Saving Seafood

Research Concludes Maine Conservation Technique Helped Drive Lobster Population Boom

January 24, 2018 — Lobster conservation techniques pioneered by Maine fishermen helped drive a population boom that’s led to record landings this century. That’s the conclusion of new, peer-reviewed research published today.

The paper also finds that lobstermen in southern New England could have used the same techniques to prevent or at least slow the collapse of their fisheries — even in the face of climate change — but they didn’t.

Cape Elizabeth lobsterman Curt Brown has been hauling traps since he was a kid. He says he quickly learned that when he pulled up a female lobster, covered in eggs, he was looking at the fishery’s future.

Maine lobstermen throw back lobsters like these, which produce eggs at a high rate, but other lobstermen do not

“You get used to seeing lobsters and then you see a lobster with eggs and it’s whole new animal,” he says. The underside of the tail is just covered with eggs.”

Since 1917, Maine lobstermen like Brown have used a technique known as “V-notching”: when they found an egg-bearing female in their traps, they would clip a “V” into the end of its tail, and throw it back. The next time it turns up in someone’s trap, even if it’s not showing eggs, the harvester knows it’s a fertile female, and throws it back. Later, the lobstermen also pushed the Legislature to impose limits on the size of the lobster they can keep — because the biggest ones produce the most eggs.

“I use my measure right here, right on the measure, at the end of the measure, is a little tool in the shape of a ‘V,'” Brown says. “So you just grab the lobster underside of the tail just like that and it cuts a V-notch right in the tail. Quick, painless, throw her back in and let her do more of her job.”

And those fertile females have been doing that job very well in Maine. Since the 1980s, lobster abundance here has grown by more than 500 percent, with landings shooting up from fewer than 20 million pounds in 1985, to more than 120 million pounds in 2015 with a value of more than a half billion dollars.

Read the full story at WNPR

 

Gulf of Maine lobster population past its peak, study says, and a big drop is due

January 23, 2018 — The Gulf of Maine lobster population will shrink 40 to 62 percent over the next 30 years because of rising ocean temperatures, according to a study published Monday.

As the water temperature rises – the northwest Atlantic ocean is warming at three times the global average rate – the number of lobster eggs that survive their first year of life will decrease, and the number of small-bodied lobster predators that eat those that remain will increase. Those effects will cause the lobster population to fall through 2050, according to a study by researchers at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the University of Maine and the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration.

Looking ahead 30 years, the researchers predict a lobster population “rewind” to the harvests documented in the early 2000s. In 2002, 6,800 license holders landed 63 million pounds of lobster valued at $210.9 million. By comparison, 5,660 license holders harvested 131 million pounds valued at $533.1 million in 2016.

“In our model, the Gulf of Maine started to cross over the optimal water temperature for lobster sometime in 2010, and the lobster population peaked three or four years ago,” said Andrew Pershing, GMRI’s chief scientific officer and one of the authors of the study. “We’ve seen this huge increase in landings, a huge economic boom, but we are coming off of that peak now, returning to a more traditional fishery.”

Industry leaders have been girding themselves for a decline in landings ever since the recent boom began. While not everybody believes the decline will happen that fast or fall so much, most lobstermen admit the impact that warming water has had on their fishery, said Dave Cousens, the president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. It drove up landings by pushing lobsters into the Gulf of Maine, and over time it will drive lobsters out to colder offshore waters or the Canadian Maritimes, he said.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Maine: Lobstermen reject big changes in harvester reporting rules

January 17, 2018 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — Ask any lobsterman about the details of where and how he catches his bugs — what kind of bait he uses, how deep he sets his gear, how many traps on a trawl, how long those traps soak between hauls — and you’re likely to get a fisheye, if not a poke in the nose, in response.

Still, that’s the kind of information the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission wants to collect from lobstermen and Jonah crab fishermen working in the Gulf of Maine and, no surprise, the idea is unpopular.

Last Thursday, about 40 fishermen came to Ellsworth High School for a public hearing on an ASMFC proposal to increase the number of harvesters required to fill out trip-level logbooks filled with data the commission says it needs to manage the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries, primarily in the Gulf of Maine.

The Department of Marine Resources already requires 10 percent of Maine’s licensed lobster fishermen, chosen annually by lottery system, to file detailed trip-level reports of their fishing activities on a monthly basis. Lobster dealers also are required to file landings reports with DMR.

According to Megan Ware, the ASMFC fishery management plan coordinator running last week’s hearing, the commission has two main concerns about the way harvesters report data now.

First, she said, the reports don’t identify in sufficient detail exactly where fishermen are trapping the lobsters they catch, and the commission particularly wants to collect more information about lobsters landed in “nearshore” and “offshore” waters — between three and 40 miles from the coast.

Second, the 10 percent of Maine harvesters required to file reports aren’t necessarily representative of the harvesters who actually land lobsters. No one has to report two years in a row, no matter how big the harvester’s landings, and because the selection process is entirely random, it may include harvesters who fish part time or who are retired and don’t fish at all.

There is another issue with the 10 percent reporting level, Ware said. Maine harvesters account for 83 percent of lobsters landed along the East Coast, so their data is particularly important to fisheries managers.

The opposite side of that coin, though, is that even at a reduced collection level Maine’s data overwhelms the data reported by the other lobster-fishing states.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

 

Maine: Lobstermen alarmed at prospect of sharing their secrets with regulators

January 8, 2018 — For generations, Maine lobstermen have fiercely guarded their fishing secrets, telling almost no one how and where they fish or how much they haul up in their traps.

But under a new proposal, these independent operators would have to share all the nitty-gritty details with regulators, like where they fish, how long they let their traps soak, the kind of gear they use and how deep they set it, and how much lobster they land.

Fisheries managers want to use this data to assess the health of the Gulf of Maine lobster stock and understand the economic impact of other projects, such as deep-sea coral protections or wind farms, on the valuable lobster fishery.

The proposal is triggering alarm among lobstermen who don’t like the idea of sharing their fishing secrets with anyone. They consider them hard-earned trade secrets, like a businessman might consider the manufacturing technique for a new product or a chef would regard an award-winning recipe.

They are afraid the information will fall into a rival’s hands or, in this case, be used against them by regulators to implement a lobster fishing quota or gear restrictions in right whale habitats.

“Opposition towards increased mandatory reporting stems from a fear of further federal micromanagement of what is already one of the most sustainable fisheries in the world,” said 21-year-old Troy Plummer, who fishes the Odyssey out of Boothbay Harbor. “Why does the federal government need to know my every move on the water when they already know through dealer reporting what’s been caught?”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Maine: Big changes in store for herring fishery

December 20, 2017 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — For such a small fish, herring play a critical role in the ecosystem of the Gulf of Maine. Only a few inches long, the plankton-eating fish are an important prey species, providing food for top marine predators, and are an important source of bait for Maine’s $547 million lobster industry.

In the Gulf of Maine, besides feeding whales, seals, harbor porpoises and dolphins, herring, particularly juvenile herring, provide a principal source of food for sea birds such as Atlantic puffins, razorbills, common terns and Arctic terns. Much of their catch is fed to young birds still in the nest.

In the water itself, top predators such as bluefin tuna, bluefish and striped bass, as well as cod, hake, pollock, dogfish and many species of shark, feed on herring.

Man is another top predator that relies on herring. In 2016, fishermen landed more than 77 million pounds of herring in Maine, most of it to be used as lobster bait, and most of it caught by trawlers fishing far offshore. That number is down from 103.5 million pounds just three years ago.

Not surprisingly, the price of lobster bait has climbed significantly. According to the Department of Marine Resources, the price of herring increased 57 percent between 2014 and 2016, and lobstermen saw the price of herring increase by a third or more, according to Maine Lobstermen’s Association President David Cousens.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

 

First half of Maine’s lobstering season ‘painfully slow’ for fishermen

Dock prices are also down amid reports of light catches, leaving the industry worried but hoping for a rebound in the next few months.

October 4, 2017 — A cold spring, high bait prices and a stormy summer are adding up to a slow lobstering season in Maine.

Every fisherman and every lobstering port along Maine’s 3,500-mile coastline is different. But as of Oct. 1, the midpoint in the industry’s peak season, most Maine lobstermen and the dealers who buy from them agree the catch is down. They disagree on whether the industry will be able to land enough lobster to recover and keep up with the last few years of record harvests.

Brooklin lobsterman David Tarr, who serves on the state Lobster Advisory Council, predicts his catch will be down about 20 percent this season unless he can pull off a “great finish.” The light catch, coupled with a boat price that was 10 percent off for most of the summer, adds up to a substantial loss, he said. But the 48-year-old fisherman isn’t exactly surprised.

“We have been over the average for many years, so I’m not really shocked by it,” Tarr said. “It makes it harder, for sure.”

SLOWDOWN AFTER SERIES OF RECORD YEARS

Maine has enjoyed a run of record-setting lobster harvests over the past few years. According to data from 2016, the most recent figures available, Maine fishermen landed more than 130 million pounds of lobster valued at $533.1 million, breaking records for annual catch and industry value. Lobster is the most valuable, and through last year at least, the fastest-growing of all the state’s commercial fisheries.

Lobstermen will remain busy through November, depending on which region they fish, so it’s too early to tell whether the perceived decline will be reflected in the official 2017 harvest numbers that the state releases in February.

Even so, the Maine Lobstermen’s Association called it a “painfully slow start” and said the slow pace of landings and the prices that were well below last year’s had left lobstermen feeling angry, disappointed and worried.

“Fortunately, we still have a lot of good fishing months left this year,” association director Patrice McCarron wrote in her September report.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Lobstering ban near coral gardens could cost industry almost $9 million a year, fishermen say

May 26, 2017 — The financial toll of a lobster fishing ban near deep-sea coral gardens in the Gulf of Maine could top $8 million a year, almost double what was originally projected by the regional regulatory group that is considering the ban, a Maine fishing representative said Thursday.

The 50 Maine lobster boats that fish Outer Schoodic Ridge and Mount Desert Rock – the areas where fragile coral colonies have been found – drop more traps there for more months of the year than originally estimated, said Pat Keliher, Maine’s top fisheries official.

The New England Fisheries Management Council originally had estimated that Maine fishermen likely landed about $4.2 million worth of lobster from the 49 square miles under consideration for coral protection. Dave Cousens, head of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, estimates the total is closer to $9 million.

“Lobster fishing is the economic backbone of Down East coastal Maine,” Keliher said. “Each of these proposed coral protection areas represents an important fishing ground for over 50 vessels from approximately 15 communities.”

About 75 lobstermen attended a meeting in Ellsworth on Thursday, the only Maine public hearing on the council’s proposed coral protections. Only a handful spoke out, but all raised their hands when a council member asked how many supported lobster fishing in the areas.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: Fishing surveillance bill amended

May 10, 2017 — A bill that would authorize the Department of Marine Resources to conduct surreptitious electronic surveillance of lobster boats drew mixed reviews at a hearing by the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee in April.

But at a work session last Wednesday, the committee voted to recommend passage of an amended version of the bill.

Introduced by Rep. Walter Kumiega (D-Deer Isle) at the request of the Department of Marine Resources, LD 1379 — as initially formulated — would have given the DMR commissioner authority to approve installation of electronic tracking devices on lobster boats without first getting a warrant from a judge. The approval would have been based on an affidavit from the chief of the Marine Patrol that he had “probable cause” to believe that a civil violation of the laws regulating the placement or hauling of lobster gear had occurred.

At its work session last week, the committee scrapped the idea of authorizing the commissioner to approve installation of tracking devices and took a new approach.

According to committee Co-chairman Kumiega, the committee opted to make four kinds of conduct “associated with fishing over the limit” of traps allowed Class D misdemeanors.

As of now, these violations are civil offenses.

The reason for the change, Kumiega said, is that Marine Patrol officers could not obtain sealed warrants from a judge when the offenses were handled as civil violations.

As criminal offenses, that all would change. Marine Patrol officers would be able to obtain warrants without giving notice to the subject of an investigation.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

Harsher penalties for lobstermen who cheat get legislative support

May 4, 2017 — A legislative committee voted unanimously Wednesday to toughen penalties on lobstermen who fish too many traps or use “sunken trawls,” as part of an industry-supported effort to crack down on lawbreakers.

“I do think this is going to get people’s attention and will hopefully make people realize that it doesn’t pay to cheat,” said Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

Lawmakers are considering a suite of requests from the Maine Department of Marine Resources for more enforcement tools and tougher sanctions against violators in an industry worth more than $500 million last year.

A bill unanimously endorsed by the Marine Resources Committee, L.D. 575, would allow DMR’s commissioner to order longer license suspensions for lobstermen who violate the laws on the first offense and, in several cases, permanently revoke the licenses of repeat offenders.

For instance, violators caught fishing more than the legal limit of 800 traps or fishing “sunken trawls” without marker buoys would face a minimum three-year suspension – up from the current one year – and could lose their licenses for up to 10 years. Removing or “scrubbing” the eggs from female lobsters would result in a minimum four-year license suspension, and “molesting” other fishermen’s traps could result in a suspension from two to six years. The current maximum for molesting gear is three years.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

JERRY FRASER: Big lobster is watching

April 28, 2017 — It’s been a while since Red Bridges paid me $1 a day to bait lobster traps. Nine years old and not especially tall, I couldn’t reach deep in the bait barrel, so Red would pitchfork the redfish into a bushel basket for me. Between his having to do that and my eating half his lunch — unless he brought cold bean sandwiches — I was probably getting 99 cents more than I was worth.

Another benefit was cussing. Red was by no means vile in his use of language but he could cuss with the best of them and if, for example, our gear wound up with another fisherman’s, he would let loose with a stream I would later reprise for my friends. Of course, on the rare occasions his wife came along for the day, sitting in her lawn chair on the back deck, you’d have thought we were a couple of altar boys.

This was the 1960s. Lobstermen at Perkins Cove in Ogunquit, Maine, fished a couple hundred wooden traps, if that, from wooden boats. They built their own traps and knitted their own heads. Bait was $5 a barrel and the bait man delivered twice a week. Electronics typically consisted of a flasher, and not everyone had a radio.

Some things haven’t changed. Lobstering has always had pirates who harvest shorts and v-tails or regard buoy color as a notion whose significance varies with the visibility. In years past the state of Maine was seldom called in to adjudicate disputes. Fishermen sorted things out on their own in accordance with local tradition. In some cases, a word to the wise was enough, particularly if delivered by someone who might have been described as an “elder statesman.” Sometimes more assertive remedies were necessary. Occasionally, a dispute could result in an all-out trap war.

Read the full story at National Fisherman