Saving Seafood

MAINE: Local partnership helps Maine schools serve up healthier meals

March 13, 2025 — Thanks to the partnership between Hannaford Supermarkets and the nonprofit Full Plates Full Potential,  an effort is being made to get more students in Maine healthier, locally sourced meals at school. The initiative aims to replace heavily processed foods with fresh food while helping schools meet new federal nutrition guidelines designed to improve student health.

At Saccarappa Elementary School in Westbrook, which has already adopted these practices, lunchtime looks slightly different. On the menu: Gulf of Maine fish sticks with pineapple salsa—made from scratch.

Mary Emerson, nutrition director for Westbrook Public Schools, says the shift toward fresh food is a priority.

“We want high-quality, good food that kids enjoy eating that’s nourishing for them,” Emerson said. “Kids have to be well fed in order to learn. So, that’s our commitment to our students.”

Full Plates Full Potential is helping schools transition away from processed meals by incorporating more fresh, locally sourced ingredients into their lunch programs. The effort is an alternative way to comply with new federal nutrition standards that limit salt and added sugar in school meals.

Read the full article at News Center Maine

MAINE: A family oyster farm is caught in a bitter fight over Maine’s waters

March 10, 2025 — Business grew quickly after Dan Devereaux and Doug Niven started their oyster farm in Brunswick a decade ago.

They sold 10,000 oysters in their first season. Three years later, they were growing 25,000 a year to sell at the local farmers market, with so much demand they aimed to grow them by the millions in the coming years.

Today, Mere Point Oyster Co. employs 10 people year-round and 10 more in the summer, shipping its products to high-end, award-winning restaurants.

The farm has become a shining example of what Maine’s aquaculture industry says it can do for the state. With approval from state regulators, the family-run business has expanded and provided new economic opportunities, demonstrating what it says is a responsible alternative way to sustainably raise food on Maine’s coast.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Maine Sea Grant regains funding after industry, congressional pushback

March 6, 2025 — The Maine Sea Grant program, which saw its funding pulled by the U.S. federal government, has regained its funding after an outcry from the industry and the state’s congressional delegation.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump killed the funding for Maine Sea Grant – a partnership between the federal government and the U.S. state of Maine overseen by the University of Maine system – on 28 February. According to the university, in 2023, the program converted USD 1.5 million (EUR 1.4 million) in federal funding into USD 23.5 million (EUR 21.7 million) in economic benefits for the state.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Bid to protect lobstering by extending Maine’s maritime jurisdiction could be unconstitutional

March 6, 2025 — Previous attempts to extend Maine’s jurisdiction over coastal waters faced legal hurdles, but one lawmaker is trying again.

Two bills from Sen. Joseph Martin (R-Oxford) that seek to assert state sovereignty and ownership up to 12 and 24 nautical miles off the state’s coast are scheduled to have a public hearing Thursday before the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee.

Just two years ago, similar legislation was brought forward and failed. At the time, both the Maine Department of Marine Resources and the Maine Lobstermen’s Association raised concern that such a change is legally fraught and wouldn’t result in the desired outcome of protecting lobster fisheries, leading both entities to oppose the bill.

The new proposal to extend state sovereignty to 12 nautical miles off the coast, LD 553, includes an emergency preamble that would allow the legislation to take effect immediately upon passage, rather than waiting the typical 90 days after adjournment.

Read the full article at Maine Morning Star

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