Saving Seafood

Maine: Early elver landings slow

March 28, 2018 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — Forecasters predicting a slow but lucrative start to the elver fishing season were right on both counts.

The season got under way last Thursday and, by the close of business on Tuesday, the Department of Marine Resources said dealers reported buying 114.95 pounds of elvers and paying harvesters $315,789 for their landings — an average price of $2,747 per pound.

Darrell Young, a longtime elver harvester who established a buying station in Ellsworth this year, said the price opened high last week and has fluctuated between $2,600 and $2,900 per pound.

“I think the price will stay high,” Young said Tuesday.

The season, and the market, still has a long way to go.

Maine elver harvesters fish under a fixed landings quota of 9,688 pounds during a season that ends this year on June 7. Based on the DMR reports, with slightly more than nine weeks left in the 10-week season, about 1.2 percent of the quota has been taken out of Maine’s rivers.

Of the early landings, 51.84 pounds, about 45 percent of the total, were landed by holders of licenses issued by the Passamaquoddy Tribe. Under an agreement negotiated among Maine and the state’s four federally recognized Indian tribes in 2013, the Passamaquoddy have been allotted 14 percent (1,356 pounds) of the total elver quota allowed the state by the interstate Atlantic States Fisheries Management Commission. Another 7.9 percent is allocated among the Penobscot Nation, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians and the Aroostook Band of Micmacs.

Earlier this week, the ASMFC’s American Eel Board announced that it would defer until August a decision, currently being considered, on whether to restore Maine’s elver quota for the 2019 fishing season to its 2014 level of 11,749 pounds.

It isn’t hard to understand why the season is off to a slow start.

Elvers are juvenile eels that migrate from the Atlantic Ocean, where they are born, up Maine’s streams and rivers to fresh water, where they may live as long as 20 years before returning to the sea to spawn. Right now, the water in those rivers is cold, with the temperature kept down by recent snow melt.

On Tuesday, Young said fishing was slow around eastern Maine and in the Ellsworth area.

“There were just a couple of fishermen fishing last night and they got nothing,” Young said.

“We need warmer water, get rid of the snow and get the ice out of the ponds,” he said. “There are no eels running now. They’re laying out in the ocean.”

The data confirms what is obvious to the eye, and the elver fisherman.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

 

Elvers Price Highest Ever For Fishery

March 27, 2018 — The price of elvers in the first few days of the season, is being reported as the highest ever for the fishery.

Maine has the only significant fishery for the young eels, also called elvers, in the country. The Elver season started Thursday March 22, and the Maine Department of Marine Resources is reporting they’re currently selling for just over $2,800 a pound.

The previous height was reported in 2015, at just under $2,200 a pound. Elvers are by far Maine’s most valuable fishery by pound, but the elver catch is limited by a quota, so in absolute terms it’s one of the least valuable in the state.

Read the full story at Maine Public

 

Scallop fishermen near end of season

March 21, 2018 — PEMBROKE, Maine — The Maine scallop fishing season opened during the first week of December and now, with two weeks or less remaining, reports on how good a season it has been are decidedly mixed.

On the good side of the ledger, there seemed to be plenty of scallops, often in places where none have been seen for years, Melissa Smith, who coordinates scallop management for the Department of Marine Resources, said last week.

With the season ending for draggers on March 29 along the Downeast coast (divers get six more days between March 30 and April 14), Smith said, only one of the seven rotational management zones that were open to fishing at the start of the season has been fully closed to fishing. Last year as the season ran down, only two of the seven rotational areas open at the season’s start remained fully open at its end.

“While emergency closures are still occurring each season,” Smith said in an email, “we’re observing that more harvestable area is remaining open during the season.”

The extended openings and “the expansion of harvestable scallops back to traditional beds,” she said, are indicators of the growth of the growth of the scallop resource in inshore waters.

According to Portland scallop dealer and former resource manager at DMR Togue Brawn, “they’re finding some nice pockets of big stuff still, which is a good indicator that the measures we put in place years ago are working.”

Without the closures and limits, the little “bump” in scallop population that occurred naturally “would have been just that. Guys would have found some nice patches and wiped them out. Now we’ve got something that could last.”

If there are more harvestable scallops around, their abundance may not be benefiting the pocketbooks of Maine’s fishermen.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

 

Maine’s Scallop Season Nearing End With Grounds Still Open

March 15, 2018 — LUBEC, Maine – Maine’s scallop fishing season is nearing its final weeks with many scallop fishing grounds still open for harvesting.

The Maine scallop season begins in December and runs until April 10 this year. The state’s regulators use targeted closures to protect scallops from succumbing to overharvesting.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources says no emergency actions or closures are currently pending. The department says it’s continuing to monitor the health of scallops through surveys and industry updates.

Maine fishermen harvested nearly 800,000 pounds of scallops last year, the most since 1997.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Maine Public 

 

Maine fleet keeps an even keel despite lower lobster landings

March 7, 2018 — As expected, Maine lobster landings dropped in 2017. The fleet landed 110.8 million pounds, a 16 percent decline in volume from 2016’s 132.5 million pounds, according to preliminary data released my the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

Value was down as well, by $106 million from 2016’s all-time record value of $540.4 million to $433.8 million (the average price per pound dropped from $4.08 to $3.91).

Despite marking the largest single-year decline in the fishery’s history, the 2017 season still ranks as the sixth highest volume and fourth highest value in the state’s history.

The season also marks the seventh year in a row with landings over 100 million pounds, which had never happened prior to 2011.

“The past year has underscored what I’ve been saying for years now — that change is inevitable and we must be prepared,” DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher said in a press release. “This year’s decline in lobster landings is by no means a signal that the sky is falling. But it does highlight the need to make sure our management measures adapt to change. This is true for all fisheries. It is the best way to ensure resilience of our marine resources and opportunity for future generations.”

Zooming in on Maine’s lobster zones, the most significant landings decline came in Zone F, where lobstermen caught 25 percent less than the previous year, catching 10.95 million pounds compared to 2016’s haul of 14.67 million pounds. Landings dropped about 17 percent in Zones C, D and G; 15 percent in Zone E; 13 percent in Zone A; and 12 percent in Zone B.

Read the full story at the National Fisherman

 

Maine closes more scallop areas to prevent overfishing

February 20, 2018 — ADDISON, Maine — Maine fishing regulators are shutting down more areas to scallop fishing for the season to protect the health of the shellfish.

The state shuts down scalloping areas to prevent the valuable resource from being overfished. The Maine Department of Marine Resources said it has shut down the Harrington and Pleasant rivers, including Pleasant Bay.

The state’s also shutting down the Skillings River and Taunton Bay in the Frenchman Bay area.

The scallop fishing season begins in December and can last until early April. Most Maine scallops are harvested with drag boats, but some are taken by hand by divers. The state’s scallop fishery has steadily rebuilt in recent years after suffering a collapse in the 2000s.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bangor Daily News

 

Maine: Lobstermen must report total catch

February 22, 2018 — New regulations passed February 6 by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission requires 100 percent catch reporting by all Maine lobster and Jonah crab fishermen within five years. Developing an electronic reporting method for Maine fishermen is also under way.

“We argued against it heavily for quite a while,” Sen. Brian Langley (R-Ellsworth) said. “Stonington lands more than all of Southern New England.”

Langley, along with Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher and Stephen Train of Long Island, represent Maine on the commission.

“It’s like a game of Survivor down there,” Langley added. With the collapse of the lobster industry in Southern New England, “Maine sometimes is up against other states.”

Currently, only 10 percent of Maine lobstermen, selected randomly within specific categories, are required to file catch reports for each trip. Fishermen in the 14 other ASFMC member states report all their catch.

However, Maine has the largest lobster fishery of all member states, producing about four-fifths of the nation’s lobster harvest.

“It’s unfortunate states with a few hundred fishermen voted for Maine fishermen,” said Rep. Walter Kumiega (D-Deer Isle), House Chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources and 2018 candidate for state senator.

Keliher’s motion to maintain current harvester reporting efforts was amended to add that 100 percent harvester reporting be required within five years—better than the immediate adoption of the regulation that had been earlier presented. A further amendment, that if a commercial harvester landed less than 1,000 pounds of lobster or Jonah crab in the previous year a monthly summary could be submitted, was also successful. The amended motion unanimously passed, as did a provision to develop electronic reporting.

Read the full story at Island Ad-Vantages

 

Maine: Benchmark study of lobsters begins

February 13, 2018 — In 2015, data collected in a benchmark assessment of New England lobster stocks showed record-high abundance for the combined stocks of the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank and record lows for the lobster stock of southern New England.

Now, about three years later, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is beginning preparations for the next American lobster benchmark assessment that is expected to be completed around March 2020.

“We’re in the very early stages right now,” said Jeff Kipp, senior stock assessment scientist at the Arlington, Virginia-based ASMFC that regulates the Northeast lobster fishery. “The process will be mostly data-driven.”

Nothing is certain in the periodic assessments of various seafood species. But if some recent projections hold, the 2020 assessment could sketch a different picture from the 2015 assessment, possibly reflecting the declining abundance predicted by a recent Gulf of Maine Research Institute study.

The study, compiled with the University of Maine and NOAA Fisheries, forecast a 30-year decline in the Gulf of Maine lobster boom that began around 2010. The culprit? Increasingly warmer temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, which scientists have said is warming faster than 99.9 percent of the rest of the world’s ocean waters.

“In the Gulf of Maine, the lobster fishery is vulnerable to future temperature increases,” the authors of the study wrote. “The researchers’ population projections suggest that lobster productivity will decrease as temperatures continue to warm, but continued conservation efforts can mitigate the impacts of future warming.”

The findings of the GMRI study were strongly disputed by some Maine lobster dealers and the state’s Department of Marine Resources. The Maine DMR criticized the GMRI computer model used to arrive at the study’s conclusions, calling it “an unreliable tool on which to base management decisions.”

The benchmark assessment of the region’s lobster populations — which will include data on lobster landings, lobster growth and prevalent diseases among the population — could go a long way toward determining exactly what is happening to the region’s American lobster stocks.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

All Maine lobstermen will have to report fishing details, including secrets of success

February 9, 2018 — All Maine lobstermen will have to start giving up their most treasured fishing secrets, including where they set their traps and how much they catch, in five years.

Starting in 2023, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will require all lobster fishermen to submit detailed reports on their fishing activities, including those in Maine, the nation’s lobster capital, where current regulations only require 10 percent of licensed lobstermen to share their fishing data. In other states, lobster fishermen have been submitting reports on every trip for years.

The commission was considering a plan to require Maine lobstermen to begin filling out these reports immediately, but Maine Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher argued against it. He said it would require state government to hire five employees and raise industry fees by $500,000 to review that many paper records. Keliher said he would rather wait a couple of years for the development of a cheap and easy electronic monitoring system before requiring 100 percent reporting in Maine.

“I’d rather spend my money on things that are more important at this time while we focus on electronic reporting development,” Keliher told the commission.

Fisheries managers say the data is necessary to assess the health of the Gulf of Maine lobster stock and understand the economic impact of other ocean projects, such as deep-sea coral protections or wind farms, on the valuable lobster fishery. In Maine, which lands 83 percent of the nation’s lobsters, the industry caught more than 130 million pounds of lobster valued at $533.1 million in 2016.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Maine shutting down more scallop areas to protect harvest

February 5, 2018 — WHITING, Maine — Maine officials say the state’s shutting down a few high traffic scallop fishing areas to prevent overfishing.

The Maine Department of Marine Resource is closing Sand and Machias bays and Lower Englishman Bay starting on Sunday. It’s also shutting down parts of Cobscook Bay, which is the most fertile scallop fishing ground in Maine.

The parts of Cobscook Bay that will no longer be accessible include Whiting and Dennys bays.

The marine department says scallop monitoring surveys and industry reports show catch rates have slowed and fishermen are near their catch targets. The state routinely uses closures to prevent scallops from being overharvested.

Read the full story at WMTW