Saving Seafood

Lobster industry still waiting for precise rules from feds to protect right whales

June 1, 2021 — Maine’s lobster fishermen are anxiously waiting to learn exactly what they will have to change to meet new federal requirements to protect the endangered right whale. On Thursday, the federal agency NOAA Fisheries released their final biological opinion about the threat to right whales, saying there have to be major changes by New England fishermen so whales won’t get tangled in fishing gear and die.

Fishermen have been worrying about and waiting for federal guidelines for more than two years. They had some of their fears confirmed by the latest report from NOAA, but still are waiting to get the needed details.

The big target to protect whales is called risk reduction, primarily by cutting the number of vertical ropes in the water that connect traps to buoy.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, part of NOAA Fisheries, said those ropes pose a big risk of tangling right whales, so they have to be reduced 60 percent right away. How that should happen is one of the details fishermen are waiting to learn, but previous documents from NMFS suggested a primary method should be requiring longer trawls, meaning putting many more traps on each line, in addition to using sections of weaker rope that can break away if snagged by a whale.

Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association said Maine is being unfairly penalized for whale deaths actually happening in Canada and those from whales being hit by ships at sea. She said that while lobstermen will have to follow the rules, the industry will continue to pressure NMFS to improve its data and create more fair regulations.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

Salmon overtakes lobster as the nation’s most valuable catch

May 28, 2021 — Lobster isn’t number one in the nation anymore.

Salmon is now the United States’ highest-grossing, wild-caught domestic fishery, according to the latest report issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service Office of Science and Technology.

The report, issued last week, shows salmon leaping from third to first, with lobster slipping to number two nationally.

In Maine, lobster still tops the charts, with no serious rivals.

“Lobster is, by far, the most valuable species harvested in Maine,” said Jeff Nichols, spokesperson for the Maine Department of Marine Resources.

The new national numbers do not reflect aquaculture-raised salmon. The data covers 2019, the most recent year with complete data. The cash values represent money paid to fishermen at the dock, not consumer retail prices.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

These Maine fishermen cut a $20,000 pogie net in half because of new regulations

May 25, 2021 — Fisherman Rob Bichrest of Cundy’s Harbor bent over a huge, black net at the Portland Fish Pier on Monday morning. Using a pair of orange-handled scissors, Bichrest then began cutting the $20,000 piece of fishing gear in half.

He had to.

Under current Atlantic menhaden fishing regulations, the 870-foot-long purse seine net was too large. It had to be reduced from 120 feet high, to just 48 feet.

“I can’t use one that big,” said fisherman, Sonny Rich, who owns the net. “It’s not legal anymore.”

A purse seine is a floating and weighted net, set around a school of fish. The net is closed around the fish using a drawstring threaded through rings attached to the weighted part of the net at the bottom.

Atlantic menhaden are usually called “pogies” and used as lobster bait in Maine. Further south, in Virginia, they are rendered into oil and sold as omega-3 fish oil supplements.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Freeport artist’s work to benefit Brunswick-based fishermen’s association

May 19, 2021 — Brunswick-based Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association has partnered with Freeport artist Maegan Monsees, owner of Mae in Maine, to offer a Fishermen’s Association rope gathering bucket.

The association is a non-profit that works to enhance the sustainability of Maine’s fisheries by advocating for the needs of community-based fishermen and the environmental restoration of the Gulf of Maine. Online retail sales of products like Mae in Maine’s Evergreen Gathering Bucket, along with apparel and other gifts, directly benefit the association.

To make the buckets, Monsees dyes and sews cotton rope. The Evergreen Gathering Bucket is then constructed on a sewing machine and coiled by hand.

Read the full story at The Times Record

MAINE: Army Corps review of salmon farm requested

May 19, 2021 — Frenchman Bay Conservancy has formally requested that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conduct an environmental review and issue a statement under the U.S. Environmental Policy Act before any final decisions are made on American Aquafarms’ plan to raise 66 million pounds of Atlantic salmon annually at two sites in Frenchman Bay.

Frenchman Bay Conservancy has preserves totaling 8,000 acres in a dozen Maine towns and townships, including seven Hancock County communities.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) is currently reviewing for completeness American Aquafarms’ March 3 lease applications to grow salmon at two 15-pen sites northwest of Long Porcupine Island and northeast of Bald Rock Ledge in Frenchman Bay. The Norwegian-backed company is expected to file by month’s end its wastewater discharge permit application to discharge a total of 4 billion gallons daily with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The company is proposing to release 2 billion gallons daily (23,775 gallons per second) at each of the 15-pen sites.

Sent to the U.S. Army Corps’ Senior Project Manager and Team Leader Jay Clement in Augusta, Frenchman Bay Conservancy’s May 17 letter also was signed by Hancock’s Crabtree Neck Land Trust, the Downeast Salmon Federation, the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries in Stonington, Friends of Acadia, Friends of Frenchman Bay, Friends of Eastern Bay, Friends of Schoodic Peninsula as well as Springtide Seaweed LLC, Frenchman Bay Oyster Co. owner Graham Platner, Maine Coast Sea Vegetables proprietors Shep and Seraphina Erhart, Hancock fishermen Zach and Tyler Piper, MDI Biological Laboratory senior scientist Jane Disney and College of the Atlantic biologist Chris Peterson.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

Can lab-grown lobster compete with Maine’s most lucrative catch?

