Saving Seafood

MAINE: NOAA cuts raise concerns among fishermen

March 5, 2025 —  Over 2,000 people from across New England convened at the annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum over the weekend to talk all things fish.

But this year, between gear expos, panels, and buddies catching up, there was an undercurrent of uncertainty after news broke of hundreds of NOAA layoffs in the weather and fish management divisions.

At a panel on managing fish in Gulf of Maine waters, one NOAA speaker was absent, and the other declined to answer questions about how changes at the federal agency might impact local fishing.

Eric Hesse fishes for tuna far off the coast of Cape Cod. He drove up for a panel on the Gulf of Maine Bottom Longline Survey, which he participates in.

“We’re worried about the impact of it. We engage with NOAA on various levels, whether it’s reporting, observer coverage,” he said. “All these things are part of our daily life, on the water, and to suddenly lose part of that could really disrupt our fisheries.”

Read the full article at Maine Public 

Canadian tariffs would ‘cripple’ Maine lobster industry, state’s top fisheries leader says

March 5, 2025 — Maine’s outgoing commissioner of marine resources is warning about the dire impacts of newly imposed tariffs on Canadian imports.

Maine sends about $200 million worth of lobster each year to Canada, where it’s processed and sent back to the U.S. or to third markets.

Marine Resources Commission Pat Keliher said the tariffs could trigger major cuts in what Maine lobstermen are paid for their catch that could “cripple” the state’s iconic fishery.

Read the full article at nhpr

MAINE: Of the nearly three dozen Sea Grant programs, Maine’s seems to be the only one cut

March 4, 2025 — Maine appears to be the only state whose federal grant boosting research and economic development for coastal communities was terminated.

The University of Maine said it was notified late Friday that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was immediately discontinuing funding for the $4.5 million Maine Sea Grant, said university spokesperson Samantha Warren.

The grant has helped finance statewide research, strengthened coastal communities, and supported thousands of jobs over more than five decades. However, the letter from NOAA said the grant’s work is “no longer relevant to the focus of the Administration’s priorities and program objectives.”

Maine’s Sea Grant program is one of 34 across coastal and Great Lakes states throughout the country. As of mid-Monday, the New Hampshire Sea Grant had not received a similar notice, said Director Erik Chapman. Similarly, Fiscal Officer Caroline Johnston was not aware of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sea Grant receiving a notification about funding cuts.

Both Chapman and Warren said they were unaware of any program’s termination beyond Maine.

Pointing out that there is little information about the reasoning behind the cut, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree argued in a statement that the decision shows President Donald Trump has a “personal vendetta against our state.” The funding cut came about a week after Trump threatened Gov. Janet Mills after a heated exchange over the state not complying with an executive order barring transgender students from competing in women’s athletics.

Read the full article at The Laconia Daily Sun

MAINE: Maine loses popular Sea Grant funding, 1 week after governor’s public confrontation with Trump

March 4, 2025 — Over the weekend, the Trump administration told the University of Maine that it is discontinuing a $4.5 million award to the Maine Sea Grant Program.

There are 33 other similar Sea Grant programs in coastal and Great Lakes states around the country. Yet only Maine appears to have had its funding revoked. And the announcement came one week after Gov. Janet Mills sparred publicly with President Donald Trump at the White House about his executive order on transgender athletes.

The four-year federal award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration went into effect last February and would have awarded Maine Sea Grant roughly $4.5 million through January 2028, including about $1.5 million this year.

“It has been determined that the program activities proposed to be carried out in year 2 of the Maine Sea Grant Omnibus Award are no longer relevant to the focus of the administration’s priorities and program objectives,” NOAA wrote in a letter to the University of Maine.

The program now appears to be in jeopardy, though both the UMaine system and its partners were still determining the specific impacts on Monday.

Federal and matching funds support the salaries of 20 people at the university and around the state. A spokesperson said Monday that the University of Maine system is still assessing how the funding cuts will directly impact staff and research projects underway.

Read the full article at wbur

MAINE: Maine’s commercial fishery grows in value, thanks largely to lobster prices

March 3, 2025 — Last year was a good year for commercial fishermen in Maine.

According to preliminary data released Friday by the Maine Department of Marine Resources, Maine’s commercial fisheries harvest was valued at $709,509,984 in 2024, up $74 million from 2023.

A large part of the jump in value was thanks to a $46 million jump in the value of the lobster catch.

Maine lobstermen took home $528,421,645 in 2024, thanks to a $6.14 per pound price, despite a catch that declined by more than 10 million pounds. The boat price paid to lobstermen in 2024 was the second-highest on record.

Read the full article at WMTW

MAINE: Maine lobster landings hit a 15-year low in 2024

March 3, 2025 — Maine lobster landings were at a 15-year low, at about 86 million pounds in 2024.

It’s a 10 million pound decline from the previous year, according to preliminary data released Friday by the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The 2024 decrease also comes after landings dropped by another 10 million pounds from 2022 to 2023.

Fishermen set 285,000 fewer traps in the water in 2024 compared to the previous year, the data show.

Spruce Head fisherman Bob Baines said landings are leveling off and fluctuating after a few years of record harvests. He believes the fishery is still in good shape.

“There’s only a certain amount of lobsters every year available to be caught; we’re very good at it,” he said Friday from the Maine Fishermen’s Forum in Rockport. “And since the biomass has gotten smaller, there’s just less lobsters to be caught.”

Read the full article at Maine Public

US lobster catch drops as crustaceans migrate to colder Canadian waters

March 3, 2025 — The US lobster industry’s catch keeps sliding as fishermen contend with the northward migration of the valuable crustaceans.

The industry is based mostly in Maine, where lobsters are both a cultural signifier and the backbone of the coastal economy. The state’s haul of lobsters has declined every year from 2021, when it was nearly 111 million pounds, to 2023, when it was less than 97 million pounds.

That decline extended into 2024, when the haul was about 86.1 million pounds, according to data released by state regulators on Friday. That is the lowest figure in 15 years. A series of major storms that damaged waterfront communities and disrupted fisheries was a key factor in the reduced catch, officials said.

Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, praised the industry for its perseverance.

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

MAINE: Trump administration terminates Maine Sea Grant

March 3, 2025 — The Maine Sea Grant program was abruptly ended by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, amid sweeping cutbacks to NOAA’s budget.

The news came Saturday during the Maine Fishermen’s Forum, an annual industry gathering in Rockland that Maine Sea Grant first helped organize in the 1980s. The Trump administration budget ax would cut $1.5 million in funding this year, $4.5 million through January 2028 and affect 20 Sea Grant workers at the University of Maine in Orono and the state’s small coastal ports.  

“It has been determined that the program activities proposed to be carried out in Year 2 of the Maine Sea Grant Omnibus Award are no longer relevant to the focus of the Administration’s priorities and program objectives,” stated a notification letter from NOAA to University of Maine officials.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Lobster fishermen can sue environmental group for defamation, judge says

March 3, 2025 — A group of lobster fishermen can sue one of the world’s largest seafood watchdog groups for defamation, a federal court has ruled, over a report that described Maine lobster as an unwise choice for consumers.

The threat to a rare whale species from getting tangled in fishing gear has prompted Monterey Bay Aquarium in California to caution against eating a variety of lobster that New England fishermen have harvested for centuries.

Seafood Watch, a conservation program operated by the aquarium, placed lobster from the U.S. and Canada on its do-not-eat “red list” in 2022. Some retailers pulled lobster from stores after the recommendation.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Most Maine lobstermen have resisted alternative fishing gear. A new initiative hopes to change that

February 28, 2025 — The wind is whipping the sides of the dock on this bright, cold afternoon in Jonesport.

“I think my fingers are too frozen.”

Brooke Hachey of the Sunrise County Economic Council is leading a demonstration of a kind of “on demand,” sometimes called “ropeless” lobster fishing gear.

In a bid to protect North Atlantic right whales from extinction, many scientists are promoting this kind of alternative lobster fishing gear that minimizes the risks of entanglement.

While some lobstermen in Massachusetts have agreed to use this new gear in exchange for accessing closed areas of Cape Cod Bay, most Maine lobstermen have been reluctant — if not outright resistant — to the new technology.

Read the full article at wbur