Saving Seafood

BANGOR DAILY NEWS: Trump administration’s deal to eliminate EU lobster tariffs a good haul for Maine

September 8, 2020 — It’s a good bet that Maine lobstermen have a deeper and more immediate sense of how policies impact their day-to-day work than politicians or pundits. But what are we to make of that impact when the lobstermen themselves can’t seem to agree on it?

On Aug. 25, Swan’s Island lobsterman Jason Joyce spoke at the Republican National Convention and explained why he is voting for President Donald Trump this November, saying that Trump has “followed through on his promises” to the Maine lobster industry.

Joyce highlighted the recent announcement that the Trump administration has negotiated an agreement with the European Union to drop its 8 percent tariff on live U.S. lobster imports and upwards of 20 percent tariff on frozen products for the next 5 years, with the potential of zeroing the tariffs out permanently. Joyce called it “great news for Maine’s lobstermen and women,” and it is.

Read the full opinion piece at the Bangor Daily News

MAINE: New England clammers press through pandemic

September 8, 2020 — For New England’s vanishing commercial clam harvesters, the coronavirus pandemic represents only the most recent in a string of setbacks that have held down the centuries-old industry.

The clamdiggers, who pull softshell clams for use in chowders and clambakes from tidal muck, have weathered an aging workforce, relentless predators that eat shellfish, warming waters and fickle markets. This summer’s pandemic has held back few of the clamdiggers from plying their trade in the coastal clam flats that have fed their customers for generations, members of the industry said.

Buyers have rewarded the clammers with prices that have held up better than many sectors of the beleaguered seafood industry, which has suffered a significant economic hit from the pandemic. But some clammers said the disruption wrought by the pandemic has still created yet another difficulty to deal with.

“If they shut down the borders now, like they did before, we’d be in some big trouble. We rely on shipping,” said Wendell Cressey, a Harpswell clammer. “Not only do we need the tourists to be able to come here and visit, but we need to be able to ship them around the country.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Portland Press Herald

Maine’s seafood industry in line for CARES Act relief

September 8, 2020 — Maine’s seafood industry could get a $20 million boost this fall through funds made available under the federal CARES Act.

Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher said state and federal officials are nearing final agreement on exactly how to allocate the funds.

Maine Public reports that individual fishing license holders and shellfish growers who qualify will get the same lump-sum payment, no matter how large or small the operation.

The funds will go to seafood-sector businesses that lost at least 35% of their revenues compared with the same period in previous years.

Read the full story at The Hour

Maine hits snag in effort to distribute pandemic aid to seafood industry

September 4, 2020 — Maine’s plan to distribute the $20 million in COVID-19 relief earmarked for the state’s seafood industry is facing unexpected opposition from federal regulators who say individual recipients, not the fishery as a whole, must demonstrate a 35 percent revenue loss this spring before they can qualify for pandemic assistance.

All of the active licensed fishermen, aquaculturists and dealers in almost all of Maine’s commercial fisheries would have been eligible to receive a share of the state bailout fund under the fishery-by-fishery certification strategy proposed by the Maine Department of Marine Resources in July, Commissioner Pat Keliher said.

“However, later in our conversations, we were told that the 35 percent impact must be demonstrated at the level of the individual license holder,” Keliher said in an email to commercial fishermen on Thursday. “For some of you, that might be easy. Others may find it harder.”

The agency didn’t respond Thursday to questions about how many license holders could be ineligible using individual certification.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

New bureaucratic snags delay dispersal of $20M in pandemic relief to Maine’s seafood industry

September 4, 2020 — Federal regulators have disputed Maine’s plan to distribute $20 million in coronavirus relief to the state seafood industry by saying that individual recipients, not the fishery as a whole, must demonstrate a 35 percent revenue loss this past spring before they can qualify for assistance, officials said Thursday.

Maine Commissioner of Marine Resources Patrick Keliher had said on Tuesday that after some frustrating delays, state and federal officials were nearing agreement on exactly how to allocate the funds, by the end of October, from the federal CARES Act.

But newly-announced regulations are delaying the dispersal of funds, he said.

Maine has been in line to get $20 million, the fifth-highest amount of money out of the 31 states to receive fishing-industry bailout funding, since the allocation was first announced in May, but disputes over how to distribute the funds have slowed its dispersal.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Maine lobster industry nets $2 million for research

September 3, 2020 — For the second straight year, $2 million has been awarded for lobster research in the Gulf of Maine. Four of the nine NOAA Sea Grant projects will be conducted by Maine organizations, totaling $559,181 in funding for Maine-based research projects.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, announced the Sea Grant American Lobster Initiative funding on Thursday, saying, “This critical federal funding will build on their efforts to support the health of Maine’s lobster fishery and help ensure its continued success.”

The $2 million will support Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank American lobster research priorities, which is aimed at understanding how environmental changes are affecting American lobster in the Gulf of Maine.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

MAINE: Portland Fish Exchange looks to shore up its future with aquaculture

September 3, 2020 — The Portland Fish Exchange is launching a new oyster sorting and bagging operation inside its cold, cavernous auction warehouse in hopes of growing the state’s aquaculture economy and diversifying a business plan that’s taken a beating since local ground fish landings collapsed.

On Wednesday, the Exchange received the first of what it hopes will be many oyster deliveries. Two employees measured, sorted, bagged and tagged five 100-count bags of Eastern oysters harvested by Running Tide, a two-year-old aquaculture company that operates a hatchery in Harpswell and grows oysters, clams and scallops at three coastal Maine locations.

“Ground fish landings have been going down, down, down for years,” said Bert Jongerden, the longtime general manager of the exchange. “The numbers told us we had to find something else. So we thought, let’s do for aquaculture what we’ve done for ground fishermen. Give them the shoreside support they need to focus on harvesting instead of chasing down sales.”

The pearly white shelled oysters, which measure from 2 ½ inches to 5 inches from hinge to outer shell fan, have rounded edges created from being tumbled, or stirred, to avoid being chipped when shucked, and deep pockets that hint at the plump meat inside. This first harvest is bound for The Shop, a raw bar on Washington Avenue, to be served up on Friday.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

‘Amazing’ halibut, one of the largest fish in the Gulf of Maine, are making a comeback

September 3, 2020 — Halibut are one of the largest fish in the Gulf of Maine, second only to bluefin tuna, swordfish and large sharks. Historically they were a mainstay of the fishing industry along with cod.

According to Julia Beaty in “A History of the Atlantic Halibut Fishery in Downeast Maine,” halibut were regularly discarded as a trash fish until the late 1800s when New Englanders began icing their catch and selling fresh fish instead of salting them. Schooners began leaving from New England ports to hunt these huge fish with gangs of baited hooks. This caused a massive overfishing and subsequent decline of their numbers by the early 1900s. The numbers declined so drastically in the late 19th century that they are just now rebounding.

The National Marine Fishery Service began regulating the halibut fishery in the 1990s and there is a one fish per trip per boat limit on catch. This has been a boon to their rebound.

This past spring while fishing for haddock my husband, David, caught four huge halibut. They ranged in size from 40 to 60 pounds. In the past, he has caught one or two a year which were large enough to be legal to keep. The current minimum size is 41 inches. My husband caught two halibut near Jeffrey’s ledge in the mid-1990s which weighed 120 to 140 pounds. These were the largest ones he has caught. The record halibut was caught in 1917 and weighed 700 pounds! Normally they range in size from a foot and a half to 6 feet and weigh a few pounds to 150 pounds. I have not found anything written in literature about this, but David has noticed a strange thing about halibut, they seem to swim in pairs. He has found that if he catches one halibut in an area, he can go back to the same spot the next day and almost always catch a second one.

Read the full story at SeaCoast Online

Reminder: Atlantic Herring Fishery Restrictions in Management Area 1A

September 2, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries reminds participants in the Atlantic herring fishery that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts implement fishery restrictions, including landing limits, landing days, and spawning closures, on herring landed from herring management area 1A.

Details of these fishery restrictions can be found on the Commission’s Atlantic herring webpage.

U.S. trade investigation to study lobster tariffs

September 2, 2020 — The U.S. International Trade Commission has embarked on an investigation into “possible negative effects” on the American lobster industry from Canada’s trade deal with the European Union.

The commission said it will investigate the overall economic impact of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement on the volume of U.S. exports of lobster to the European Union and the United Kingdom.

That trade deal between Canada and the EU removed all tariffs on imported Canadian lobsters and gave Canada’s lobster suppliers a clear advantage in the EU market, where U.S. suppliers faced an 8% tariff on their lobsters.

Lobster fishing is based mostly in New England and is one of the region’s the most lucrative marine industries. Massachusetts is the biggest exporter of lobster, behind Maine. Gloucester is the Bay State’s top port when it comes to lobster landings, while Rockport is in the top five.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times