Saving Seafood

Drop in Maine lobster catch might not be as bad as feared

January 10, 2020 — The state with the largest fishing industry for lobster likely experienced a drop in catch last year, but the dip in harvest was probably not as dramatic as initially feared.

Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, told Maine Public that initial reports show a harvest of about 100 million pounds of lobster. That would be a drop of nearly 20 million pounds from last year, but still a much higher number than the industry was used to in the 1990s and 2000.

The season initially looked like it could produce a substantial drop in catch, but Maine’s lobstermen finished strong, Keliher said. The price for Maine lobster was also strong, he said.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

MAINE: Aquaculture census shows sales are up

January 9, 2020 — It should come as no surprise to anyone who follows Maine’s fisheries that the state’s aquaculture industry is growing in value and number of producers.

The U.S, Department of Agriculture 2018 Census of Aquaculture, released shortly before Christmas, paints a slightly different picture of the industry on a national basis.

According to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service report, in 2018 sales of U.S.-grown aquaculture products totaled $1.5 billion, an increase of 10.5 percent over 2013, the last year for which a comprehensive census was compiled. Though sales were up, the number of producers was down.

In 2018, there were 2,932 aquaculture farms with sales in the United States, down 5 percent from 2013. Five states — Mississippi, Washington, Louisiana, Virginia, and California — accounted for 51 percent of the sales and 37 percent of the farms.

“The 2018 Census of Aquaculture updates important information about the industry that we last produced in 2013,” said NASS Administrator Hubert Hamer. “These valuable data tell the story of U.S. aquaculture, following and expanding on the Census of Agriculture. The information in the report helps trade associations, governments, agribusinesses and others learn about aquaculture and make informed decisions that have a direct impact on the future of the industry.”

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

MAINE: DMR submits whale rule proposal

January 8, 2020 — Nearly 10 months ago, Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher shocked Maine lobstermen with an announcement that the National Marine Fisheries Service had determined that right whale mortalities resulting from interactions with fishing gear would have to be reduced by 60 to 80 percent.

In late spring, the fisheries service proposed rules recommended by its Large Whale Take Reduction Team that would force lobstermen to reduce the number of vertical buoy lines in the water by as much as 50 percent and use weaker rope.

Those rules raised safety and practicality concerns within the fishing community and many lobstermen said they would have little or no impact on whale mortalities in the Gulf of Maine.

Last week, DMR submitted a detailed counterproposal to the federal fisheries agency that, according to Keliher, addressed those issues.

“This proposal is the result of a rigorous analysis of data combined with critically important input from industry,” Keliher said Friday. “The outcome is a plan that will not only protect right whales, but will also safeguard the lives and livelihoods of Maine fishermen.”

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

US state of Maine moves forward with kinder, gentler whale reg recommendations

January 7, 2020 — The US state of Maine’s Department of Marine Resources (DMR) on Friday moved forward with its earlier-proposed recommendations for helping to preserve endangered North Atlantic right whales by putting all of the emphasis on federal waters.

Maine, which is responsible for the largest share by far of the United State’s North America lobster production, submitted to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) a lengthy set of online documents.

The plan is similar to one put forth in October by the state.

Ultimately, it’ll be up to NMFS to publish a proposed rule, also taking into consideration a tougher set of recommendations shared by the US’ Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team, a NOAA advisory panel made up of fishermen, scientists, conservationists, and state and federal officials from Maine to Florida, in April 2019.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Conservation group removing barrier to salmon on Maine river

January 6, 2020 — A salmon conservation group plans to remove an old hydropower station straddling the Dennys River in Maine so more alewives and Atlantic salmon can make their way upstream into Meddybemps Lake.

The abandoned hydroelectric station, built in the 1940s, sits over an artificially narrowed bottleneck in the river in Washington County.

Work on removing the structure, which does not impound any water, is expected to begin Monday, the Bangor Daily News reported.

The project is expected to allow hundreds of thousands of alewives to repopulate the lake and to support a commercial alewife fishery in the river, as well as to help sustain the river’s ecosystem, according to the Downeast Salmon Federation.

Read the full story at the Associated Press

MAINE: Aquaculture group launches video campaign

January 6, 2020 — As in many segments of American life, social media is playing a role in rising tensions between Maine’s most traditional fishery and the state’s growing aquaculture industry.

In recent months, a group called “Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage” has been active on Facebook, Instagram and other social media. The group identifies itself as an “organization of lobstermen, fishermen, and other citizens concerned about the rapid growth of aquaculture” in Maine.

Over the past few weeks, the Maine Aquaculture Association (MAA) has posted a pair of professionally produced videos on Facebook aimed at showing Maine fish farmers in a positive light. The first approximately three-minute video features Canadian salmon farming giant Cooke Aquaculture. The second focuses on the husband and wife team of Josh and Shey Conover, who operate their small Marshall Cove Mussel Farm off Islesboro in Penobscot Bay.

The two videos are the initial offerings in a planned series called “The Faces of Maine’s Working Waterfront.”

According to the MAA, the videos “tell the stories of aquatic farmers in Maine, underscoring how aquaculture complements existing marine industries and works to diversify and strengthen our coastal economy.”

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Maine Seeks to Aid Lobstermen as Federal Whale Protections Loom

January 6, 2020 — Maine is making its voice heard as a federal effort to stop right whales from dying takes shape.

On Friday, the state’s Department of Marine Resources released a plan it says protects the endangered whales and lobstermen, whom the feds say need to do more to prevent traps and lines from killing the whale.

Maine’s suggestions include having lobstermen use ropes with weak points the whales could easily break and calls for a 25% reduction in the amount of vertical trap lines.

“It’s been a really difficult process, no question about it,” said Patrick Keliher, commissioner of Maine’s DMR. “We spent a lot of time with the industry, we made some people happy and some people mad.”

Read the full story at NBC 10

MAINE: Record number of Atlantic salmon eggs reported in Washington County river last year

January 6, 2020 — A record number of Atlantic salmon eggs were laid in the East Machias River last year, an indication that an eight-year effort to restore the endangered species in the river is paying off.

Biologists counted 61 redds, or nests that fish build for spawning, buried in several inches of river gravel spread between Crawford and East Machias. That’s six times the number of redds counted in the East Machias River since the Downeast Salmon Federation began tracking salmon egg nesting patterns there 20 years ago, said Dwayne Shaw, the federation’s executive director.

“This is just huge,” Shaw said. “A number like this hasn’t been seen in the river in decades.”

The federation counted 12 redds in 2016, four in 2017 and 10 in 2018. Over the past 20 years, the East Machias River on average has yielded about 10 redds a year.

With each redd containing about 4,000 eggs, the 61 redds are carrying about 240,000 eggs — enough, given the rigors of nature and the presence of predators, to produce about 2,000 salmon that will survive in the river over the next two years and become smolts, fish mature enough to go to sea, Shaw said.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Maine Plan Aims to Reduce Lobstering Impact on Right Whales

January 3, 2020 — Maine‘s proposal for protecting endangered right whales from entanglements in lobster gear would maintain the status quo for inshore waters where most traps are located while reducing the number of trap lines farther offshore, officials said Friday.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources submitted the proposal to the federal government, which plans to issue new rules in the spring or summer for protecting North Atlantic right whales. The whales number only about 400 and are vulnerable to entanglement in fishing gear.

The proposal would make no change to an inshore area that comprises more than two-thirds of state waters, while total trap lines would be reduced farther offshore.

The proposal would also set requirements for “weak” points in trap lines that would allow an entangled whale to break free and require unique color markings to differentiate Maine lobster lines from trap lines used by fishermen from other states.

The rules come at a time when lobstermen are concerned about a drop in the catch of the state’s signature seafood.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News

Maine finalizes right whale protection plan for lobster industry

January 3, 2020 — Maine has finalized a proposal to protect endangered right whales from entanglement in lobster fishing gear, but it also gives state regulators the freedom to adopt alternative protections to keep lobstermen and their regional fishing practices alive.

The heart of the state plan is similar to one panned by the lobster industry last fall – cutting the number of buoy lines that could entangle a whale by setting a minimum number of traps fished on each line and requiring the use of lines with weak points to help entangled whales break free.

New to the plan is Maine’s bid to get federal approval for flexibility to allow alternative forms of fishing restrictions in cases where the statewide application of federal whale protections would put lobstermen in physical danger or run needlessly afoul of regional fishing practices.

That flexibility is the cornerstone of Maine Department of Marine Resources’ plan, said Commissioner Pat Keliher. Careful use of alternative protections that achieve the same conservation benefit could help protect whales, fishermen and the state’s $485 million a year industry, Keliher said.

“We want to develop a process that would allow us to mix and match regulatory changes to achieve the same risk reduction for whales while taking into account fishermen safety, traditional fishing practices, and fleet diversity,” Keliher said. “It would be a blend of giving and taking that achieves the same goal.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald