March 20, 2020 — The impact of the coronavirus outbreak is now taking a toll on the fishing industry in New England.
From clams to lobster, fishermen in Maine are having trouble finding places to sell their product.
Lobsters are selling for about $5 a pound, which is good for the customer, but bad for the fishermen who said it usually sells for much more than that this time of year.
March 18, 2020 — In a March 17 statement, Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher addressed the state’s lobster industry, as the impact of the coronavirus is beginning to be felt.
Keliher opened by shutting down rumors about a potential closure of the lobster fishery.
March 18, 2020 — The topic of food security has been on the mind of forward thinkers for years now, who primarily have focused on access to food as affected by natural disasters. As Covid-19 closes ports, markets and distributors, and social distancing practices threaten the supply chain for goods and services, many of us are discovering how valuable local products are.
Some of my Maine-based social media groups have been filled with posts from the staff of locally owned stores, detailing the products they have for sale, and from local farmers hoping to find new distribution points for their goods and to remind local buyers that not everything is sold out, despite the popularity of Empty Shelf Shots.
I’m feeling lucky to live in a state with small-scale farmers and fishermen. The products being delivered locally are made, grown and caught right here. On Friday, as my office was closing for the foreseeable future, I hauled home 20 pounds of Maine blueberries and 10 pounds of Gulf of Maine scallops for the freezer.
This pandemic is a reminder that a global marketplace can satisfy our worldly desires, but it cannot sustain us through deeply troubled times when our access is limited. Diversification of markets would ideally include expanding local distribution points, as well as global ones. And if we as consumers want access to our local products in times of trouble, then we have to keep buying them even when the world opens up to us again.
March 16, 2020 — As of 4:30 p.m. Sunday, March 15, seven Maine residents have been confirmed positive and five others are presumed positive for the coronavirus, according to the state. Click here for the latest coronavirus news, which the BDN has made free for the public. You can support this mission by purchasing a digital subscription.
Maine’s first probable case of the new coronavirus was only diagnosed on Thursday, but the global pandemic has already left its mark on the Maine lobster industry in the form of shrinking demand and dropping prices.
Unfortunately, there’s no end in sight to the economic disruption caused by the virus, according to Annie Tselikis, the executive director of the Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association.
“The market situation right now is real. There is not a lot of demand,” she said Friday. “You’re seeing this across all commodities. It’s not just lobster. It’s not just seafood. Uncertainty is challenging for any industry and any movement of goods.”
Problems stemming from coronavirus seemed to begin in January, after the spread of the virus paused Canadian charter flights to Asia during a time that is usually very busy for lobster sales because of Chinese New Year celebrations, according to Bloomberg News. Because of that, thousands of pounds of unsold lobster flooded North American markets, causing wholesale prices to drop.
March 13, 2020 — Bring in the dancing lobsters, and get ‘em while they’re hot.
The ongoing coronavirus outbreak is drowning Chinese demand for American lobster, reportedly plunging market prices to record lows.
Amid the COVID-19 crisis, lobster prices in the U.S. have hit their lowest in at least four years, Bloomberg reports. China is one of the biggest export destinations for live lobster, where the delicacy is “a sign of wealth and status” among the middle class, as well as a popular choice for Lunar New Year celebrations and weddings as a “symbol of good fortune,” according to The New York Times.
However, no one is quite indulging like they used to during widespread lockdowns and the continued outbreak. Travel restrictions, too, have effectively canceled the once-frequent charter flights of the crustaceans from the U.S. and Canada to the Asian nation.
March 11, 2020 — Industry innovations abound, from the Deckhand, a new product that makes it easier to log vessel trip data to Rugged Seas, a new bib-recycling venture that incorporates discarded bib scraps into a variety of rugged and well designed bags that work just as well on the trail as they do in your bunk belowdecks.
Simon Dick of Deckhand gets the farthest-traveled award for coming to Rockport from Australia, no doubt washing his hands all the way.
Fight the power: Fishing and offshore wind
Representatives from across the industry attended and hosted a full-day session on proposed offshore wind-power projects that are creeping both north and south from Southern New England.
Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, and her board of directors advocate for the fishing industry on East Coast developments. They hope to offer their expertise in negotiating new federal permits that preserve access to fishing grounds.
March 10, 2020 — Maine regulators plan to make a decision about a large salmon farm after they take the last of the public comments about the proposal.
Norway-based Nordic Aquafarms wants to build the land-based farm, which would produce tens of millions of pounds of salmon per year. The Maine Department of Marine Resources has hosted public hearings about the proposal that have garnered some criticism of the project from residents.
March 10, 2020 — The Maine Fishermen’s Forum took place in Rockport, Maine, last week. The hot topic of the event? The National Marine Fisheries Service’s pending North Atlantic right whale policy.
State and federal regulators are calling for the Maine lobster industry to change up their gear in order to protect the endangered right whale. These measures include reducing the number of vertical ropes in offshore waters and using weak or breakaway ropes. But lobstermen disagree with the actions, arguing that Canadian fishermen and ships are the ones killing the whales —not them.
March 9, 2020 — Maine’s lobster catch dipped in volume in 2019, but remained above historic levels as the industry dealt with numerous challenges and a slow start to the season.
Fishermen from the state caught 100.7 million pounds of lobster last year, the Maine Department of Marine Resources announced Friday at the annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum in Rockport. The catch was worth more than $485 million, the fourth highest in history.
The previous year’s catch was slightly more than 121 million pounds. The catch has been more than 100 million pounds every year since 2011 after having never topped that number previously, though the 2019 total was the lowest since 2010. The fishery is still soaring above where it was in the 2000s, when it typically trapped 50 to 80 million pounds of lobsters, said Kristan Porter, a lobsterman and president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.
“When we were getting to 90 to 100 million pounds, we were celebrating. Now if we’re in that range, people are going to think it’s bad,” Porter said. “But it’s still really high for the average of the fishery.”
March 9, 2020 — The annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum is underway in Rockport, where the intertwined fates of lobstermen and endangered North Atlantic right whales are a hot topic.
The executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, Patrice McCarron, had a blunt message for members at its annual meeting, held during the forum Friday at the Samoset Inn: “It’s all going to suck.”
McCarron has spent more than a year trying to fend off threats of pending federal action to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales from entanglement with the lobster fleet’s trap and buoy ropes. She told hundreds of fishermen that the MLA continues to oppose the gear restrictions being floated by state and federal regulators. And she pushed back against calls by some to walk away from the process altogether.