Saving Seafood

Statement From Glenn Cooke Commending President Donald Trump On His Executive Order That Will Improve US Aquaculture Competitiveness and Economic Growth

May 8, 2020 — The following was released by Glenn Cooke, CEO of Cooke Seafood:

Glenn Cooke, CEO of the Cooke family of companies, provided the following statement after President Donald Trump signed the first ever Executive Order that includes provisions to improve U.S. aquaculture competitiveness and economic growth on Thursday.

“I am very pleased President Trump has recognized that domestic farmed production of aquaculture seafood is vital to help correct the severe trade imbalance and strengthen local food security. This should be viewed as a call to State and local governments that the country is in dire need of domestically produced seafood protein and that they should find ways to support, promote, and expand this essential food sector as other countries have.

As a family company, with marine fish farming operations in Maine and Washington and shellfish farming in North Carolina, and wild fisheries in other states including Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alaska, we are extremely proud of the hard work and dedication that our people put in every day to produce healthy seafood meals for families across the USA. Cooke Aquaculture USA in Maine was very proud to have been chosen as the supplier of sustainably farmed Atlantic salmon for the President’s 2017 inauguration. Our strong operations have shown that aquaculture presents a tremendous opportunity to create thousands of jobs and build vibrant working waterfronts co-existing with traditional fisheries in rural coastal communities.

President Trump and his Executive Agencies are to be commended for their leadership to address the regulatory challenges with establishing seafood farms by revising the National Aquaculture Development Plan and implementing a Nationwide Permit authorizing finfish, seaweed or multi-trophic culture in federal marine waters.”

Read the full release here

Lobstering group wants to raise $500,000 for legal defense fund

May 7, 2020 — The Maine Lobstermen’s Association has launched a campaign to raise $500,000 to fund its legal efforts to protect the state’s most valuable fishery from the consequences of a recent federal court ruling that calls for more government protections for the endangered right whale.

Last month, a federal judge found the National Marine Fisheries Service had violated the U.S. Endangered Species Act by its authorization of the U.S. lobster industry – including Maine’s $485 million-a-year fishery – because it failed to report the fishery’s harmful impacts on the endangered right whale.

“This case could lead to closure of the world’s most sustainable fishery,” said executive director Patrice McCarron, whose association is the oldest and biggest lobstering group in Maine. “We cannot let that happen. Right whales are not dying in Maine lobster gear.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Maine Lobstermen’s Association Asks For Public Donations To Help ‘Save’ The Industry

May 7, 2020 — The Maine Lobstermen’s Association is calling for a half-million dollars in public donations to help it “save” the state’s lobster industry from potential extinction.

The MLA says the money would go to its legal defense of the fishery in a federal court case brought by conservationists who want better protections of the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

The whales can be injured or killed by entanglement with rope used to tend trap-pot gear, such as lobster traps. But the MLA’s Executive Director Patrice McCarron says there is no proof that the whales are actually interacting with traps set by the Maine fleet.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Lobstermen launch campaign to save Maine industry; new threats on the horizon

May 6, 2020 — The Maine Lobstermen’s Association is fighting a federal ruling that threatens the demise of the fleet, according to Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.

In early April, Judge James Boasberg of the Federal District Court for Washington, D.C., ruled that NMFS violated the ESA in permitting the lobster fishery. The judge’s opinion states that “Congress enacted the ESA in 1973 to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost.”

“The MLA has launched a campaign to raise $500,000 to save Maine’s lobster industry,” McCarron said. The MLA is an intervenor in the court case and is the only organization in Maine that has been granted standing to participate in the case.

Whale entanglement data collected by NMFS show that no right whale deaths or serious injuries have ever been documented in Maine lobster gear. This is in stark contrast to the death of 10 right whales in Canada last year.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

MAINE: Lobstermen help schools amidst pandemic crisis

May 5, 2020 — When the coronavirus closed Maine schools, thousands of students who already qualified for free and reduced cost in-school meals faced the risk of hunger. With many parents suddenly out of work, many more students faced serious food insecurity.

At the same time, most Maine lobstermen found that there was no market for their catch. At one point, late in March and early in April, dealers were telling the lobstermen not to fish. In some places, the boat price for lobsters dropped as low as $1 per pound and many lobstermen began peddling their landings from the back of pickup trucks parked along the side of the road or in empty parking lots.

On Deer Isle, those unhappy circumstances sparked a move to turn lemons into lemonade or, more exactly, to turn unsaleable lobsters into lobster rolls for distribution to students from School Union 76, which includes Deer Isle/Stonington, Brooklin and Sedgwick.

According to Carla Guenther, senior scientist at the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, the idea originated with Deer Isle lobsterman Brent Oliver and his wife, Sue, while they, Guenther and her husband, lobsterman Dominic Zanke, were off island for a vacation at the beginning of March.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Maine fishing industry hopes for more COVID-19 relief money

May 5, 2020 — It’s been more than a month since President Donald Trump put aside $300 million in relief money for the fishing industry, and Maine delegates have sent several letters urging the president to quickly release that money.

With restaurants and trade opportunities limited, the head of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association says the current funding isn’t enough to cover all the expenses Maine fishermen face.

“In terms of lobster fishing we have a lot of expenses like fuel and bait,” Turner Family Lobster Company Owner Travis Turner said.

Travis Turner has lobstering in his blood, having grown up fishing with his father. He says it’s a job that’s especially tough to navigate through this pandemic.

Read the full story at WGME

Fishermen getting desperate as $300 million federal bailout stalls

May 4, 2020 — It has been more than a month since President Trump agreed to set aside $300 million in COVID-19 bailout money to help the beleaguered U.S. fishing industry, but regulators have yet to say who is eligible for financial rescue, much less distribute any of the money.

Maine fishermen are growing desperate, and lawmakers impatient, for the U.S. Department of Commerce to announce who qualifies for the bailout, how much money they can get, and how it can be spent. They want the president to release the $300 million immediately.

“With each day that passes absent this assistance, the frustration and economic damage mount,” said U.S. Sen. Susan Collins. “These disruptions have harmed the entire seafood supply chain … and the countless Maine communities whose cultures and economies are anchored by fisheries.”

The Commerce Department’s fisheries division refers reporters asking about the bailout delay to its website, which has remained virtually unchanged since March 27, the date that Trump signed the $2.2 trillion CARES Act that includes the seafood industry bailout into law.

Read the full story at the CentralMaine.com

Senator Collins Urges President to Swiftly Release $300 Million to Support Fishing Industry During COVID-19 Pandemic

April 30, 2020 — The following was released by The Office of Senator Susan Collins (R-ME):

U.S. Senator Susan Collins raised the concerns of Maine’s seafood industry directly to President Donald Trump today, urging him to quickly release the $300 million for assistance to fishermen and businesses along the seafood supply chain that was included in the CARES Act.  As a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, Senator Collins helped to secure this critical relief provision in the final legislation.

“When you signed the CARES Act into law on March 27, Maine fishermen and the diverse supply chain businesses with which they work were encouraged by the inclusion of $300 million in assistance specifically for their sector,” Senator Collins wrote to President Trump.  “I worked with a bipartisan group of Senate colleagues to secure this crucial funding. It has been more than a month since you signed the bill into law, and to date none of these funds have been disbursed to those who desperately need this support. With each day that passes absent this assistance, the frustration and economic damage mount.”

“The Maine seafood industry and those who work within it are defined by resilience,” Senator Collins continued.  “I am confident that this sector will demonstrate its resilience once again and emerge strong from this crisis – but these fishermen and businesses need immediate access to the help that Congress rightfully provided them in the CARES Act. I urge you to direct the Department of Commerce to release this much-needed assistance as soon as possible.”

Maine’s fishing industry has been under significant strain due to the closure of restaurants and the disruptions to trade resulting from COVID-19.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has estimated that nearly 70 percent of all seafood eaten in the U.S. is consumed in food service establishments. Senator Collins previously wrote to Commerce Secretary Ross, calling on him to release this $300 million in funding.

Click HERE to read Senator Collins’ letter to President Trump.

CAROL SMITH: Maine lobstermen are not a threat to right whales

April 27, 2020 — U.S. District Court Judge James Boasburg’s recent ruling is the latest blow to Maine’s billion-dollar industry. Boasburg’s decision that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration violated the Endangered Species Act by authorizing the American lobster fishery despite its potential to harm the North Atlantic right whale population comes on the heels of new regulations imposed on fishermen last year. With many fishermen just starting to mark their fishing gear according to the new regulations, Boasburg’s ruling has left them in a state of uncertainty. Will this be the end of the industry as they know it?

Maine’s lobster industry provides an estimated 5,500 jobs throughout the state, according to a study conducted by Colby College and Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association in 2016. In a state with a population of 1.3 million, 5,500 jobs may seem expendable. However, the fishermen themselves are often the main source of income for their households. In Washington County, where unemployment is the highest in the state, households dependent on lobster fishermen rely on the fishery for an average of 77 percent of household income, according to a 2012 study by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. The death of the fishery would throw many into poverty, and others would be forced to leave their coastal homes to find work.

To add insult to injury, Boasburg’s ruling represents a mere stripe in a pattern of striking injustice. Since June 2017, right whale mortalities have been on the rise, a pattern that has been declared an Unusual Mortality Event by NOAA. However, according to current statistics from NOAA Fisheries, 21 of the 30 dead stranded whales for the UME were found in Canada. Of the nine found in the U.S., only five were confirmed or suspected of entanglement, and not a single one was found in Maine waters. Furthermore, NOAA has only documented Maine lobster gear on three live entangled whales, most recently in 2004. None has been documented on a dead right whale.

Read the full opinion piece at the Bangor Daily News

Right whales: Lawsuit on protections could last for months

April 27, 2020 — A judge’s ruling that the federal government didn’t take adequate steps to protect endangered whales will probably result in another monthslong court battle, parties to the lawsuit said.

Environmental groups sued the U.S. government with a claim that regulators’ failure to protect the North Atlantic right whale from harm was a violation of the Endangered Species Act, and U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled April 9 that they were right. The right whales number only about 400 and are in the midst of a worrisome decline in population.

The government, environmentalists and industry members who are involved in the lawsuit must still return to court to determine a remedy. Boasberg ruled that the risk posed to the whales by the lobster fishery was too great to be sustainable, and that a remedy could ultimately result in new restrictions on lobster fishing.

The whales are vulnerable to lethal entanglement in lobster fishing gear.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News