Saving Seafood

Maine wants lobstermen to move gear from wind power cable survey route

March 24, 2021 — Acting on direction from Gov. Janet Mills, Maine’s marine resources commissioner on Wednesday asked captains who fish along a planned wind turbine cable survey route to voluntarily haul their gear, or he would have to tell the Marine Patrol to move it out of the way.

In a notice addressed to “Lobster harvesters who fish in or near the Monhegan survey route,” Pat Keliher sympathized with fishermen upset about the prospects of floating offshore wind  projects coming to the Gulf of Maine. And he told them that a gear count done over the past day by the Marine Patrol found far fewer buoys in the survey path than a survey vessel had reported.

But there’s still too much gear inside the route for the survey vessel to do its work, Keliher said, noting that it was in everyone’s interest to complete the survey to determine if  the cable can be buried. He asked fishermen to cooperate and remove any remaining gear for the next two weeks.

“The developer has committed to working with the department to ensure that fishing will be allowed around and over the cable route,” Keliher wrote to the lobstermen. “I hope that we can find a way forward to complete this survey and achieve that goal.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: Marine Patrol Directed To Remove Gear From Path Of Wind Power Survey If Fishermen Won’t

March 24, 2021 — The state is telling Monhegan Island-area lobstermen to remove fishing gear from the path of a survey vessel — or the Marine Patrol will. That’s after the Department of Marine Resources determined that there is enough gear in that area to prevent the vessel from doing its work.

The 150-foot Go Liberty is surveying possible routes for an electricity cable that would stretch from a planned floating wind turbine developed by New England Aqua Ventus to the mainland. Earlier this week, lobstermen protested the effort at sea, and in some cases sailed near the survey ship.

In text and email messages sent to lobstermen Wednesday morning, DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher says he has been directed to ask the state Marine Patrol to move gear away from the route if the vessel is unable to continue its work. He also says DMR is working with the vessel to make sure it keeps its operations within a defined pathway.

Keliher and other officials in Gov. Janet Mills’ administration did not immediately return requests for comment.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Maine lobstermen crack a good year despite virus

March 24, 2021 — Maine’s lobster catch dipped slightly last year as fishermen dealt with the coronavirus pandemic, but the final totals were better than some feared.

Fishermen caught more than 96 million pounds of lobsters in 2020, the Maine Department of Marine Resources said Wednesday. That total broke a string of nine consecutive years in which harvesters brought at least 100 million pounds of lobsters to land.

Maine is by far the biggest lobster fishing state in the country, and the harvest is central to the state’s economy and heritage. Members of the industry feared at the outset of the pandemic that it would be difficult to equal previous years’ hauls because of the toll of the virus on the economy and the workforce.

However, the 2020 catch would have been a state record as recently as 2010. A boom in annual lobster catch began more than a decade ago.

Fishermen were selective about when they went fishing last year to avoid bringing too much product to land when demand was lower, said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Post

MAINE: Fishermen didn’t violate rules in dispute with wind developers, state says

March 24, 2021 — State marine regulators are providing an update on a dispute between fishermen and the developers of a wind energy project off Monhegan Island.

The flashpoint has been recent activity by a 150-foot vessel contracted by the developers, New England Aqua Ventus, to survey possible routes for a cable running between the project and the mainland.

Project officials said Monday that fishermen appeared to be putting gear in the vessel’s way, bringing their boats too close, and thus forcing survey operations to be suspended. The Department of Marine Resources said Tuesday that when marine patrol officials radioed to fishing boat captains that they needed to stay a safe distance from the survey vessel, the captains complied.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Maine’s baby eel fishermen hope for normalcy in 2021

March 22, 2021 — Maine’s baby eel fishermen are hopeful for a more stable season in 2021 as they seek one of the most valuable natural resources in New England.

The fishermen seek the eels, called elvers, so they can be sold as seedstock to Asian aquaculture companies. They are then raised to maturity and sold as food, such as sushi.

Maine has the only significant fishery for the eels in the U.S., and they sometimes fetch more than $2,000 per pound.

The season starts Monday, just over a year after the coronavirus pandemic upended the 2020 season. Prices for the eels plummeted last year because of disruption to the worldwide economy caused by the early stages of the pandemic.

The price of elvers to fishermen fell from $2,091 per pound in 2019 to $525 last year. The industry suffered because eels are almost exclusively a restaurant product, and the pandemic shuttered restaurants the world over, said Mitchell Feigenbaum, an elver dealer.

But the recovery of the economy in China, a major buyer, bodes well for this season, Feigenbaum said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Daily Times

MAINE: Elver season opens Monday

March 18, 2021 — The elver season is set to open Monday, March 22, and continue until June 7, unless the state’s harvesters reach their quotas before then.

