Saving Seafood

MAINE: The Maine lobster issue demonstrates just how tricky sustainability is

October 7, 2022 — Maine lobsters may not be as sustainable as we think.

In September, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program downgraded the American lobster to its red list. The designation advises consumers to avoid eating them as “they’re caught or farmed in ways that harm other marine life or the environment.” The organization monitors the environmental impact of wild-caught and farmed seafood commonly found in US stores (pdf).

The organization says that the fishery poses a risk (pdf) to endangered North Atlantic right whales, with concerns that entanglement in fishing gear is the leading cause of serious injury and death to these marine mammals. The group recommends avoiding lobster caught by traps from the Gulf of Maine and other areas of New England and Canada.

American lobsters—also known as Maine lobsters—have a history of being sustainably harvested to help maintain a healthy lobster population. The bulk of lobsters are caught between June and December. Maine has established trap limits, size limits, and, to protect pregnant lobsters, if lobstermen or women find a lobster with eggs, they are expected to cut a V shape into one the tail before returning it to the ocean to let others know not to harvest it.

But lobster harvesting affects the right whale population, illustrating how sustainability is about more than just the depletion of a given species, but also about the entire ecosystem. “Sustainability has a bunch of different ways to look at it… The lobsters themselves are doing fairly well,” said Gib Brogan, the fisheries campaign manager at Oceana, a nonprofit ocean conservation organization. “The other side of sustainability is looking at the effect of the fishery on the oceans.”

Read the full article at Quartz

Congressman wants to halt aquarium money after lobster spat

October 7, 2022 — A congressman from Maine said Wednesday he will file a proposal to withhold federal money from a California aquarium and conservation group that has recommended seafood consumers avoid buying lobster.

The move from Democratic Rep. Jared Golden came a week after a spat with Republican former Rep. Bruce Poliquin about support for Maine’s lobster industry. Golden, Poliquin and independent candidate Tiffany Bond are running to represent Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, which is home to many lobster fishermen.

Poliquin called on Golden to return a donation of $667 from Julie Packard, the executive director of Monterey Bay Aquarium. The aquarium runs Seafood Watch, a conservation group that makes sustainability recommendations for seafood consumers. The group put lobster from the U.S. and Canada on its “red list” of seafood to avoid last month due to the threat posed to rare whales by entanglement in fishing gear.

Golden said Wednesday that he is presenting a bill to withhold any future federal funding from the aquarium and its programs. The aquarium has received more than $190 million in federal money since 2001, he said.

“This organization’s red list designation of American lobster could have a serious impact on the livelihoods of thousands of hard-working lobstermen, and I believe Congress must do something about it,” Golden said.

Read the full article at the Washington Post

MAINE: Maine’s congressional delegation introduces bill to strip Monterey Bay Aquarium of federal funding

October 7, 2022 — Two U.S. representatives of the state of Maine – U.S. Senator Angus King and U.S. Representative Jared Golden – have introduced a bill that would pull federal funding from the Monterey Bay Aquarium in response to its decision to red list Maine lobster.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch released a new set of updates in September 2022 that criticized the North American lobster fishery by placing it in the “avoid” category – largely due to the potential danger its lines pose to the approximately 300 remaining North Atlantic right whales left on earth.

Read the full article SeafoodSource

Mainers say new lobster regulations could kill the industry

October 7, 2022 — Politicians and lobstermen told federal regulators that Maine’s premier seafood industry isn’t responsible for threats to the endangered right whale population in the Gulf of Maine.

The National Marine Fisheries Service held a three-hour hearing in Portland on Wednesday night on changes to regulations that the agency’s scientists say are needed to save the endangered species. But they were told that the changes will kill the lobster industry in Maine and also deal the state’s economy a crippling blow without materially helping the whales.

Lobsterman Sonny Beal, of Beals Island, said he’s never even seen a right whale on his fishing trips. Industry proponents said no right whale has gotten entangled in a Maine lobsterman’s gear for 18 years and no right whale death has ever been attributed to entanglement in a Maine lobsterman’s gear.

“What you are doing is absolutely ludicrous,” he said. “You’re going to ruin the economy.”

Roughly 200 people attended the hearing at the University of Southern Maine on the same day that Maine’s congressional delegation launched another salvo in an escalating war of words over the industry’s impact on right whale populations.

Read the full article at the Press Herald

MAINE: New fisheries leader weighs in on the future of the lobster industry

October 3, 2022 — Amid looming environmental and legal threats to the Maine lobster industry, a new leader is coming to a fisheries organization in the state’s most lucrative lobstering port.

