Saving Seafood

Ropeless Fishing Shows Promise, But There’s a Catch: Financial, Safety, Technology Challenges

February 12, 2021 — The lobster industry could be getting a new sound.

On a cold January morning, a lobster trap sitting on a table at a manufacturing facility in Wareham is rhythmically beeping. Two final beeps have a special meaning.

“So that’s the release confirmation,” explained Rob Morris, who sells acoustic release systems for the underwater technology company EdgeTech.

With this technology, lobstermen can send the acoustic signal from a phone app to a trap on the ocean floor. The signal triggers an airbag, with a line attached, to launch up to the surface, allowing the traps to be hauled in. These “ropeless” systems do away with the high number of vertical lines that run from buoys on the surface down to traps on the ocean floor.

Looking at this table, Morris sees the future of the fishery – and many conservationists share that hope. Ropeless fishing eliminates vertical lines in the water column that are blamed for around half of all reported North Atlantic right whale deaths.

But experts say the transition to ropeless is moving too slowly. By the time working gear can get into the boats of thousands of lobstermen across New England, it may be too late to save critically endangered right whales.

It’s being held up by technical, regulatory, and financial factors.

Read the full story at WGBH

MAINE: Local fisherman tests the waters with oyster venture

February 10, 2021 — Chris Kane’s small oyster farm in Western Bay is off to a successful start. A local lobster fisherman for the last 15 years, Kane was recently granted a limited purpose aquaculture license to try his hand at growing the tasty bivalve.

Farming oysters not only can help supply fresh products to meet market demand but can also help keep the waters and the surrounding environment clean. Oysters eat naturally occurring plankton and algae and an adult oyster can also filter as much as 50 gallons of water a day.

“Since people started farming oysters, I have heard that there are now wild growing populations of oysters, which is good,” said Kane.

Last year, Kane applied for a limited purpose aquaculture (LPA) license from the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) to grow oysters. LPAs differ from a standard aquaculture lease in that their term is only for one year and the cultivation space is limited to up to 400 square feet. It didn’t take long for the DMR to approve Kane for a LPA license.

“You have to do the paperwork and you can’t just apply to put one anywhere,” said Kane, adding that “it took me a while to really pick a good site out.”

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Maine Startup Aims To Pull Carbon Out Of The Atmosphere By Growing — And Then Sinking — Kelp Farms

February 10, 2021 — The fight against climate change has long focused on scaling back humanity’s emissions of planet-warming carbon-dioxide. But a movement is growing to think bigger and find ways to actually pull existing CO2 out of the air and lock it up somewhere safe.

One Maine startup has an innovative approach that’s drawing attention from scientists and investors: grow massive amounts of seaweed and then bury it at the bottom of the deepest sea, where it will sequester carbon for thousands of years.

On a fishing boat a few miles out in the Gulf of Maine, Capt. Rob Odlin and Adam Rich are tossing buoys into the water. Each is tethered to a rope entwined with tiny seeds of kelp, a fast-growing seaweed.

“We’re just fishing for carbon now, and kelp’s the net,” Odlin says.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Entrepreneurs are finding new ways to use fish waste at a Maine co-working space

February 10, 2021 — Patrick Breeding and his partner developed a cream to fight dry skin from lobster waste out of necessity.

He and girlfriend Amber Boutiette were bioengineering graduate students at the University of Maine studying ways to use lobster byproducts, the parts that are tossed away. At the same time Boutiette was unable to find a product that relieved her eczema, a condition that makes skin red and itchy.

The duo discovered a protein in a lobster circulatory fluid that helps the crustacean heal wounds, developed the cream and last November formed Marin Skincare to sell it. The initial batch of the cream sold out in two months, Breeding said.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

$400K in federal funds may help open new markets for Maine aquaculture

February 9, 2021 — A research project looking at new and underserved markets for Maine’s aquaculture industry has been awarded $400,499 in federal funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant program.

The award, announced Friday, will go to the Maine Sea Grant, according to a news release.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a tremendous negative impact on all seafood producers,” said Sebastian Belle, the association’s executive director. “The work that will be done in this project will be critical in helping our members adapt to and recover from the challenges they are facing.”

The award will support the research of potential new and underserved markets for Maine-grown aquaculture products, and will fund efforts to seek partnerships between aquaculture and wild capture supply chains.

“Maine’s aquaculture industry has undergone significant growth and diversification in recent years, creating new jobs and economic opportunities in our state,” U.S. Sens. Angus King, I-Maine, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a joint statement.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Fresh mesh: Technology gives the ancient fishing technique of seining a total overhaul

February 5, 2021 — While the earliest incarnations of trawling can be traced back to the 1700s, the earliest versions of seine fishing are depicted on Egyptian tombs from 5,000 years ago. With advances in net technology, sensors and haulers, there is nothing primitive in the way seiners operate today.

Barry Matthews comes from a purse seining family on Canada’s Campobello Island, just across the international bridge from Lubec, Maine.

“Ivan (Matthews) practically invented it,” says Matthews, who launched his boat, the Ocean Venture, six years ago and bought a powerful seine skiff built in Seattle.

Things have changed since Ivan’s day. “I buy twine in bales from another country,” says Matthews. “They come in 50-fathom sections, and we put them together. The biggest we use is 400 fathom, 200 meshes deep, about 60 fathom. They’re a lot bigger than what we used to use. Used to be 6 pounds per fathom, now it’s 20-25 per fathom. We’re using 3/4-inch cable.”

Matthews talks about the greater weight of the nylon seines he hauls aboard, but Menon “Gopa” Gopakumar, of the India-based fiber producer Garware Technical Fibres, is excited about new fibers for nets.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

MAINE: Salmon farm sparks opposition

February 4, 2021 — Opposition is mounting to a large-scale salmon farm in Frenchman Bay before the project’s backers have formally submitted an application to locate roughly 30 net pens at two sites north of Bald Rock and the Hop islands.

In a related move, a citizens group is calling for the Maine Department of Marine Resources to toughen its rules regarding aquaculture leases that range widely from mussel to oyster cultivation in coastal Maine. Applications for these enterprises have jumped threefold in just five years.

Early this week, American Aquafarms’ President and CEO Mikael Roenes still had not filed a DMR application for his company’s proposed ocean farm to raise Atlantic salmon and possibly cod in the northern-northwestern section of Frenchman Bay.

From Norway’s southern coastal town of Grimstad, Roenes early last fall outlined his plan to raise the fish in floating net pens, fitted with polymer-membrane cloth sacks in which fish waste (feces and feed) collects at the bottom. The waste is pumped to and passes through an attached filtration unit before being discharged at sufficient depth into the sea.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

Gathering data will help manage our coastal resources

February 4, 2021 — Resource management is a tricky thing. That’s especially true in the marine environment where things are so interconnected. Nutrients literally float from one area to the next and the larvae of spawning sea creatures similarly drift from place to place. Marine species do not abide by borders but are instead are a part of a larger ecosystem where things literally flow from one location to another.

For this reason, there are few marine species that are managed at a municipal level. Some, like lobster, are managed by the state – by Maine’s Department of Marine Resources. The DMR has jurisdiction over subtidal waters (those below mean low water) throughout the state. Others, like stripers, are managed by interstate groups like the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Council. And others, like cod and haddock, are managed regionally by bodies like the New England Fisheries Management Council. They have jurisdiction over waters beyond three miles from shore classified as federal water.

So, what does that leave for the municipalities? That’s a seemingly tiny sliver of intertidal coast. But, this sliver often isn’t tiny at all. It is shallow and broad and supports a valuable array of shellfish species like soft shell, hard shell, and razor clams. While these species do move around as larvae, they are more likely to stay put than other more mobile creatures. For that reason, these are the resources that each town is in charge of managing under a system called co-management. This means that towns work with the DMR who helps to classify areas that are safe for harvesting in terms of water quality and also helps with enforcing statewide regulations.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Pause new offshore wind projects to protect fishing industry, Maine Gov. Mills says

February 3, 2021 — As Maine pursues the nation’s first offshore wind research array in federal waters, Gov. Janet Mills is trying to ease the concerns of the state’s commercial fishing industry.

In a letter to commercial fishermen, Mills said she will ask the state Legislature for a 10-year moratorium on the development of new offshore wind projects in waters managed by the state.

Mills said the efforts are aimed at protecting fishing and recreational opportunities within the three miles of the state’s coastline, which she said are more heavily fished than federal waters.

“Offshore wind is a significant clean energy and economic opportunity for Maine, which we will pursue responsibly, transparently and in consultation with our fishing and maritime industries,” Mills said in a statement. “By focusing on floating offshore technology deep in the Gulf of Maine where the wind is strongest, we will protect Maine’s maritime heritage and coastal economy while being out front in this new competitive industry.”

Read the full story at The Center Square

Maine man charged with false distress call to Coast Guard

February 1, 2021 — A Maine man is charged with making a false distress call to the Coast Guard on Dec. 3, 10 days after four fishermen, including Michael Porper of Gloucester, were lost at sea when the fishing vessel Emmy Rose sank off Cape Cod.

Nathan Libby of Rockland, Maine is charged with making the mayday call to the Coast Guard around 6:30 a.m. on Dec. 3 via VHF-FM radio channel 16.

The caller over several minutes described a 42-foot fishing vessel and its three-man crew, saying the boat was taking on water off Spruceheads, Maine, the rudder was broken and the dewatering pumps could not keep up with flooding.

Based on the call, the Coast Guard began a search that spanned more than five hours, which included the use of a Coast Guard rescue crews from Rockland, Maine, a Maine Marine Patrol vessel, and a helicopter from Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times