Saving Seafood

MAINE: Fishermen’s Forum kicks off next week

February 24, 2017 — ROCKPORT, Maine — The 42nd annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum kicks off on Thursday, March 2, at the Samoset Resort in Rockport.

More than 30 free seminars over three days will touch on topics affecting the state’s fisheries.

Shellfish Focus Day takes place on day one, with seminars ranging in subject from biology, to policy and legislation, shellfish management and biotoxins.

Panelists include researchers and scientists such as Brian Beal of the Downeast Institute, representatives from the Maine Department of Marine Resources, state legislators and municipal Shellfish Advisory Council members including Mike Pinkham, shellfish warden of Gouldsboro.

Chad Coffin of the Maine Clammers Association will be on hand to discuss the state’s bivalve industry along with Gulf of Maine Inc.’s Tim Sheehan, who will present on business strategies for the shellfish industry.

Also on Thursday is the Northeast Coastal Communities Sector annual meeting following an hour-long open session for the public. The Maine Coast Community Sector also will hold its annual meeting on Thursday.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

MAINE: DMR closes Lower Blue Hill Bay, Jericho Bay to scallop draggers

February 9, 2017 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources enacted an emergency rule in response to high numbers of sub-legal scallops and a higher-than-expected scallop harvest, closing Lower Blue Hill Bay, Jericho Bay, North Haven, Inner Cranberry Isles Area and Upper Damariscotta River to scalloping except by diving effective February 5, according to a DMR emergency ruling.

Mid Penobscot Bay is now limited to draggers on Mondays and Tuesdays, only.

“Unrestricted harvest during the remainder of the 2016-2017 fishing season in these specific areas may damage sub-legal scallops that could be caught during subsequent fishing seasons, as well as reducing broodstock essential to a recovery,” the press release states.

Read the full story at the Island Ad-Vantages

MAINE: January 24th Taunton Bay Oyster Co.,Inc. Aquaculture Public Hearing Postponed Until January 25th

January 24, 2017 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

The DMR public hearing on an application filed by Taunton Bay Oyster Co., Inc. scheduled for Tuesday, January 24, 2017 has been postponed until January 25, 2017 due to weather. The hearing is on an application filed by Taunton Bay Oyster Co., Inc. for a standard aquaculture lease located in Northern Bay, Bagaduce River, Penobscot, for bottom and suspended culture of American/Eastern oysters.

PLEASE NOTE: if the hearing cannot be concluded by a reasonable hour on the 25th, it will be continued to January 31 and, if necessary, February 1, at the same time and location.

The meeting will be held at 6:00 p.m. at the Penobscot Community/Elementary School, 66 North Penobscot Road, Penobscot

To buoy its budget, Maine marine resources department seeks higher fees for fishing licenses

January 16, 2017 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources wants to raise the price of commercial fishing licenses for the first time in seven years, using the $600,000 the hikes would generate to pay for spending increases while honoring Gov. Paul LePage’s request to keep the department’s budget flat.

If approved by the Legislature, the proposed fee increases would range from as little as $1 for a Maine resident to harvest green crabs to as much as $114 for a lobsterman with two sternmen. Under the new fee schedule, which would take effect January 2018, the cost of securing a Class III lobster license would top $1,000 for the first time, hitting $1,002.

The fee hike would enable the Department of Marine Resources to hire an additional lobster biologist, outfit its science staff with field technology and pay for Marine Patrol officer raises and ballistics vests, among other things, without increasing the department’s $21.3 million bottom line, department spokesman Jeff Nichols said.

For example, the fee increases would pay for remote data entry technology. Currently, department science staffers spend 28 percent of their time entering data gathered in the field, Nichols said. With the new technology, staff scientists would spend more of their time conducting the research and data analysis needed to sustain the state’s valuable marine resources in a changing ocean environment, he said.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: Scallop season off to a good start

January 12, 2017 — AUGUSTA, Maine — Five weeks into the scallop season the winter weather has begun to take a toll on fishing days, but not on landings. According to the Department of Marine Resources, when fishermen have been able to get off the mooring they have been seeing good landing.

With snow, bitter temperatures and howling winds increasingly the norm since the last week of December, scallopers working outside the well-protected waters of Cobscook Bay got a break — or at least a chance for some relief — when several limited access areas opened to fishing on Monday, Jan. 2.

While four segments of the coast were closed to fishing on New Year’s Day after their harvest targets were reached, the opening of the limited access areas gave an additional opportunity to the drag fleet in more protected waters once a week.

“It was how the season was set up during rulemaking, with five-day weeks in Zone 2 in January and February,” DMR Resource Coordinator Trisha Cheney said Friday. Zone 2 stretches from Penobscot Bay eastward to the Lubec Narrows Bridge.

A number of areas that were subject to close monitoring were closed Jan. 1 after the fishery achieved harvest targets of between 30 percent and 40 percent of the “harvestable biomass” determined DMR using data collected during pre-season surveys. The department used emergency rulemaking in combination with in season monitoring efforts to ensure that the resource continues to rebuild by managing adaptively during the season and ensuring that areas are not overfished.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

MAINE: Are halibut headed for trouble?

January 11, 2017 — PORTLAND, Maine — Go to Scales, an elegant waterfront restaurant on a Portland pier, and a plate of pan-roasted halibut with hazelnuts, brown butter and new potatoes will cost you $38, tax and tip extra.

Go down to the dock in Lubec or Stonington during May and June, when Maine fishermen are allowed to harvest halibut from state waters inside the three-mile limit, and $38 would buy you about 5 pounds of halibut, if you could buy less than a whole fish directly off the boat.

And that’s the problem.

Over the decade between 2006 and 2015, the last year for which the Department of Marine Resources has figures, the boat price for halibut increased some 44 percent and landings increased from just 30,018 pounds worth about $139,000 to more than 93,000 pounds that brought fishermen some $623,000.

Now federal fisheries regulators are saying that halibut may be in trouble.

Of course, it isn’t just that Maine fishermen are landing more halibut. It’s fishermen from all over New England who are pulling in plenty of the pricy and delicious flatfish from federal waters.

In 2006, only Maine recorded halibut landings. In 2015, according to NOAA Fisheries, halibut landings throughout New England reached almost 216,000 pounds – worth about $1.4 million. Of that, about 123,000 pounds were landed outside Maine.

That may not be a lot of money compared to the nearly $511 million that Maine’s lobster fishermen reaped in 2015, but it is enough to attract more boats into the fishery and to have regulators and fisheries scientists worried. Early in December, the New England Fishery Management Council announced that a review of the rules governing the halibut fishery would be a priority during 2017.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

MAINE: Scallop Fishermen, Hurt by Weather, Will Get Extra Day

January 10, 2017 — LUBEC, Maine – Maine fishing regulators say they are allowing many of the state’s scallop fishermen to fish for an additional day per week because bad weather has hampered their ability to harvest the shellfish.

The state Department of Marine Resources says the dragger boat fleet that operates outside of the protected Cobscook Bay area will be afforded the extra day.

Regulators say fishermen are reporting good catches off of Maine when they are able to get out on the water. Prices are also strong. Maine scallops are some of the most sought after in the seafood industry.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Maine Public

MAINE: State seeks more authority in investigations of suspected lobstering violations

January 3, 2017 — Legislation is being drafted to make it easier for Maine Marine Patrol officers to secretly install tracking or surveillance devices on boats.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources is drafting legislation that would expand the authority of Marine Patrol officers to covertly install electronic surveillance devices on the boats of fishermen suspected of violating state fishing regulations.

The proposal is similar to one that faltered in the Legislature two years ago and is a response to ongoing concerns that some lobstermen are fishing more traps than allowed or engaging in other tactics to skirt Maine’s strict fisheries laws. The proposal also coincides with high-profile turf wars or personal disputes between lobstermen last year that resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost or damaged equipment.

The language of the bill has not been released, and DMR officials declined to provide specifics until the legislation has been finalized, consistent with a LePage administration policy. But in a general outline, DMR spokesman Jeff Nichols said the proposal would ease restrictions on Marine Patrol officers when they want to install electronic tracking or surveillance equipment on boats as part of investigations.

It was unclear last week whether the Marine Patrol would be required to obtain a warrant from a court before deploying surveillance devices, a question that could dictate whether the proposal raises constitutionality concerns among fishermen. But it appears the department is seeking to make it easier to track vessels of fishermen suspected of violations of fishing laws, whether civil or criminal.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: 2017 Maine Northern Shrimp Cooperative Winter Sampling Program Participants Announced

December 29, 2016 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

Maine participants in the cooperative winter sampling program for Northern Shrimp in the Gulf of Maine have been announced. The program, coordinated by the Maine Department of Marine Resources, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, and the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, is designed to provide biological data on the shrimp fishery which is closed for the fourth year in a row.

The Maine fishermen have been chosen from over 60 applicants, based on a random drawing of those fully qualified in each region. Qualifications include a demonstrated shrimp fishing history, and successfully passing a Marine Patrol review of marine resource violations.

Preference was given to trawlers willing to participate in a test of a compound grate for harvesting. Compound grates are devices used by trawlers to reduce the catch of small shrimp.

Maine harvesters chosen include trawlers Vincent Balzano, Joseph Leask, and Rob Tetrault from western Maine, Troy Benner, David Osier and Arthur Poland Jr. from mid-coast Maine, and Randy Cushman and Glenn Libby from eastern Maine.

Shrimp trappers include Chad Gamage, Daryl Chadwick, George Gilbert and Robert Tracy from mid-coast Maine, and Thomas Riedel from eastern Maine.

In response to the depleted condition of the northern shrimp resource, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section extended the moratorium on commercial fishing for the 2017 fishing season. The Section also approved a 53 metric ton research set aside (RSA) which will be used by the cooperative sampling program to provide managers with much-needed biological data. Biological data gathered will include size composition and egg hatch timing.

In total, the sampling program will include the participation of 10 trawlers (8 Maine trawlers, 1 Massachusetts trawler, and 1 New Hampshire trawler) and 5 Maine trappers, fishing for 8 weeks from mid‐January to mid‐March, 2017.

The trawlers will be allowed a maximum trip limit of 1,200 pounds, with 1 trip per week, while the trappers will have a maximum possession limit of 500 pounds per week, with a 40 trap limit per vessel. All participants will provide shrimp samples to the Maine DMR weekly.

Information on the sampling program can be found at http://www.maine.gov/dmr/science-research/species/shrimp/winter2017.html.

Two Men Have Lobster Licenses Suspended for Six Years for Removing Eggs from Lobsters

December 14th, 2016 — The following was released by The Maine Department of Marine Resources: 

The Commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources has suspended the lobster licenses of two men for removing the eggs from female lobsters. The violation is a Class D crime which, in addition to license suspension, is punishable by up to a year in jail and fines in excess of $1,000.

The licenses of Dexter Bray, Jr., 36 of Stonington and Philip Poland, 42 of Cushing have been suspended for 6 years as a result of separate investigations conducted earlier this year by Maine Marine Patrol.  

The Bray investigation, led by Marine Patrol Officer Rustin Ames, resulted in charges of removing the eggs of two female lobsters for which Bray is facing fines of up to $1,600 in addition to as much as a year in prison and the license suspension.

The crime came to light by an anonymous complaint received in the spring by Officer Ames that Bray was “scrubbing” lobsters, which is the act of artificially removing eggs from the underside of a female lobster’s tail.

Officer Ames followed up on the complaint and began an investigation that involved Marine Patrol Specialist Sean Dow. The investigation revealed that Bray had landed and attempted to sell two egg-bearing female lobsters at a lobster co-op in Stonington.   

The Poland investigation, led by Marine Patrol Officer Brandon Bezio, resulted in charges of removing eggs from three female lobsters for which he faces up to a year in prison and fines up to $1,900 in addition to his license suspension.

This investigation also began with an anonymous complaint received during the summer. Officer Bezio followed up on the complaint and, with the help of Marine Patrol Officer Matthew Wyman, and Specialist Corrie Robert, determined that Poland had scrubbed the eggs from three lobsters in his possession. 

“Scrubbing lobsters is one of the most serious violations of marine resource laws we see,” said Marine Patrol Colonel Jon Cornish. “By removing eggs to make a short-term monetary gain, criminals deny future generations of fishermen the opportunity those eggs represent. Just as important, they undermine the work law abiding harvesters do every day to sustain this important resource.”

“I’m extremely proud of the thorough investigation conducted by the Officers involved in these cases,” said DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher. “These are very difficult cases to make and the Officers did an outstanding job bring this behavior to and end.”

 Bray, who fished in lobster Management Zone C, was notified after a length of suspension hearing on November 2, 2016 with Commissioner Keliher that his license would be suspended for six years, allowing him to regain his license on May 19, 2022.

 Poland, who fished in Zone D, was notified after a length of suspension hearing on November 15, 2016 with Commissioner Keliher that his license would be suspended for six years, allowing him to regain his license on July 8, 2022.