May 17, 2021 — With over 1,200 miles between Cultured Decadence’s headquarters in Wisconsin and the Maine coast, its foray into the lobster game may seem an unlikely choice.

But founders John Pattison and Ian Johnson don’t actually need the rocky coast or even the ocean for what they hope will become the latest crustacean sensation. All they need is a laboratory.

Cultured Decadence is a cellular agriculture startup using cell culture and tissue engineering to create shellfish products directly from cells – basically, lab-grown lobster. Labster, if you will.

The product is still a few years away from hitting store shelves, and its potential impact on Maine’s lobster fishery remains unclear. Cultured lobster is being developed at a time when plant-based meat alternatives already have become major players in the food industry, and some experts say cultured meats will comprise a large portion of the market by midcentury.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Program will train aquaculture workforce in Maine as industry grows

May 12, 2021 — Seafood farms popping up all along the coast have Maine’s aquaculture industry primed for a boom and two organizations in the state are preparing to meet its workforce needs with a first-of-its-kind training program.

The Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center and Washington County Community College received a $500,000 grant to be paid out over three years from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture to develop an aquaculture-specific training program at the college.

The program will aim to meet the growing need for tech-savvy, skilled workers in four of the largest aquaculture subsets: land-based recirculating aquaculture, marine fin-fish aquaculture, cold-water coastal shellfish aquaculture and marine macroalgae aquaculture. Students will graduate with either a workforce training certificate or an associate’s degree.

“Aquaculture is the fastest-growing form of agriculture in the U.S.,” said Chris Davis, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Northern Gulf of Maine Scallop Management Area Closes For the Season

May 10, 2021 — The Northern Gulf of Maine Scallop Management Area closed on Thursday after NOAA determined that 100% of the 2021 default total allowable catch for the area will be taken. As of May 6, no scallop vessel fishing under federal scallop regulations is allowed to fish for, possess, or land scallops in the area until March 31, 2022.

According to NOAA, Framework Adjustment 33 is currently under review and will implement a 2021 NGOM LAGC TAC of 119,222 lbs. when finalized. The agency explained that because Framework Adjustment 32 default TAC will be harvested by May 6, the closure is required before Framework Adjustment 33 can be finalized.

Read the full story at Seafood News

MAINE: Years of tight herring quotas have lobstermen using new baits

May 10, 2021 — For decades, lobstermen have filled their bait bags with Atlantic herring, the small fish that plays a tremendous role in the food chain and is the preferred bait of Maine’s biggest fishery.   

“We’ve trained and raised our lobsters on it,” said James Hanscom, a Bar Harbor-based lobstermen who also sells bait. “It’s definitely the bait of choice.”  

But as quotas for Atlantic herring have tightened over the years, lobstermen and bait dealers have been forced to look elsewhere for other baits to lure in lobsters.  

Over the course of the last few years, the quotas on herring have been cut by 88 percent and the quota will drop again next year as the herring stock has been deemed overfished.   

“The demand is high, but the supply just isn’t there,” said Brittany Willis, a partner and general manager of JBR Maine, a wholesale bait and lobster company with locations in Gouldsboro and Winter Harbor.  

The problem is, while it’s considered overfished, Atlantic herring isn’t currently being overfished, leaving officials scratching their heads on what’s preventing the species from thriving.   

For the past seven or eight years, there’s been little to no “recruitment,” or new baby herring, in the fishery, said Emily Gilbert, who supervises the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s herring team.   

Without young herring being added to the mix, the stock hasn’t been able to recover.  

Herring are found on the Atlantic coast from Canada to Virginia. Catch in the U.S. peaked in 1986 around 1.05 billion pounds. By the 2000s, landings held stable at about 250 million pounds but since dropped to 39 million pounds in 2019.   

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

MAINE: Fishermen back proposed offshore wind ban

May 10, 2021 — Fishermen from across the state gave their support last week to a local legislator’s bill that would ban the development of offshore wind projects in the Gulf of Maine.

If passed, the bill would prohibit state officials from permitting or approving offshore wind projects along the coast.

The bill, LD 101, was introduced by Rep. William “Billy Bob” Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) who is also a commercial fisherman.

“It is time to put a permanent halt to offshore wind development,” Faulkingham said during a hearing with the Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee.

Dozens of fishermen submitted testimony and felt that any development of wind turbines off the coast would pose a threat to the livelihoods of lobstermen.

Faulkingham also argued that offshore wind would put marine life at risk, provide poor energy rates and hurt the oceans and Maine’s tourism industry.

“If at some point in the future there’s strong and convincing evidence that this energy would be a worthwhile endeavor to the benefit of the people of Maine, then we could have that debate then,” he said. “But right now this is a science project proposing to turn the Gulf of Maine, her marine life sea mammals (and) ocean bottom into a test tube for the benefit of foreign corporations.”

The ban would only apply to state waters, according to Faulkingham.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander