January 29, 2019 — Maine fishing regulators are shutting down some of the most fertile scallop fishing grounds in the state to help keep the shellfish’s population healthy.
The Maine Department of Marine Resources says it will implement a closure of Cobscook Bay, including the Whiting and Dennys Bay areas. Cobscook Bay is the most productive scallop fishing area in Maine.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald
January 28, 2019 — Illegal sales of baby eels that caused last year’s abrupt closure of Maine’s elver fishery have resulted in criminal charges for two baby eel dealers and new rules from the state proposing closer oversight of the lucrative fishery.
The alleged criminal behavior, in which some dealers are accused of using prohibited cash transactions to conceal baby eel purchases from the state’s mandated electronic sales monitoring system, is the latest illicit scheme to be uncovered in Maine’s baby eel fishery.
Ever since the value of the eels, also known as elvers, jumped from an average price of $100 per pound a decade ago to more than $2,300 per pound last year, fishery regulators have had to contend with increased poaching and smuggling.
The Maine dealers accused of making illegal cash purchases of elvers last spring are Roger Bintliff and Freddie Mei, according to Jeff Nichols, spokesman for the state Department of Marine Resources.
January 23, 2019 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources is still auditing its 2018 lobster catch and won’t issue a report until February, but department spokesperson Jeff Nichols has reportedly confirmed that the US state landed more than 100 million lbs for the eighth year in a row.
Speaking at the National Fisheries Institute’s Global Seafood Market Conference, in San Diego, California, last week, Keith Moores, president of Gloucester, Massachusetts-based frozen seafood supplier J.W. Bryce, estimated that Maine’s 4,500 harvesters landed about 119m lbs of lobster in 2018, an 8m lb increase over 2017, the Portland (Maine) Press Herald reported.
January 21, 2019 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources will hold a public hearing Thursday, Jan. 24 at 5 p.m. at Ellsworth City Hall on proposed changes to aquaculture leasing regulations.
This proposed rule would make a number of changes to clarify the aquaculture leasing regulations, including the elimination of redundant language.
It would also make several changes to the leasing procedures for standard and limited-purpose aquaculture leases, including the timing of scoping sessions, required information regarding an applicant’s financial capability and a prohibition on the siting of leases within a designated zone around a wastewater treatment plant.
January 21, 2019 — Holly Masterson got her start in the lobster industry when she was 15, when her stepfather, David Horner, hired her to stock and clean up his boat at night.
Horner taught her how to lobster, fish for shrimp and scallops, and drag for haddock, monkfish and cod. When he lost his sternman, Masterson filled in. The Southwest Harbor resident hadn’t planned to become a fisherman, just help out her family, but she got hooked. At 24, Masterson entered the lobster apprenticeship program. In July 2008, after completing the program, Masterson was added to a list of area fishermen waiting for a state lobster license.
“I was so excited about the future,” Masterson recalled. “I knew I’d have to wait, but I thought it would be a couple years. Little did I know.”
Ten years later, after almost a quarter century in the business, the 38-year-old Masterson is still waiting. She still works for Horner, even though he and her mom are no longer together. She got her real estate license, and rents out a handful of vacation properties she has bought up over the years. But that’s just a side gig. She still dreams of getting that license, and the freedom that comes with being her own boss.
“Some years, nobody comes off the list,” Masterson said. “At this rate, my 9-year-old daughter, Eden, will be able to fish and sell her lobsters before I will.”
January 14, 2019 — Maine fisheries managers are looking to make a number of changes to aquaculture rules in the state, and are asking for feedback from the industry and the public about the potential changes.
The Maine Department of Marine Resources is considering a proposal that would make changes to the leasing procedures it uses for farmers of seafood. The new rules would also clarify that an emergency lease could be used when the safety of consumers is threatened, and they would establish minimum lease maintenance standards.
January 14, 2019 — Maine might be the site of more shellfish research if a proposal before a state legislative committee is successful.
Democratic Rep. Robert Alley of Beals has issued the proposal, titled “An Act To Encourage Applied Shellfish Research.” The bill proposes a tweak to municipalities’ shellfish conservation ordinances, which currently regulate possession of shellfish and where they can be taken.
Alley’s proposal would allow research entities to contact research in conjunction with the Maine Department of Marine Resources to support shellfish conservation. It would also require annual reports about research findings.
January 10, 2019 — The price of scallops caught in Maine waters is comparing well with previous years.
The Ellsworth American reported that harvesters were receiving prices as high as nearly $14 per pound. But in some cases, harvesters received $8.75 to $10.75 per pound, depending on meat size.
That compares with the 2017-18 scallop season, which started off with prices that were down $2 to $3 from 2016-17’s average of $12.77.
In 2017, Maine scallop harvesters landed the most scallops since 1997, bringing ashore 793,544 meat pounds, a nearly 45% jump from 2016. At $9.3 million, scallop landings had the highest overall value since 1993.
The 2018-19 season began Dec. 1. By Jan. 4, the Maine Department of Marine Resources had begun implementing its emergency rulemaking authority to implement conservation closures along parts of the coast to protect the scallop resource from the risk of depletion of broodstock and seed scallop. Called “targeted conservation closures,” they’re determined by the marine resources commissioner based on depletion, seed, the presence of spat-producing scallops and other factors.
January 9, 2019 — Maine lobstermen and their representatives, along with state fisheries regulators, continue in the trenches of debates about how much the Maine lobster fishery is implicated in the decline of the North Atlantic right whale.
Ongoing efforts to protect the whales from entanglement with fishing gear may result in two different new sets of regulations, Sarah Cotnoir, resource coordinator for the Maine Department of Marine Resources, and Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, told the Zone B Council last week.
The two sets of regulations come from parallel processes under two federal laws, the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
January 9, 2019 — Maine’s scallop season got off to a good start last month, with supplies plentiful and a strong price, but that may be about to change.
Early on, according to Melissa Smith, the scallop resource manager at the Department of Marine Resources, along most of the coast between Penobscot Bay and Cobscook Bay landings varied were “variable depending on the location.”
Scallop meat sizes also ranged from quite large to relatively small depending on where they were brought up, “as is the norm for any fishing year.”
Harvesters were generally able to get their daily limits — three 5-gallon buckets or about 135 pounds of shucked scallop meats — by the early afternoon or even earlier.