Those quotas will remain unchanged for individuals this season, according to recent rulemaking from the Maine Department of Marine Resources. Fishermen who held licenses in 2020 will have the same allocation this year as they did last, plus any quota associated with licenses that were not renewed or were suspended beyond which is allocated to new license holders.

The rule also established a tending requirement for fishermen. The contents of fyke nets and Sheldon box traps must be removed at least once every 16 hours in order to reduce by-catch and elver mortality.

The 2020 season was postponed a week due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Guidelines established for that season will continue this spring.

“Specifically, licensed elver harvesters may again fish for and sell the quota of another licensed harvester, provided they follow the necessary protocols,” according to a notice to industry members.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Proposed federal rules to help endangered whales could cost Maine’s lobster industry $10 million

March 15, 2021 — Federal fishing regulators are close to finalizing new rules that would require expensive gear modifications and seasonal fishing closures in Northeast waters to protect the endangered right whale. Maine regulators and fishermen fear the rules would jeopardize Maine’s billion-dollar lobster industry while environmental advocates argue they don’t go far enough.

The public comment period closed March 1 after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hosted virtual public hearings on Feb. 23 and 24. Now, federal regulators are sifting through about 170,000 public comments to incorporate any extra information into their analysis before drafting the final environmental impact statement they hope to release by this summer.

The rule changes, if incorporated, likely wouldn’t go into effect until late 2021 or early 2022.

During the final public hearings, Maine Department of Marine Resource Commissioner Patrick Keliher echoed a statement put out by Gov. Janet Mills earlier that week stating that “a one-size-fits-all approach in the state of Maine will not work.”

Read the full story at the Penobscot Bay Pilot

MAINE: American Aquafarms seeks approval for ocean-based salmon pens

March 11, 2021 — American Aquafarms, an aquaculture start-up headquartered in Portland, has filed two draft lease applications with the Department of Marine Resources to begin development of closed-pen, ocean-based salmon operation in Downeast Maine.

The two proposed sites would be in Frenchman Bay, off the town of Gouldsboro to the east and Bar Harbor to the west.

Each site would be 60.3 acres. The pens at each site would take up about 6.6 acres.

The company plans to establish a hatchery, fish farm facilities and a state-of-the art processing plant that’s expected to result in hundreds of jobs in coastal Maine.

“Maine is the ideal location for this project,” American Aquafarms CEO Mikael Roenes said in a news release. “By leveraging the state’s deep water assets with next generation eco-friendly technology to sustainably produce food close to its market, we have the opportunity to set a new standard in the United States. Additionally, we are confident that Maine has the workforce we need to fill the year-round, good-paying jobs we’re creating.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Scallop closures announced

March 10, 2021 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources has instituted an emergency scallop fishing closure in the St. Croix River in Zone 3; and expanded existing closures in Frenchman Bay, Swan’s Island and Isle au Haut rotational areas.

“The department is concerned that continued harvesting for the remainder of the 2020-21 fishing season in these areas will reduce scallop broodstock further, as well as jeopardize sublegal scallops that were observed in the 2020 spring scallop survey that is essential to the ongoing recruitment, regrowth and recovery of the scallop resource,” according to the notice of emergency rulemaking. “An immediate conservation closure is necessary to reduce the risk of unusual damage and imminent depletion of the scallop resource in these four scallop resource areas.”

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

MAINE: Short film on baitfishing a rare, real look at the lives of lobstermen

March 8, 2021 — Brooke Mohnkern’s movie “Networks” about migratory baitfish is so authentic, he added subtitles so viewers can follow the fishermen’s accents.

The eight-minute movie opens with Phippsburg fisherman Clint Wallace leaning over the bow of his lobster boat Grace and looking right into Mohnkern’s camera as he unties from the mooring before heading out. Mohnkern captures the dialog from a nearby boat as Wallace speaks over the lumbering hum of the diesel motor.

“That funny looking water’s moving closer, Brooke,” Wallace says, motioning off in the nearby distance with his head as his hands work on the mooring.

“That’s awful funny looking.”

“Networks” is Mohnkern’s first film, and it tells a tightly focused story of a group of lobstermen from the Phippsburg village of West Point who hope to catch the shiny, surface-breaking fish known as pogies, or menhaden, causing all the ruckus in the water. It’s a story for the ages – men chasing fish and the consequences of their quest. But in just a few minutes, Mohnkern also manages to tell a story of a community of fishermen coming together for their common good and spotlights the economic impact of the migratory patterns of baitfish.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald