Saving Seafood

Concerns of conflict on Maine’s coastline

January 25, 2021 — If you live in Maine, or if you’ve visited, you know it’s a seafood state. Maine lobster is delivered all over the world and continues to be one of the biggest industries in Vacationland.

Although traditional lobstering and commercial fishing dominate our coastline, other industries have expanded their reach over the past few decades.

Aquaculture is the farming of aquatic species for food. In Maine, farmers raise Atlantic salmon, oysters, mussels, seaweed, scallops, clams, trout, and more. The industry is growing, steadily. Executive Director of the Maine Aquaculture Association Sebastian Belle said the aquaculture growth is about 2 percent each year.

This year, the growth will be flat, Belle added. Every sector of the seafood industry has been hit by the COVID-19 due to the impacts the pandemic has had on the restaurant industry.

With aquaculture growing, one organization is concerned about continued conflict on the coastline. Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation (PMFHF) was established two years ago. Executive Director of the non-profit, Cyrstal Canney said her group is fighting to reduce the size and amount of aquaculture leases.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

JACK MERRILL: Offshore and off course

January 22, 2021 — For more than 50 years I have understood that humans need to reduce their fossil fuel consumption, and that green technology, giving us solar, hydro, and wind power, are great alternative options. Through my association with the Lobster Institute in Orono, Maine, I have participated in multiple research projects and backed others with financial support. I’m a supporter of green energy. I believe in the potential of wind energy.

Why then am I appalled by proposed wind platforms off of Maine’s coast? I had to ask myself: Is this simply a “not in my backyard” knee-jerk reaction? The answer is unequivocally no. While wind power itself (with improved technology) makes sense, Maine’s current offshore project, which essentially is doing research to open the door for ownership of hundreds of thousands of ocean acres to private corporations, is foolhardy.

Here are some of the reasons I oppose offshore wind initiatives off the Maine coast:

They threaten the economic health, cultural fabric, and history of Maine.

By removing thousands of acres of bottom from fishing access, these turbines threaten the economic health of Maine’s second largest industry (lobstering alone has an estimated value of a billion dollars a year), at the same time forcing a severe social impact for coastal communities. In fact, they would have a negative impact on all three of Maine’s coastal economic engines.

The uniqueness of Maine’s coast brings millions of tourists every year. A blow to the lobster industry would be a serious blow to that uniqueness. For the summer resident yachting population (large taxpayers) who now enjoy the freedom of today’s open oceans, the hundreds of platforms we are now being told are coming will be an eyesore and pose serious hazards to navigation. We are living in difficult and unusual times. Covid times. Today Maine’s economy is suffering. Where would we have been in 2020 without the fisheries, our summer population, and tourism?

Read the full opinion piece at National Fisherman

MAINE: Fishery group pans proposed salmon farm off Gouldsboro

January 21, 2021 — A Portland-based fishery group is expressing concerns about the proposed site and size of a salmon farm in waters off Gouldsboro.

Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation said the area proposed by American Aquafarms, in Frenchman’s Bay, is heavily fished by lobstermen.

American Aquafarms is an aquaculture startup backed by a Norwegian investor that has under contract the purchase of the 100,000-square-foot Maine Fair Trade Lobster processing facility in Gouldsboro. The company hopes to develop a salmon-farming operation there.

American Aquafarms was launched in Portland last year by Mikael Rones, CEO of Global AS, which is based in Trondheim, Norway. The proposal calls for building a salmon hatchery as well as farming and processing facilities on the site and operate closed deep-water pens for raising fish.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Feds Outline Proposed Gear Rules In Online Meeting With Lobstermen

January 21, 2021 — Federal regulators last night detailed proposed new rules for Maine lobstermen and other commercial fishermen whose gear and trap rope poses a risk to endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Officials at the Greater Atlantic Fisheries Office are proposing to reduce the risk of damaging and deadly entanglements by more than 60 percent. Possible measures include a use of weakened ropes that whales can break through, seasonal area closures and changes in the minimum number of traps required per line.

Several industry stakeholders participating in the online meeting criticized estimates of costs to the industry, and that federal analysis doesn’t account for all the Maine-based boats that harvest in one potential closure area about 20 miles off the state’s coast.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Opposition arises to American Aquafarms’ net-pen proposal in Maine

January 21, 2021 — An group of residents of the U.S. state of Maine have announced their opposition to an American Aquafarms proposal to grow up to 30,000 metric tons (MT) of Atlantic salmon in closed net-pens located near the town of Gouldsboro.

American Aquafarms President and CEO Mikael Rones told SeafoodSource soon after the project’s announcement he chose Maine due to its natural resources and the aquaculture industry’s potential in the state. The company purchased an East Coast lobster facility in Gouldsboro, Maine, in October 2020, with plans to establish a hatchery, fish farm facilities, and a processing plant.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MAINE: Elver quotas to remain flat

January 20, 2021 — The Maine Department of Resources has released its 2021 elver quotas for license holders and they look the same as those in place for 2020, merely updating the years referred to in the 2020 rule.

“2021 allocations for individuals who held a license in 2020 will be the same as their 2019 allocation,” the proposed rule states. Any excess that is not allocated to new license holders will be “distributed evenly to all existing license holders.”

However, what is new is a proposed “tending requirement,” requiring that the contents of fyke nets and Sheldon box traps be removed at least once every 16 hours. The theory behind the proposed rule is that if fishermen regularly check their nets and traps, the risk of bycatch and elver mortality will decrease.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Maine enacts fishing closures to help protect scallops

January 20, 2021 — Maine fishery regulators have begun implementing scallop fishing closures to try to protect the population of the valuable shellfish.

Maine’s winter scallop fishery is one of the most lucrative in the state. The state uses localized fishing closures to allow young scallops to grow to maturity.

The closures that went into effect this week apply to the Englishman Bay, Addison, Isle au Haut and Swans Island areas.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

MAINE: Offshore wind project raises questions for lobstermen

January 19, 2021 — A Gulf of Maine offshore wind power initiative Maine Governor Janet Mills rolled out late last year has raised concern in the lobster fishing community, with Maine Lobstermen’s Association Executive Director Patrice McCarron telling The American that “the area identified by the state of Maine for a potential offshore wind farm is prime fishing bottom for Maine fishermen.”

Mills first announced plans to explore offshore wind development last June, when she signed a bill requiring the Public Utilities Commission to approve a floating offshore wind demonstration project, the first of its kind in the United States. The program, Aqua Ventus, is run through the University of Maine and is funded through $39.9 million in federal grants from the U.S. Department of Energy.

At the same time, Mills formed the Maine Offshore Wind Initiative, a state-based initiative “to identify opportunities for offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine and to determine how Maine can best position itself to benefit from future offshore wind projects,” according to a press release.

More information was released in November. The offshore wind research array would be sited 20 to 40 miles offshore into the Gulf of Maine at a yet-to-be-determined site, where the dozen or fewer floating wind turbines would cover about 16 square miles of ocean. Maine is filing an application with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, as the array will be farther than 3 miles off the coast in federal waters. According to a Nov. 20 press release, the technology for floating arrays is still being developed, and their effect on marine life and fisheries requires further study.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Searchable Maine fishing laws to make compliance easier

January 19, 2021 — The newest version of Maine’s fishing laws includes a searchable database designed to make it easier for anglers to comply with the rules.

The website allows fishermen to search by water body, town, county or fishing code. That allows anglers to search terms such as “fly fishing only” and “open to open water fishing” to get a better idea of where they can fish.

The state website also includes a map-based online tool called FLOAT, which stands for Fishing Laws Online Angling Tool. It allows fishermen to easily find out which of the thousands of inland waterways in Maine have special fishing rules.

Read the full story at the Caledonian Record

MAINE: Sea urchins not making a comeback

January 13, 2021 — Some Maine fishermen are asking themselves whether it is still worth it to endure bitter-cold winds and heavy seas to harvest sea urchins for their prized roe at this point in the 2020-21 season that began Sept. 1.

At the Atlantic Coast Inn, where some out-of-town sea urchin harvesters stay several nights a week while working out of various Hancock County harbors, multiple harvesters reported that the Maine fishery’s further restricted daily catch, fewer allotted fishing days, declining dealer prices, warmer ocean temps and the coronavirus-driven drop in demand for the sea urchins’ gonads — called uni in Japanese — are taking a toll on their livelihood. Working in high winds and frigid temps, incurring fuel costs driving to ports and back home, the experienced divers said it was becoming increasingly less profitable.

At the High Street hotel last week, after workdays beginning before dawn, pickup trucks swung into the parking lot to unload totes packed with green urchins. Hailing from Woolwich to Harrington, the crews trickled in and backed up to East Atlantic Seafood Trading’s truck to sell their day’s catch to Sinuon Chau. Chau is the second generation in his family to run the Scarborough-based company founded by his father, John Chau, in the early 1990s.

Standing in the truck bed, Sinuon Chau surveyed diver Fred Gray’s catch. He cracked open some urchins to eyeball the uni — the reproductive glands — which produce eggs or sperm depending on the gender. Inside the shells, urchins contain two to five gonads. The lobes, ranging in color from pale yellow to dark orange, resemble small tongues in shape and texture. Top-grade uni is plump, firm and a bright golden or yellow-orange hue. That is the quality sought by chefs in the United States and the world’s top consumer, Japan. The delicacy is served raw atop sushi, sashimi or, say, a quail’s egg yolk.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American