Saving Seafood

Those of us who fished Atlantic salmon may never have another chance in our lifetimes

February 15, 2019 — Conservationists on Wednesday said the final recovery plan for Atlantic salmon in Maine rivers didn’t contain many surprises. State and nongovernment agencies had already seen previous drafts of the plan, after all, and were much more involved in its formation than anglers (and newspaper columnists).

For those of us who weren’t in the rooms where various conversations have taken place over the past 10 years — ever since the salmon in the Penobscot River joined other Maine waters on the federal “endangered” list — the plan was much more shocking.

Most stunning, to me, was this passage near the end of the report’s summary section.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

Ambitious new plan to save Atlantic salmon has big price tag

February 15, 2019 — The federal government outlined an ambitious, potentially costly new plan to restore Atlantic salmon in the United States, where rivers teemed with the fish before dams, pollution and overfishing decimated their populations.

The Atlantic salmon has declined in the U.S. to the point where the last remaining wild populations of in the U.S. exist only in a handful of rivers in Maine. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are offering a new recovery plan to bring back those fish, which are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

The plan would take decades to fully implement, and it focuses on strategies such as removals of dams, installations of fish passages and increasing the number of salmon that survive in the ocean. It states that the estimated cost is about $24 million per year, not including money federal departments already spend on salmon recovery work.

How that money would materialize at this point is unclear. But the plan gives the species a roadmap to recovery, said Peter Lamothe, program manager for the Maine fish and wildlife complex for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“It gives all of the partners involved in this what to shoot for — what we collectively need to achieve to recover the species,” Lamothe said. “It gives us a path forward.”

Atlantic salmon are readily available to seafood consumers because of extensive aquaculture, but the wild fish have been declining in the Gulf of Maine since the 19th century.

Back then, 100,000 adult salmon returned annually to Maine’s Penobscot River, which remains the most important river for the species in America.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Maine’s Atlantic salmon likely to be on ‘endangered’ list for another 75 years

February 13, 2019 — A decade after the Penobscot River was included in the expansion of Endangered Species Act protection for Atlantic salmon originating in Maine, federal officials have released the final recovery plan for those fish. The news isn’t good. Federal officials estimate that it will take 75 years — about 15 generations of fish — for Gulf of Maine Atlantic salmon to be delisted entirely.

That news dims hopes that any angler who enjoyed fishing for salmon in Maine rivers in the past will live long enough to do so again.

Additionally, the plan estimates that the annual cost of implementing recovery actions will be $24 million per year on top of recovery-based efforts covered by regular federal budgets.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on Tuesday released their plan for the recovery of Atlantic salmon within the Gulf of Maine distinct population segment. The document will serve as the foundation for conservation and recovery efforts moving forward.

According to the plan, recovery efforts must focus on rivers and estuaries until threats salmon face at sea are better understood. In addition, the continued effort of fish hatcheries in the conservation is an essential piece of the recovery puzzle. Eastern Maine has two such hatcheries — Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery in Orland and Green Lake National Fish Hatchery in Ellsworth.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Cut in herring quota bodes ill for lobster

February 13, 2019 — Imagine running a trucking business and having your supply of diesel fuel cut by 70 percent.

For all practical purposes, that’s what happened to the Maine lobster industry last week.

On Thursday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries arm announced that it was cutting the 2019 herring quota by about 70 percent. That’s bad news for lobstermen.

While diesel oil is the fuel that powers most lobster boats, herring is the fuel that powers the Maine lobster industry.

Herring is the most popular bait used in the Maine lobster fishery and with the cut in the herring quota from about 110 million pounds last year to about 33 million pounds this year, bait is going to be scarce, and expensive.

The reduction wasn’t unexpected.

Last August, at the request of the New England Fishery Management Council, NOAA reduced the 2018 annual catch limit (ACL) for herring from about 231 million pounds to about 107 million pounds to reduce the risk of overfishing.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

 

NEFMC to Hold 10 Scoping Meetings on NGOM, LAGC Amendment

February 12, 2019 — The following was released by the New England Fishery Management Council:

The New England Fishery Management Council has scheduled 10 scoping meetings from Maine to Virginia to gather public input on the development of Amendment 21 to the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan. This amendment is being developed to address three primary issues:

  • Northern Gulf of Maine (NGOM) Management Area measures;
  • Limited Access General Category (LAGC) individual fishing quota (IFQ) possession limits; and
  • The ability for Limited Access vessels with LAGC IFQ to transfer their quota to vessels that only hold LAGC IFQ permits.

Read the full release here

Lobster industry willing to be ‘right-sized’ for right whales?

February 11, 2019 — Last week, there was much ado in the lobster industry, particularly in Maine where fishermen, regulators and legislators are discussing the possibility of loosening some of the permitting constraints to accelerate the pace of issuing new licenses in a classic old guard vs. new guard tableau.

On a more macro level, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission said its American lobster management board is considering new measures to reduce the amount of vertical fishing lines in the water as a further protection for right whales.

The goal, they said, is to remove as much as 40 percent of the existing lines and gear through a combination of gear changes, trap limits, area closures and other actions to make the waters safer for the highly imperiled right whales that probably are starting their migration north as we speak.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Scientists hope DNA in water could be way to save rare Maine fish

February 11, 2019 — Scientists in Maine are using DNA to try to preserve the remaining populations of a fish that lives in 14 lakes and ponds in the state and nowhere else in the continental United States.

The scientists are turning their eye to the Arctic charr, which is a species of landlocked fish in Maine that has lived in the state for millennia and is prized by anglers. The charr face threats such as invasive predators and a warming climate. They are also notoriously elusive, making them difficult for researchers to track.

Michael Kinnison, a professor of evolutionary applications at University of Maine, and other scientists are working with the state to make sure the fish keep surviving. Kinnison is working on a project to collect “environmental DNA” from the water bodies where the fish live.

The project involves collecting water samples from the lakes and ponds where the fish are known to live, and studying DNA that they and other organisms shed, Kinnison said. It’ll provide vital information scientists can use to keep charr populations stable, he said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Boston.com

US House panel resumes focus on climate change, warming oceans

February 11, 2019 — Climate change is hitting the lobster industry in two ways, Beth Casoni, the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association’s executive director, told the US House of Representatives’ Natural Resources Committee’s Water, Oceans and Wildlife – or WOW — panel on Thursday.

The Gulf of Maine is warming at a faster pace than 99% of other bodies of water and, by 2050, could lose 62% of its lobsters as a result, she said. Meanwhile, ocean acidification is making it harder for juvenile lobsters to grow shells, leaving them open to predators and disease.

“These threats from climate change are intensified by the other challenges lobstermen are facing,” said Casoni, one of seven witnesses at the two-hour hearing. “We do not have the luxury of looking at any one of these impacts on its own – all of them collectively are causing declines in the resource, hurting our bottom line, and our communities.

The event on Thursay was the second hearing called by the Natural Resources Committee on climate change since Democrats took control of the lower chamber in the 2018 election. The day before representative Raul Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who now chairs the main committee, held a more general discussion.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Regulators to consider reducing lobstermen’s lines to protect right whales

February 8, 2019 — Regulators will consider removing up to 40 percent of the lines that link seabed lobster traps to buoys on the surface, taking the step in the hopes of protecting the endangered North Atlantic right whale and avoiding federal restrictions on the lobster fishery.

Fishermen who serve on the American Lobster Management Board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission say the action is required to prevent the federal government from declaring the lobster fishery a threat to North Atlantic right whales, whose population has dwindled to 411 because of changes in habitat, low calving rates, ship strikes and entanglement in fishing lines. If the federal government places a “jeopardy” finding on the species, it would likely trigger far more burdensome restrictions on Maine’s $1.4 billion a year lobster industry, board members said.

Better that fishery participants decide what concessions they can live with than leave it up to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, they said.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Potential changes coming for Maine’s lobster industry

February 8, 2019 — Multiple rule-changes could be coming for Maine’s lucrative lobster industry from both the state and federal governments in the coming year.

At the federal level, concerns over entanglements with the endangered North Atlantic right whale have led fisheries managers to begin discussing what steps need to be taken by the lobster industry to avoid whale deaths. Currently there are just over 400 right whales left in the world, and high death rates in 2016 and 2017 have led rule makers to consider changes to gear requirements.

At a meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Council in Virginia, the lobster board voted unanimously to push forward a set of actions intended to reduce the amount of vertical lines from lobster traps in the water. Those changes could include lower limits on the number of traps that lobstermen are allowed to use, changes in gear configuration, and seasonal closures.

Read the full story at Seafood Source