Saving Seafood

Maine wants more credit from feds for efforts to save whales

February 14, 2020 — Maine’s top marine official has told the federal government that his state deserves more credit for the efforts it has made to try to save an endangered species of whale.

Maine is tasked with coming up with new regulations that make the oceans safer for North Atlantic right whales, which number only about 400 in the world. The proposed new protections place new restrictions on the lobster fishing business, which is critical to Maine’s economy and heritage.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration informed Maine in January that its proposal to protect the whales doesn’t go far enough.

But Patrick Keliher, the commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, sent a letter to NOAA on Wednesday that outlined numerous existing and additional proposed protections that he said play a key role in protecting the whales.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Maine Lobstermen Dismayed By Fed’s Push For More Gear Changes To Protect Endangered Whale

February 14, 2020 — Maine’s top fisheries regulator is telling his federal counterparts the state’s lobster fleet deserves more credit for its efforts to reduce the risk of fishing gear entanglements with the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher revealed this week that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told him that Maine’s proposed gear changes, including a reduced number of  vertical ropes in offshore waters, are insufficient.

In a letter sent Wednesday, Keliher tells NOAA that it is overlooking other whale protection measures that the state has taken in the past and is proposing for the future. “It needs to be taken into consideration: it’s not part of any calculations they have on the books right now,” he says.

Keliher met last night with the state Lobster Advisory Council, which includes fishermen from each of the state’s seven lobster management zones.

He says Maine should get credit for replacing floating rope lines that pose a big hazard for the whales with safer, sinking lines, and for Maine’s proposal to require inshore boats to weave weak, breakaway links into their lines.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Maine counters NMFS rejection of right whale plan

February 14, 2020 — Maine officials said that the National Marine Fisheries Service’s rejection of its submitted right whale plan didn’t take enough of the state’s efforts into account.

The NMFS rejected the state’s plan via letter earlier this week. According to NMFS, the state’s plan only reduces risk to right whales by roughly 52 percent, short of the 60 percent that the Take Reduction Team was aiming for.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Regulators to hold hearings about planned changes to New England’s herring fishery

February 14, 2020 — Interstate fishing regulators are holding a series of public hearings in March about plans to try to better manage the fishery for Atlantic herring.

Herring are the subject of a major fishery on the East Coast, as the fish are used as food for humans and as bait for species such as lobsters. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission said in a statement that a recent assessment of the herring stock found downward trends in the health of the population.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bangor Daily News

Changes to herring business subject to New England hearings

February 13, 2020 — Interstate fishing regulators are holding a series of public hearings in March about plans to try to better manage the fishery for Atlantic herring.

Herring are the subject of a major fishery on the East Coast, as the fish are used as food for humans and as bait for species such as lobsters. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission said in a statement that a recent assessment of the herring stock found downward trends in the health of the population.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WGME

MAINE: State officials get an earful about proposed Belfast fish farm

February 13, 2020 — Dozens implored the Maine Board of Environmental Protection this week to put the brakes on plans for a $500 million land-based salmon farm here.

At a hearing Tuesday night, many who came to the University of Maine’s Hutchinson Center wore red to signify their opposition to Nordic Aquafarms’ project. It was the only chance for the public to address the BEP officials during their three-to-four-day visit to the midcoast city, where they will review environmental permit applications required for the project.

“I beg you to deny Nordic this opportunity to destroy our environment, our home, to line their pockets with gold,” Aimee Moffit of Belfast told state environmental officials.

The Norwegian-owned company is angling to build a flagship facility near the Little River in Belfast, with a goal of producing 33,000 metric tons of Atlantic salmon every year. It would construct 10 buildings — including several grow-out modules that company officials have described as “the largest aquaculture tanks in the world” — on a 54-acre site that’s currently mostly woods and fields.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Maine whale protection plan doesn’t go far enough, feds say

February 13, 2020 — Federal regulators don’t believe a Maine plan to reduce risk to endangered whales goes far enough, and that means fishermen in the state could face more restrictions.

Maine officials submitted a plan to the federal government designed to meet a requirement to better protect rare North Atlantic right whales from entanglement in lobster fishing gear. The whales number only about 400 and can die if ensnared in the gear, which is used to trap one of Maine’s best known and most valuable natural resources.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration notified the state in a Jan. 10 letter that its proposed package of measures would result in no more than a 52% reduction in risk to the whales. The required goal is 60%, said the letter, which was written by Michael Pentony, regional administrator for NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

Maine says its plan to protect whales from lobster gear is better than feds think

February 13, 2020 — Maine believes its right whale protection plan isn’t getting enough credit for reducing risk to the critically endangered species.

The state Department of Marine Resources believes that its right whale plan, with its range of lobster fishing restrictions meant to avoid gear entanglements, clocks in right around the 60 percent risk reduction target sought by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Federal regulators – who  determined that the state plan reduced risk by just 52 percent – failed to give Maine credit for all its proposed protection measures, as well as those enacted since the last federal right whale review in 2014, Marine Resources Commissioner Pat Keliher said Wednesday.

Keliher spelled out his concerns with the federal evaluation of Maine’s plan during a meeting with members of the Lobster Advisory Council Wednesday evening and in a letter to the National Marine Fisheries Service that he sent earlier in the day asking for additional risk reduction credit.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

NOAA Fisheries Announces Final 2020 Atlantic Surfclam and Ocean Quahog Commercial Fishery Specifications and Minimum Size Suspension for Atlantic Surfclams

February 13, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is implementing surfclam and ocean quahog quotas for the 2020 fishing year that we previously announced as projected on February 6, 2018. There have been no overages in 2019, and there is no new biological information, so we are now finalizing the 2020 quotas. The 2020 fishing year quotas will remain 3.4 million bushels for surfclams, 5.33 million bushels for ocean quahogs, and 100,000 Maine bushels for Maine ocean quahogs.

NOAA Fisheries is also suspending the minimum size requirement for surfclams. Discard, catch, and biological data show that 22 percent of 2019 coastwide landed surfclams had a shell length less than 4.75 inches, which is less than the 30 percent trigger for a minimum size requirement. This is closer to the trigger than in prior years. Vessels are encouraged to avoid areas with a lot of clams under 4.75 inches to reduce the chance of initiating the default minimum size in 2021.

For more details, read the final rule as published in the Federal Register today and the permit holder bulletin posted on our website.

Maine’s plan to protect whales falls short, regulators say, raising prospect of federal rules

February 12, 2020 — Maine’s plan to protect right whales does not go far enough to reduce the risk of entanglement in lobstering gear, according to federal regulators.

The National Marine Fisheries Service has concluded that Maine’s plan to use a combination of weak rope and a 25 percent reduction in the number of buoy lines in state waters achieves, at best, a 52 percent risk reduction, while federal regulators are demanding a 60 percent reduction.

“Because your proposal does not meet the 60 percent risk reduction target, we will be obligated to consider additional measures through our federal rulemaking,” said Michael Pentony, regional administrator of NMFS’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald