Saving Seafood

Despite ongoing poaching, Maine fishermen lobby for increase in baby eel quota

June 7, 2018 — More than 60 fishermen told an interstate marine fisheries official Wednesday that Maine’s annual baby eel catch limit should be raised because there are “plenty” of eels in Maine — even though Maine once again finds itself having to address the issue of ongoing poaching in the fishery.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is considering whether to raise the state’s baby eel quota, also known as elvers, from 9,688 pounds to 11,749 pounds. It held a hearing on the topic Wednesday in Brewer and plans to hold another in Augusta on Thursday, June 7.

With fishermen earning more than $2,300 per pound for their catch this spring, the 2,000-pound difference could mean as much as $4.8 million in additional revenue for the statewide fishery.

The value of the statewide catch this spring is estimated to be $21.7 million, which is the third-highest annual landings value ever for the fishery, and the highest since Maine adopted a statewide catch limit in 2014.

“We don’t believe at all the [American eel] population is depleted,” John Banks, director of natural resources for the Penobscot Indian Nation, told commission official Kirby Rootes-Murdy. “We’re hearing from [harvesters in] the field that this population is not in trouble at all.”

Patrick Keliher, commissioner of Maine Department of Marine Resources, said Wednesday that the way the 2018 elver fishing season ended last month “didn’t help” the argument in favor of increasing Maine’s quota.

The department abruptly ended the season on May 24, when the statewide catch was still 500 pounds below its 9,688-pound quota, after Marine Patrol discovered that some licensed dealers had been engaged in illegal, under-the-table cash transactions for the lucrative eels. State law prohibits cash transactions and requires all sales to be recorded with a electronic swipe-card system that charts each fisherman’s catch and each dealer’s purchases.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

Illegal eels: Maine’s elver fishery faces more poaching charges

May 25, 2018 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources decided to shut down the state’s lucrative elver fishery two weeks early, claiming that illegal sales are jeopardizing the agency’s ability to manage the fishery properly.

The DMR announced late Tuesday afternoon that all harvesting operations must halt by 6 a.m. on Thursday, May 24.

Elver dealers and fishermen are required to use an electronic swipe card system that allows regulators to track the fishery in real time. But a Maine Marine Patrol investigation concluded that some dealers are paying less than the going rate — $2,400 per pound, on average — in cash and keeping the transactions off state records.

“The future of this lucrative fishery is now in question,” DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher said in a prepared statement. “We clearly have to consider additional measures to ensure that Maine can remain compliant with [catch limits], that we can continue to protect our state’s valuable marine resources, and that we can hold accountable anyone who chooses to squander the opportunity those resources represent.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Maine baby eel harvest on pace to hit record value under catch limits

April 30, 2018 — Halfway through the 2018 fishing season for baby eels, the value of landings in Maine is on track to reach its highest annual total since a statewide catch limit was imposed four years ago.

With the average price remaining above $2,300 per pound since opening day on March 22, the value of the statewide catch so far was nearly $12.5 million as of Friday evening, which is $337,000 more than the catch value for all of 2017. It represents 4,800 pounds caught statewide since the season started, meaning fishermen have caught only half of Maine’s overall annual catch limit of 9,688 pounds.

As of Friday evening, dealers were paying fishermen $2,600 per pound on average for baby eels, also known as elvers, the state Department of Marine Resources indicated in a news release. That average is twice as high as it was last year, when elver fishermen earned $1,300 per pound.

If the average price paid to fishermen stays above $2,500 through the remainder of the season, and if fishermen reach the statewide catch limit, the value of Maine’s 2018 elver landings would total at least $24 million.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Maine: In new cautionary approach, Maine shellfish areas will be closed at first sign of toxins

April 17, 2018 — BOOTHBAY, Maine — Public health officials say they will use extreme caution to manage toxic algae blooms this year to prevent another expensive and potentially dangerous shellfish recall.

In the last two years, sudden toxic algae blooms of a previously unrecorded type of phytoplankton forced the Maine Department of Marine Resources to close huge sections of the Down East coast to shellfish harvesting and to issue rare recalls of tons of clams and mussels from as far away as Utah.

Recalls are bad for public health, business and Maine’s seafood brand, said Kohl Kanwit, head of the department’s public health division, during a workshop Tuesday for harvesters, seafood dealers, regulators and researchers at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay.

“The risk is high; you never get 100 percent back” from a recall, Kanwit said. “It is really costly for the industry and bad all around.”

This year, the department isn’t taking any chances as it monitors for pseudo-nitzschia, a single-cell organism that can bloom unexpectedly and make domoic acid, a dangerous biotoxin that may cause amnesic shellfish poisoning, or ASP, in humans and animals. In serious cases, ASP can lead to memory loss, brain damage or even death. The first recorded ASP event, on Prince Edward Island in 1987, killed three people and made at least 100 sick.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Lobster shell disease nudges up slightly off of Maine

April 13, 2018 — PORTLAND, Maine — A disease that disfigures lobsters has ticked up slightly in Maine in the last couple of years, but authorities and scientists say it’s not time to sound the alarm.

The disease, often called epizootic shell disease, is a bacterial infection that makes lobsters impossible to sell as food, eating away at their shells and sometimes killing them. The Maine Department of Marine Resources said researchers found the disease in about 1 percent of lobsters last year.

Circa the early- and mid-2000s, they almost never found it in Maine. But overall prevalence of the disease remains low, especially compared to southern New England waters, where it’s in the 20 percent to 30 percent range, the department said.

Scientists who study the fishery, such as microbiologist Deborah Bouchard of the University of Maine, said it remains important to monitor for the disease, which appears to correlate with warming temperatures.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Globe

 

Maine: In new cautionary approach, Maine shellfish areas will be closed at first sign of toxins

April 11, 2018 — BOOTHBAY, Maine — Public health officials say they will use extreme caution to manage toxic algae blooms this year to prevent another expensive and potentially dangerous shellfish recall.

In the last two years, sudden toxic algae blooms of a previously unrecorded type of phytoplankton forced the Maine Department of Marine Resources to close huge sections of the Down East coast to shellfish harvesting and to issue rare recalls of tons of clams and mussels from as far away as Utah.

Recalls are bad for public health, business and Maine’s seafood brand, said Kohl Kanwit, head of the department’s public health division, during a workshop Tuesday for harvesters, seafood dealers, regulators and researchers at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay.

“The risk is high; you never get 100 percent back” from a recall, Kanwit said. “It is really costly for the industry and bad all around.”

This year, the department isn’t taking any chances as it monitors for pseudo-nitzschia, a single-cell organism that can bloom unexpectedly and make domoic acid, a dangerous biotoxin that may cause amnesic shellfish poisoning, or ASP, in humans and animals. In serious cases, ASP can lead to memory loss, brain damage or even death. The first recorded ASP event, on Prince Edward Island in 1987, killed three people and made at least 100 sick.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Lobstermen will get extension on medical waivers

April 11, 2018 — AUGUSTA, Maine — A Maine law is now on the books to extend the amount of time some commercial fishing license holders can receive a medical waiver.

Harpswell Democratic Rep. Jay McCreight’s measure allows the Maine Department of Marine Resources commissioner to renew a temporary medical waiver for lobster and crab fishing licenses up to one year.

McCreight says she was motivated to make the proposal at the request of a Harpswell lobsterman who needed help because he’s struggling with a terminal illness, but still needs to work.

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

 

Right whale extinction threat is being overstated, lobstermen fear

April 9, 2018 — The math of protecting right whales from extinction is scary stuff: The stakes are high, scientific opinion varies and some rescue plans could make it impossible for lobstermen to earn a living.

Getting that math right matters when the futures of right whales and Maine’s lobster industry are so closely intertwined. Right whale numbers have dwindled to about 450 because of deadly ship strikes, fishing gear entanglements and low birth rates, while Maine’s lobster industry is the backbone of the state’s coastal economy, raking in about $434 million from landings in 2017 and generating another $1 billion for Maine in post-dock revenues.

“This will be the largest challenge for this industry,” said Commissioner Pat Keliher of the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

Those who fish for lobster in Maine and manage the fishery claim that their side of the whale story, and peer-reviewed species projections, are being lost in the extinction din.

Regulators claim they already have a right whale management plan in place and that it’s working. Despite the industry’s size, and the up to 3 million lobster traps in the water, no scientist or whale advocate has ever linked a whale death back to Maine’s lobster fishery, Keliher said. Dead whales have washed ashore in Maine, but they can swim for miles before they die, and carcasses can drift, too. No dead whale has ever been found in marked Maine ropes, officials say.

“None of the mortalities have any relationship back to the Maine fishery,” Keliher said Thursday at a Lobster Advisory Council session on right whale strategy.

Read the full story at the Sun Journal

 

In wake of menhaden quota increase, some states rejoice as others push back

April 9, 2018 — Changes to the menhaden quota allocation on the East Coast of the U.S.A. have been met by support from some states, while others are pushing back.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) decided in November 2017 to increase the menhaden catch limit from 200,000 metric tons to 216,000 metric tons for the 2018 and 2019 seasons. Menhaden typically are utilized for the high amount of omega-3 fats they contain, and their oils are used dietary supplements, animal feed, lipstick, and many other products. The fish also serves as bait for a number of commercial fisheries along the coast, particularly in the crab and lobster industries.

While the overall quota was increased, it was also redistributed. Some states, like Maine, saw their quotas jump enormously.

“Maine’s quota jumped to 2.4 million pounds (1 million kilograms) – 13 times the quota available in 2016 and 2017,” said Jeff Nichols, director of communications for the Maine Department of Marine Resources. “The number of harvesters that reported landings associated with Maine’s total allowable catch (TAC) in 2017 is too few to report because of confidentiality provisions in law. However, 17 vessels participated in the episodic event fishery and 13 in the incidental catch fishery, both of which are triggered once the TAC is met.”

An episodic event was triggered last year in Maine, allowing fishermen to catch far more than the typical quota. The Interstate Fishery Management Plan for menhaden allows the Atlantic Menhaden Management board to set aside one percent of the total allowable catch for “episodic events.”

“Episodic events are defined as any instance when a qualified state has reached its individual state quota, prior to 1 September, and has information indicating the presence of unusually large amounts of menhaden in its state waters,” said Max Appelman, fishery management plan coordinator for the ASMFC.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

 

Elver prices soar to new heights amid shortage, Asian demand

March 30, 2018 — PORTLAND, Maine — The price of baby eels in Maine is soaring to record highs at the start of a season in which buyers expect to pay more for the valuable fish.

Baby eels, called elvers, are an important part of the worldwide Japanese food trade. Maine fishermen harvest them from rivers and streams so they can be sold as seed stock to Asian aquaculture companies.

The average price per pound to fishermen through the first week of the 2018 season was $2,608, the Maine Department of Marine Resources said Friday. The most elvers have ever sold for in a full season was $2,172 per pound, in 2015, and they sold for a little more than $1,300 per pound last year.

Fishermen in Maine, which has the only significant elver fishery in the U.S., are poised for high prices this year because of a poor harvest in Asia. The early part of Maine’s season has been held back somewhat by bad weather, but harvesters are looking forward to a good year, said Darrell Young, co-director of the Maine Elver Fishermen Association.

“Hoping that when there’s eels around, they fight over them,” Young said. “When mother nature decides she wants to turn around.”

The season opened March 22, and fishermen had about 95 percent of their 9,688 pound quota remaining through Thursday evening, the state marine agency reported on its website. The season runs until June 7, and the first week was somewhat slow, which fishermen expected at the end of a cold winter.

Read the full story at the Associated Press