The Bangor Daily News spoke to Alexa Dayton, the new executive director of the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries in Stonington, about her vision for the future of coastal communities, especially in the wake of the group Seafood Watch telling consumers earlier in September not to eat lobster. The group red listed lobster after another blow to the industry, when a federal judge upheld fishing restrictions to prevent lobstering ropes from entangling critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The decision has been roundly criticized in Maine and raised concerns from fishermen about both their livelihoods and the future of their lobstering heritage. While scientists estimate that fewer than 350 right whales still survive, fewer than 100 of which are breeding females, Maine lobstermen argue there’s no evidence their lines are catching on whales and say they have complied with all regulations.

Dayton has more than 15 years of experience working in fisheries science and policy roles, and believes her background and relationships will help her serve in her new role, which she begins today. In the face of warming ocean temperatures, sea-level rise and water-quality challenges, her vision for the future is one of thriving and climate-resilient communities, she said.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Wearing red and rallying for lobster fishermen

October 3, 2022 — Schoolchildren all over Maine wore red on Friday, September 23, to show support for lobster fishermen even as rallies were planned in Portland and in Stonington for October.

In Deer Isle, both high school and elementary school students wore red, according to Moriah Nutter, the high school’s administrative assistant. Many people wore red throughout the island towns. Spencer Insurance in Deer Isle posted signs in its window, “WEAR RED, 9/23.”

Read the full article at Penobscot Bay Press

Lobster trappers voice beef with federal regulators over right whale protections

October 3, 2022 — Keys to the North Atlantic right whale’s survival as a species extend all along the East Coast of the United States, from vessel speed concerns in vital calving grounds off Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia, to New England and Canadian fixed-gear lobster- and crab-trapping waters.

Federal law dictates human-caused right whale deaths to decline to fewer than one a year. Currently, that statistic sits at more than 30, a real problem when there are fewer than 70 calving female North Atlantic right whales believed to be alive. In all, scientists believe there are fewer than 340 total North Atlantic right whales remaining.

What’s on tap is the second phase of an anticipated three-phase process in which NOAA Fisheries — also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) — is developing a comprehensive effort to save the species from extinction. A federal court determined regulations finalized in September 2021 as Phase One of the plan didn’t satisfy the requirements of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA).

“The judge ruled the 2021 final rule should’ve reduced mortality and serious injury, caused by U.S. commercial fisheries, to below (the potential biological removal level, or PBR) within six months of implementation of those 2021 regs,” said Colleen Coogan, branch chief for the Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Team in the Protected Resources Division of the NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office.

Read the full article at Florida Politics

MAINE: DMR Commissioner Keliher to Maine lobstermen: ‘It is imperative that we participate in the process to provide Maine’s input’

September 30, 2022 — Please see the notice below from NOAA regarding an in-person scoping session in Maine.  NOAA has scheduled this scoping session because Governor Mills worked with the Secretary of Commerce to ensure she understood how important it was for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to come to Maine and hear directly from Maine fishermen.

As a reminder, this scoping session is being held by the National Marine Fisheries Service in response to a federal judge in Washington, D.C., who ruled on the side of environmental non-governmental organizations who have sued the Service for not doing enough to protect right whales.

This decision has forced the NMFS to fast-track the 10 year plan whale plan and implement a 90% risk reduction years ahead of schedule. This scoping meeting is the first part of a process that should take two years to play out, assuming the same federal judge doesn’t continue to rule with the ENGO’s and force a faster timeline.

You might be asking yourself why we should bother to participate in this process if Maine, the MLA and MLU continue to be engaged in the federal court?

Read the full article at Boothbay Register

Rep. Allison Hepler: Lobster fishery faces more risks

September 30, 2022 — Lobster fishing has never been an easy way to make a living. Any economic endeavor that relies on natural forces and harvesting natural resources carries risk and uncertainties. As someone who represents coastal communities and as a member of the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee, I’ve learned this firsthand from the hard-working men and women in the industry.

I first wrote about this issue in 2019 in a newspaper column. As I write this new piece, I am shocked and dismayed to see the lobster fishing communities facing increased challenges. This month, a judge ruled in favor of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) opinion on how to best protect right whales. This judge also ruled in favor of achieving a 90% risk reduction in right whale entanglements within the fixed gear industry, of which the lobster industry is one. The result is that the lobster fishery will need to make incredibly significant changes to the way they fish in a year or two, rather than the 10 years that had initially been planned for. This ruling ignores conservation measures already taken by the industry.

For instance, Maine lobster fishermen have been reducing risk to right whales for over 20 years. They’ve replaced floating groundlines with rope that sinks and added more traps to each line, resulting in a reduction of 30,000 miles of rope in the water. In addition, they invested in weak links below the buoys to break if whales encounter gear and they’ve implemented gear marking to identify it if that gear shows up on a right whale entanglement.

Read the full article at the Press Herald