Saving Seafood

Elvers and out: Fishing season likely to end early

May 18, 2016 — Last year, legislative haggling delayed the start of the elver fishing season, cold weather delayed the arrival of elvers in Maine streams and by the time the season closed at the end of May harvesters still had not landed the total allowable quota of baby eels.

This year, the season was extended for a week to give the fishermen a better shot of filling their quotas, but the elvers paid no heed to the extension and were among the earliest snowbirds returning to Maine. One result of their early arrival is that it is likely that the Department of Marine Resources will shut the fishing season down several weeks early because the federally mandated annual harvest quota has been filled.

Two years ago, at the behest of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the state adopted a statewide 9,688-pound overall landings quota for the elver fishery. The Legislature further allocated that quota among harvesters licensed by DMR and harvesters from each of the state’s four recognized Indian tribes.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

PORTLAND PRESS HERALD: Warming Atlantic bodes poorly for lobster industry

May 13, 2016 — It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see one possible future for the Maine lobster industry. All it takes is a look south.

Warming water temperatures, the result of man-made climate change, have for decades been the primary factor in pushing the lobster population farther and farther north, first decimating the industry off the coasts of Rhode Island and Connecticut, then off Cape Cod.

And even though the industry has been booming in Maine, with record landings the last three years, the focal point of the catch has changed through the years, from Casco Bay to Penobscot Bay and, now, Down East, a signal of its vulnerability to change.

One of the state’s iconic industries, indispensable to and inseparable from so many communities, is being disrupted. The question is: How far will it go?

Fortunately, regulators are watching.

TAKING NOTICE

The Maine Department of Marine Resources will soon award contracts for studies exploring not only the full economic impact of the lobster industry, on which there is surprisingly little data, but also the impact of warming ocean temperatures on lobster biology and the ocean ecosystem in the Gulf of Maine.

Read the full editorial at the Portland Press Herald

Cod, haddock rules change

May 12, 2016 — AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Department of Marine Resources announced an emergency rule change for the recreational cod and haddock fisheries effective May 7.

In accordance with the New England Fisheries Management Council and for consistency with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) federal regulations effective May 1, the department is enacting emergency rulemaking for charter, party and recreational fishing vessels operating in state waters regarding cod and haddock.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

Elvers catch outpacing last year’s

April 26, 2016 — Maine’s money-making elvers fishery, the only significant fishery in the U.S. for the baby eels, is having a much stronger year than in 2015 as favorable weather has allowed fishermen to capture their quarry.

Elvers are sold to Asian aquaculture companies and eventually become food, such as sushi. Much sought-after, they sometimes sell for more than $2,000 per pound, putting them among the most lucrative commercial fish species in the country.

Last year, fishermen caught less than 5,300 pounds of them against a quota of nearly 10,000 pounds. Fishermen, who seek the eels with nets in Maine’s rivers from late March to early June, have already caught more than last year’s entire catch.

“For us, it’s going well,” said Henry Bear, an elver fisherman on the Passagassawakeag River in Waldo County and the Maliseet tribal representative to the Maine House of Representatives. “Far more productive, and the fish are running good.”

Last year’s fishery was impeded by the lingering harsh winter weather. Fishermen this year have already caught more than 5,500 pounds, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

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

MAINE: State finalizes deal to preserve Tenants Harbor working waterfront

April 11, 2016 — TENANTS HARBOR, Maine — The state has finalized a deal to preserve a long-time commercial fishing wharf.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources obtained a working waterfront covenant March 11 on the wharf owned by the four Miller brothers — Hale, Ira, Dan and Peter — at 12 Commercial St. in Tenants Harbor.

The covenant means that the pier must be used for commercial fishing.

The brothers, all commercial fishermen, inherited the property from their parents in 2002. They undertook considerable improvements to the wharf, including adding four hydraulic hoists to increase efficiencies, according to a news release from Coastal Enterprises Inc. of Wiscasset. They also dredged in the area to provide access for loading bait and unloading catch regardless of the tide.

See the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Maine Marine Patrol Arrest Gardiner Man for Illegal Possession of Elvers

April 7, 2016 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

The Maine Marine Patrol arrested Dana Wayne-Holmes, 61 of Gardiner on Saturday April 2 for illegal possession of elvers. Illegal possession of elvers is a criminal offense and is punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2000 fine.

Holmes was arrested in Waldoboro after an investigation by the Marine Patrol revealed that he was attempting to purchase and sell elvers without a license. Holmes held an elver dealer license in 2015, however he does not hold a current dealers license.

Also charged in the investigation was licensed harvester Irving Banks, 47 of Jefferson. Banks was charged with exceeding his individual elver quota, also a Class D crime punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2000 fine.

In addition to fines and jail time, Banks faces possible one-year administrative suspension of his current license while Holmes faces possible one-year suspension of his right to obtain a dealer license in the future.

“It is a privilege to have an elver license in Maine,” said Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner. “This is one of the most lucrative fisheries we have, and one that has required a great deal of work by the Maine DMR and law abiding members of industry to sustain and manage. I will use the full extent of my authority to investigate and bring to justice anyone who violates laws that help us protect this valuable fishery.”

The Marine Patrol investigation involved eight Marine Patrol Officers including Lieutenant Jay Carroll, Sergeant Russell Wright, Sergeant Rob Beal, Sergeant Matt Talbot, Specialist Matt Sinclair, Officer Brian Brodie, Officer Jon Luellen, and Officer Chris Hilton.  The Marine Patrol seized thirteen and half pounds of elvers from Holmes worth an estimated value of more than $18,000 based on per pound value at the time of the violation.

Dana Wayne-Holmes (Two Bridges Regional Jail)

Dana Wayne-Holmes (Two Bridges Regional Jail)

Maine scallop season winds toward closing

March 30, 2016 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — Friday is April Fools’ Day and the joke may be on Maine’s scallop fishermen, though they may be laughing all the way to the bank.

In December, the last month for which the Department of Marine Resources has released figures, dealers reported Maine scallop landings of 159,845 pounds with a boat price of about $13 to $14 per pound — just over $2 million in all for the month. Although the price was high, the reported December landings were the lowest since 2012.

Maine waters are divided into three scallop fishing zones and in two of them — along all of the coast except in Cobscook Bay way Downeast — the fishing season lasts until April 15. The question is whether there will be anyplace left to fish.

The 50-day season in Cobscook Bay, where harvesters have a daily limit of 10 gallons of shucked scallop meats, ended last Friday although, after the DMR implemented emergency closures on Whiting and Dennys bays in early February, only the sliver of water in the St. Croix River remained available to harvesters. Even in that area, fishing was limited to one day per week.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Sedgwick fisherman faces charges, suspension after lobster conflict flares

March 12, 2016 — STONINGTON, Maine — A Sedgwick fisherman is facing criminal charges and a possible three-year suspension of his lobster license because of a violent ocean confrontation last fall in which he allegedly rammed another fisherman’s boat, shot off a flare gun and intentionally broke a line on one of that fisherman’s traps.

Carl W. Gray, 41, is facing a civil charge of tampering with another fisherman’s gear and three criminal charges associated with the Oct. 5 incident. He has been charged with operating a watercraft to endanger and theft by unauthorized taking, both Class E misdemeanors, and a Class C felony charge of reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon, according to court documents filed in Ellsworth.

A Maine Department of Marine Resources hearing on the civil tampering charge was held Feb. 24 at the Hancock County Courthouse so Gray could make his case about why the proposed three-year suspension, which has yet to go into effect, should not be imposed.

At the hearing, a former Marine Patrol officer who responded to the incident recapped the alleged events.

Owen Reed, who works as a Maine State Police trooper, told Susan Cole, the DMR officer conducting the hearing, that he was contacted Oct. 5, 2015, by a third party and told that brothers Caleb Heanssler and Zachary Heanssler had gotten into an altercation with Gray several miles out to sea from Stonington.

According to Reed, the brothers told him that during the altercation, Gray tried to ram Caleb Heanssler’s boat, that Gray recklessly shot off a flare and that Gray intentionally broke a line to one of Zachary Heanssler’s traps by attaching it to his boat and gunning his engine.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Half-billion-dollar lobsterpalooza, but some fishermen worried

March 11, 2016 — ROCKPORT — Maine’s lobster landings put more than a half-billion dollars in lobstermen’s pockets last year, but some fishermen and scientists see clouds on what looks like a sparkling horizon.

Last week, just in time for the Maine Fishermen’s Forum, the Department of Marine Resources released its preliminary 2015 commercial fisheries landings and the news was astonishing.

According to DMR, the value of Maine’s commercially harvested marine resources topped $600 million in overall value in 2015. The total, $631,768,531, was an all-time high and an increase of more than $33 million over the previous record, set in 2014.

The biggest increases came in the state’s lobster fishery, where the total landed value of the catch jumped by more than $37 million and the average boat price received by lobstermen increased by more than 10 percent, from $3.70 per pound in 2014 to $4.09 per pound last year.

At $495,433,635, the overall value of Maine’s lobster fishery set another record. Factoring in bonuses paid to harvesters as reported by 11 of Maine’s 19 lobster co-ops, the overall landed value of Maine’s lobster fishery reached $510,680,048.

While the industry enjoyed a half-billion-dollar lobsterpalooza, some fishermen and lobster scientists saw clouds on the horizon.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American