moratorium on aquaculture leases larger than 10 acres. The petition also sought to create a new rule requiring that regulators consider alternate locations before approving aquaculture leases.

The petition triggered a rule-making process that began with Wednesday’s hearing.

In 2017, Maine aquaculture brought in 2.8 million pounds of oysters – a nearly fivefold increase since 2011 – and had an estimated $13.6 million economic impact.

That number is dwarfed by the landings value of Maine’s most famous shellfish – lobsters. Maine lobster landings were valued at a $484 million in 2018.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

From Carp to Pig-Hide: Bait Shortage Means Change for Lobsters’ Diet

May 23, 2019 — Gulf of Maine lobstermen are casting around far and wide for new kinds of bait, now that federal regulators have cut herring quotas by 70 percent. Possible solutions range from the mass importation of a nuisance fish from the Midwest, to manufactured baits to pig hides.

Fisheries managers estimate a 50-million pound “herring gap” in Maine over the next year. To help close it, they are turning to colleagues in Illinois.

On a rainy fishing day in the Illinois River, state invasive species coordinator Kevin Irons oversees the capture of dozens of fish — all freshwater carp, which were introduced to the Mississippi Basin decades ago. They have proliferated at an epic scale, crowding out native fish and damaging ecosystems.

“The big-head, the silvers and the grass carp, you also see some of the common carp — I like to call them Grampa’s carp, they’ve been around a long time,” says Irons. “You’ve got four different species of invasive fish here.”

Read the full story at Maine Public

High prices for baby eels in Maine as season nears end

May 16, 2019 — Maine’s annual fishing season for baby eels is nearing the end, and prices have approached record highs.

Fishermen seek baby eels, called elvers, in Maine rivers so they can be sold to Asian aquaculture companies for use as seed stock. The Maine Department of Marine Resources says fishermen are just about out of quota this year, and that means the season’s about finished.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

After Growing Like A Weed For Years, Maine’s Seaweed Industry Faces New Restrictions

May 6, 2019 — Maine’s seaweed business has grown like a weed in recent years, with proponents touting it as both a “superfood” and an economic generator for the rural state — but the industry is now facing sticky new restrictions.

Maine has a long tradition of seaweed harvesting, in which the algae is gathered for a wide variety of commercial uses, including some popular food products. Now, a recent court ruling could dramatically change the nature of the business in Maine, which has seen the harvest of the gooey stuff grow by leaps and bounds in the last decade, industry members said.

The state’s highest court ruled last month that permission from coastal landowners is needed for harvesting rockweed, a type of seaweed that’s critical to the industry. The Maine Seaweed Council, an industry advocacy group, has called the ruling “a disappointing setback” that will force harvesters to adjust.

The court’s decision could mandate the implementation of rules that are difficult to enforce, said George Seaver, a vice president of Waldoboro firm Ocean Organics, who has been involved in processing rockweed for 40 years. Rockweed is harvested from tidal mudflats where property boundaries can be ill-defined, he said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WBUR

Maine eyes projects to improve coastal infrastructure

April 28, 2019 — Maine’s state government is seeking to fund projects that will improve coastal infrastructure.

The Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry’s Municipal Planning Assistance Program and the Maine Department of Marine Resources’ Maine Coastal Program are both seeking applications. The state says projects must be designed for endeavors such as improving water quality and conserving coastal habitat.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WABI

New England Fisheries Officials, Lawmakers Want NOAA To Slow Proposed Rules On Lobster Gear

April 24, 2019 — The top marine resources officials from Maine and New Hampshire, joined by Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine’s 2nd District, are sharply criticizing the federal government’s efforts to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale and are calling for a slowdown of plans to impose new rules that could be costly for New England’s lobster fleet.

In a letter sent Friday to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, Patrick Keliher, and his counterpart in New Hampshire say federal fisheries managers botched the rollout of a new and apparently flawed risk-assessment model.

It’s supposed to help measure the effectiveness of various strategies to reduce the chance that whales will be injured or killed by entanglement in fishing gear, from using weaker rope or breakaway rope for hauling traps to a specialized gadget that would cut line when a whale becomes entangled, imposing trap limits or targeted closures of areas where whales are known to be swimming.

“There are some things that are coming out of that tool and some questions that we have about the model or some of the ideas in it that doesn’t really pass the straight-face test for us,” says Erin Summers, Maine DMR’s point-person on the whale issue, during a NOAA webinar introducing stakeholders to the risk-assessment model.

Read the full story at Maine Public Radio

Canadian-U.S. Lobstermen’s Town Meeting: U.S. and Canadian lobstermen have a whale of a problem

April 17, 2019 — Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher sure knows how to quiet a room.

On April 5, about 100 members of the U.S. and Maine lobster industry — fishermen, dealers, scientists, and regulators — gathered for the 15th Canadian-U.S. Lobstermen’s Town Meeting at the Westin Portland Harborview Hotel in Portland. There they heard Keliher announce that he’d just received an email from NOAA Fisheries announcing that, in order to protect endangered right whales, “the U.S. fishery will likely have to be reduced 60 to 80 percent.”

It’s a testament to the cardiac health of Maine and Canadian lobstermen that the statement didn’t produce a mass heart attack, especially since it came during a discussion of what fishing restrictions might be imposed by NOAA Fisheries this spring to meet the demands of the federal Endangered Species and Marine Mammal Protection acts.

What almost everyone in the room heard, though, wasn’t all that Keliher said. Thanks to a snafu with the microphone, the audience missed the beginning of the NOAA statement that said “whale mortalities” from U.S. fisheries would have to be reduced by “60 to 80 percent,” not the fisheries themselves.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

How eating sea bass and crab can help Maine lobstermen

April 8, 2019 — A group of Rhode Island fishermen who witnessed southern New England’s near-shore lobster fishery evaporate and its offshore fishery diminish dramatically in their time on the water came to last month’s Maine Fishermen’s Forum in Rockland to give lobstermen here a bit of seasoned advice: Embrace ecosystem change while you’re in a good position to do so.

These southerly neighbors acknowledge the Maine lobster fishery is currently rockin’. Preliminary numbers released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources set the value of last year’s 119 million-pound lobster haul at $484.5 million, up from $438 million generated by 112 million pounds of lobster harvested in 2017. Both years are down, though, from the all-time high lobster landings of 132 million pounds (worth $541 million) set in 2016.

The two-species Rhode Island fishermen told their Maine counterparts they should be targeting are Jonah crab and black sea bass. The former have long lived in offshore waters in the Gulf of Maine and the latter, a tasty fish historically found in the mid-Atlantic region, are showing up farther north because of warming waters.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald