Saving Seafood

Fact checking Trump’s claims about the Maine lobster industry

June 25, 2020 — In another tweet rife with falsehoods, President Trump on Wednesday alleged that his predecessor, Barack Obama, “destroyed the lobster and fishing industry in Maine.”

He added: “Now it’s back, bigger and better than anyone ever thought possible. Enjoy your ‘lobstering’ and fishing! Make lots of money!”

The truth is that in 2016, the last year of Obama’s presidency, Maine had a record lobster catch. Not that Obama had anything to do with it, but during his eight years in office, Maine’s lobster catch nearly doubled in landings and value.

The catch rose from less than 70 million pounds in 2008 to more than 132 million pounds in 2016, which remains the record. In the same period, the value of the catch surged from $245 million to a record $540 million.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

Fishermen Hope for Change as the Seafood Industry Faces a Crisis

June 25, 2020 — Earlier this month, President Trump traveled to Maine to announce plans to reopen a vast marine preserve, created by President Obama in 2016, to commercial fishing. While ostensibly aimed at helping New England fishermen catch more fish and expand their businesses, Maine fishermen—and fishermen across the United States—are grappling with a sobering reality that the president’s controversial plan won’t solve: They can’t sell their fish.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, only half of the fish harvested by Maine fishermen in May sold, and prices averaged 18 percent less in comparison to May the prior year. Landings were also down by more than half, at 44,495 pounds, because many fishermen aren’t going out to sea while the restaurants that are their main markets remain shuttered.

“It’s been a difficult slog over the past couple of months,” says Ben Martens, executive director of Maine Coast Fisherman’s Association, emotion rising in his voice. “It’s just really scary right now, with the marketplace and COVID, and thinking about how we protect the fishing heritage.”

For Martens, the president’s visit was a missed opportunity to address the real problems facing Maine fishermen. Very few, he says, even fished in the Northeast Canyon and Seamounts stretch of deep ocean before Obama designated it a marine monument to protect its fragile ecosystem and the sea turtles, mammals, and other life it supports.

Read the full story at Civil Eats

Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative releases “Maine Lobster Buyer’s Guide”

June 24, 2020 — The Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative (MLMC), an industry group aimed at promoting the state’s lobster industry, has released a Maine Lobster Buyer’s Guide, intended for key buyers in the foodservice and retail industries.

The new report, according to MLMC Executive Director Marianne LaCroix, was initially going to be handed out during Seafood Expo North America before COVID-19 forced the event’s cancellation.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

White House pledges support for lobster industry

June 24, 2020 — President Donald Trump today signed an executive order to support the lobster industry, following conversations that started with the roundtable discussion in Maine on June 5.

“It’s a promise made, promise delivered,” said John Horstman, director of media affairs and special assistant to the president.

Though details are still developing, the executive order is expected to give the lobster industry the same assistance farmers received as a result of the retaliatory tariffs coming from China.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

MAINE: Shellfish lab proposed on Gouldsboro shore

June 22, 2020 — A town-owned parcel on Prospect Harbor’s eastern shore is the proposed site for a small shellfish resilience lab.

Baby clams would be raised in ocean-based nursery trays, brought ashore to overwinter in an indoor seawater tank at the facility and used to re-seed local flats come spring.

Endorsed by Gouldsboro selectmen last fall, the clam restoration project is a partnership between the town, Schoodic Institute and local schools. The proposed ¾-acre, shorefront parcel lies in a limited residential area and the lab’s proponents are proposing that the land be rezoned commercial fisheries/maritime to allow the clam cultivation.

The Planning Board will hold a related public hearing tentatively set for Tuesday, July 21, at the town office.

Pending the public hearing and the Planning Board’s consideration of the proposed amendment to the town’s shoreland zoning map, the zoning change could be put on the warrant for the annual Town Meeting, which has yet to be scheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

MAINE: Green Plate Special: Eat more lobster — this is the kind of ask we really like

June 22, 2020 — Maine’s iconic lobster industry has taken its share of lumps in the past year. Stricter 2019 quotas on the herring catch drove bait prices up. A cold 2019 spring meant the bugs molted later than usual, delaying when lobstermen could bring popular soft-shell lobsters (sometimes sold as “new-shell”) to market. On Sept. 1, China raised tariffs on live, American-caught lobster by 10 percent. And throughout the winter, scientists, environmentalists and the courts demanded the lobster fishery change to better protect endangered right whales  (the population hovers at just 400). The overall lobster haul dipped by 16% between 2018 and 2019, although harvesters were buoyed to some extent by higher than normal prices.

Yarmouth resident Rebecca Spear — wife, daughter-in-law and mother of lobster fishermen — explains that when the COVID-19 crisis first hit Maine in March, she didn’t immediately panic over how the pandemic might affect the 2020 income of the lobstermen and boys in her life (her 10-year-old son, Jack, holds a student lobster and crab license). “That’s always the slow season for us,” Spear said.

But as restaurant service in Maine and across the country remains truncated leading into prime lobster-eating season, she is worried now. Selling direct to customers was a good springtime stopgap solution. Spear is grateful that Maine eaters have sought out more locally sourced food as the national food supply has struggled in response to the pandemic. She urges Mainers to continue to buy lobster early and often this summer to help keep the fleet afloat. Here’s my suggestion: buy a few extra, cook them all for dinner, and serve the leftovers with eggs for breakfast.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: MCFA’s Statement on today’s Climate Council Meeting

June 17, 2020 — The following was released by the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association:

“Today, the Energy Working Group proposed the development of offshore wind as a solution to address our state’s energy needs,” said Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association. “The industrialization of the Gulf of Maine, through the development of offshore wind, is something the fishing community is increasingly concerned about. We hope that a real and robust outreach effort to fishermen is undertaken before any decision is made as to how to achieve our state’s goals for carbon reduction.”

Martens added, “Fishermen have been stewards of Maine’s marine environment for generations and they want to be included in discussions that have the potential to impact not just their livelihood but the environment that they love and depend on. Because of the lack of industry representation on the council and because of the poor precedent set by Aqua Ventus, we are worried that once again Maine’s fishermen will be last to be invited to the table.”

ROB MOIR: The Monument Watch and How Trump Took the Bait to Strengthen Protections of Atlantic Ocean Realm

June 16, 2020 — The trap had been set up by boisterous environmental groups arguing with fishermen. Not seeing the forest for the trees, or rather the school for the fish, President Trump stepped squarely into it. He opened the Northeast Canyons and Seamount Marine National Monument to commercial fishing while strengthening protections of the ocean park area.

Deeply unfair, it’s a terrible thing, said the president addressing fishermen in Bangor. A representative of the Maine Lobstermen’s Union said he was “a little disappointed” so much time was spent on a monument that “has nothing to do with Maine.” The monument is 140 miles Southeast of Nantucket. Of greater interest are the millions of dollars lost in lobster exports due to the China tariffs. A hardship they hold Trump responsible for.

Lobstermen sued the government while continuing to work the resource. Just when the window for lobstering by the fourteen vessels was closing, Trump decreed they may continue. He maintained the status quo. The actually taking of fish is directed by the National Marine Fisheries Service with advice from the fishery councils. The quotas for catching fish or lobsters did not change, just the rhetoric.

Trump spared the NE Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument the damage he inflicted on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Here, Trump took away from native American tribal nations, the twin buttes of sacred lands packed with ancestral Pueblo artifacts. He made these lands available, for a price, to cattle, mining, oil and gas drilling. The monument was broken into two parts. Bears Ears National Monument was reduced by 85%, down from 1.35-million acres. Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument was reduced to nearly half the size, down from 1.88-million acres. The resulting monuments now have a combined area of 201,876 acres. This is a reduction of 85% of monument acres.

Read the full opinion piece at Medium

State of Maine: Presidential order lacks public process

June 15, 2020 — President Donald Trump came to Maine last Friday to visit Puritan Medical Products, the Guilford manufacturer producing swabs for COVID-19 tests. The century-old company has a right to be proud. 

They took a traditional Maine resource—wood—and turned it into highly successful products that, like Maine itself, are more practical than glamorous. The humble toothpick, with a touch of mint flavoring added? Genius. And the tongue depressor, familiar to every child when it was time to say “aaah.” 

Puritan added “tipped applicators” to their production line in 1978. They now make 65 different types of swabs, over 12 million per day. They are an accredited medical device manufacturer, perfectly positioned to respond to a critical need in a pandemic.  

Presidential visits are planned in excruciating detail. This one was announced on the Monday prior and on Wednesday, just two days before it took place, the Guilford Town Manager said the town office had not been officially contacted about the visit. Nevertheless, it went off without a hitch.  

If the visit to Puritan was a standard “grip and grin,” albeit without the gripping, the meeting preceding it was anything but. Air Force One landed at the Bangor airport where the president met with Maine fisheries representatives. Typically, the governor hosts a presidential entourage. This time it was the former governor, Paul LePage, who did the honors. Current Governor Janet Mills was not invited.  

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

Measuring Atlantic Bluefin Tuna with a Drone

June 10, 2020 — This novel use of drones is a promising way to remotely monitor these hard-to-see fish

Researchers have used an unmanned aerial system (or drone) to gather data on schooling juvenile Atlantic bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Maine.

This pilot study tested whether a drone could keep up with the tuna while also taking photographs that captured physical details of this fast-moving fish. The drone was equipped with a high-resolution digital still image camera. Results show that drones can capture images of both individual fish and schools. They may be a useful tool for remotely monitoring behavior and body conditions of the elusive fish.

Individual fish lengths and widths, and the distance between fish near the sea surface, were measured to less than a centimeter of precision. We used an APH-22, a battery-powered, six-rotor drone. The pilot study was conducted in the Atlantic bluefin tuna’s foraging grounds northeast of Cape Cod in the southern Gulf of Maine.

“Multi-rotor unmanned aerial systems won’t replace shipboard surveys or the reliance on manned aircraft to cover a large area,” said Mike Jech, an acoustics researcher at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and lead author of the study. “They have a limited flight range due to battery power and can only collect data in bursts. Despite some limitations, they will be invaluable for collecting remote high-resolution images that can provide data at the accuracy and precision needed by managers for growth and ecosystem models of Atlantic bluefin tuna.”

Read the full story at Environment Coastal & Offshore