Saving Seafood

Atlantic Herring Area 1A Trimester 3 Effort Controls Revised

November 13, 2018 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Herring Management Board members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts revised the effort control measures for the 2018 Area 1A Trimester 3 (October 1 – December 31) fishery. Board members, with input from industry, agreed to seven (7) consecutive landing days until 92% of the Area 1A sub-ACL is projected to be harvested. Vessels may only land once every 24-hour period.

  • Beginning on November 16, 2018: Vessels in the States of Maine and New Hampshire, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts may land Atlantic herring starting at 12:01 a.m. on seven (7) consecutive days a week.

Trimester 3 landings will be closely monitored and the directed fishery will close when 92% of the Area 1A sub-ACL is projected to be reached. Fishermen are prohibited from landing more than 2,000 pounds of Atlantic herring per trip once the fishery is closed. For more information, please contact Megan Ware at 703.842.0740 ormware@asmfc.org.

Read the full announcement here

Why Is the Gulf of Maine Warming Faster Than 99% of the Ocean?

November 13, 2018 — Late last month, four endangered sea turtles washed ashore in northern Cape Cod, marking an early onset to what has now become a yearly event: the sea turtle stranding season.

These turtles—in last month’s case, Kemp’s ridley sea turtles—venture into the Gulf of Maine during warm months, but they can become hypothermic and slow moving when colder winter waters abruptly arrive, making it hard to escape.

“They are enjoying the warm water, and then all of a sudden the cold comes, and they can’t get out fast enough,” said Andrew Pershing, an oceanographer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland, Maine.

Thanks to record-breaking summer water temperatures that quickly transition to cooler conditions, an expanded sea turtle stranding season is just one facet of a new normal for the Gulf of Maine, Pershing explained. And this new normal is a striking contrast to prior conditions.

This year, the Gulf of Maine has experienced only 45 days with what have not been considered heat wave temperatures. Such persistent warmth, scientists warn, can set off a series of other cascading effects on the marine life and fisheries that have historically defined the culture and economy of this region’s coastline.

Read the full story at Earth & Space Science News

Vote this week on keeping New England shrimp fishery shut

November 12, 2018 — PORTLAND, Maine (AP) – Fishing managers will decide this week if New England’s fishery for shrimp must remain closed because of concerns about the environment and the animal’s population.

The shrimp fishery, based mostly in Maine, has been closed since 2013. The small, pink shrimp, once a popular winter seafood item, have been mostly unavailable to consumers in America since.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Washington Times

New protections for herring but lobster bait crunch imminent

November 12, 2018 — Fishing managers are considering extending new protections to Atlantic herring, but catch quotas for the important bait fish are still likely to plummet before the end of the year, which is bad news for the American lobster industry.

Herring is the most important bait source for the lobster fishery, which is one of the most lucrative marine industries in New England. A recent scientific assessment of the herring population says the fish’s population has fallen in the past five years.

An arm of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted last month to initiate changes to try to better protect spawning herring off of New England.

The new protections are coming at a time when the lobster and herring fisheries are expecting a dramatic cutback in herring quota. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is expected to propose new rules about herring fishing this month and implement them by early 2019, when next year’s herring fishing season starts.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Bradenton Herald

1,300 fishermen wanted first new scallop licenses since 2009. Only four got them.

November 12, 2018 — The state has chosen four fishermen from eastern Maine from almost 1,300 applicants who sought the first new scallop fishing licenses to be issued in Maine in the past nine years.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources held a lottery this week to determine who among the nearly 1,300 applicants would be allowed into the lucrative scallop fishery this coming winter.

The names of Matthew Alley of Beals Island, Chase Fitzsimmons of Lubec, Johnathon Oliver of Deer Isle and Frank Gott of Bar Harbor were drawn from the pool. Each of them has 30 days to submit formal paperwork to the department to get his license, DMR officials wrote in a release.

The lottery was devised last winter as part of a system to allow new people into the fishery while still limiting the number of licenses issued by the state. Only people 18 or older who previously have been licensed to fish scallops (and who don’t currently have a license) or who have worked on the crew of a commercial scallop boat are allowed to participate in the annual lottery.

The 2018-19 scallop fishing season is expected to get under way in the next few weeks and to run until early next spring.

The state stopped issuing new scallop fishing licenses nine years ago when stocks were declining and the state’s annual scallop season was in danger of being canceled. A new fishery management scheme the state developed and implemented since then has helped stocks recover, while demand has pushed the price of scallops to historic highs.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

ASMFC Atlantic Herring Days Out Call Scheduled for November 13, 2018 at 10:30 AM

November 9, 2018 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Fisheries Management Council:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Herring Management Board members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts set effort control measures for the Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine) fishery via Days Out meetings/calls.

The Atlantic Herring Board members from Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts are scheduled to convene via conference call to review fishing effort on:

• Tuesday, November 13th at 10:30 AM

To join the call, please dial 888.585.9008 and enter conference room number 502-884-672 as prompted.

Please contact Megan Ware, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at mware@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740 for more information.

Key US Shellfish Quotas Will Remain the Same Next Year

November 8, 2018 — A couple of the most significant fisheries for shellfish on the East Coast will have the same catch quotas next year.

Fishermen harvest surf clams and ocean quahogs from the Atlantic Ocean every year for use in chowders, fried clam dinners and other popular seafood dishes. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the quota for the two species will be unchanged in the new fishing year that begins on Jan. 1.

The quota will be 5.33 million bushels for ocean quahogs and 3.4 million bushels for surf clams. The quota for Maine ocean quahogs will be limited to 100,000 Maine bushels, which is also the same as the current year.

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

Maine Aquaculture Projects Dredge Up Memories Of Polluted, Industrial Waterways

November 8, 2018 —  At a recent hearing in Kittery, so many people showed up to weigh in on the proposed expansion of an oyster-growing operation in a local creek, Department of Marine Resources hearing officer Amanda Ellis had to make a choice.

“Based on the number that we’re seeing we’ve made the decision to postpone the hearing,” she said.

But opponents such as Mike Dowling were still plenty willing to talk.

“I have many concerns, there’s a whole group of us, introducing over 2,500 objects suspended or floating into the creek creates a pinch point, and everyone uses that little sandy beach to go swimming,” he said.

Such complaints do arise with aquaculture enterprises, with neighbors — sometimes including fishermen — worrying about water access, environmental effects and property values. Up the coast in Maquoit Bay, near Brunswick, a proposed 40-acre shellfish farm is meeting some stiff resistance.

And then there’s Belfast, where a proposal to site what would be one of the world’s largest indoor salmon farms is stirring talk of the darker days, when the city was dominated by chicken processors.

Read the full story at WBUR

American Lobster Benchmark Stock Assessment Workshop Scheduled for January 28-31, in New Bedford, MA

November 8, 2018 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will hold the American Lobster Benchmark Stock Assessment Workshop at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, 836 South Rodney French Boulevard, New Bedford, MA. The stock assessment, which is scheduled for completion in the summer of 2020, will evaluate the health of the Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank and Southern New England stocks and inform management of this species.  The Commission’s stock assessment process and meetings are open to the public, with the exception of discussions of confidential data*, when the public will be asked to leave the room.  

The Commission welcomes the submission of alternate assessment models. For alternate models to be considered, the model description, model input, final model estimates, and complete source code must be provided to Jeff Kipp, Senior Stock Assessment Scientist, at jkipp@asmfc.org by December 28, 2018. Any models submitted without complete, editable source code and input files will not be considered.

For more information about the assessment or attending the upcoming workshop (space will be limited), please contact Megan Ware, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at mware@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.

* Each state and federal agency is responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of its data and deciding who has access to its confidential data.  In the case of our stock assessments and peer reviews, all analysts and, if necessary, reviewers, have been granted permission by the appropriate agency to use and view confidential data. When the assessment team needs to show and discuss these data, observers to our stock assessment process are asked to leave the room to preserve confidentiality.

 

Even Lobsters Can’t Escape Trump’s Trade War

November 7, 2018 — In his cargo shorts and T-shirt, Mark Barlow looked anything but an international trade warrior. Yet a few weeks ago, when he slid open the door to his low-slung warehouse in a scrappy industrial lot to reveal concrete tanks filled with 375,000 gallons of 40-degree water and a fortune in live Maine lobsters, he might as well have been leading a battlefield tour.

Since the 1990s, Barlow has built his company, Island Seafood, into a $50 million-a-year business by shipping live lobsters around the world. He exported one out of every five to China until recently. A lobster plucked from a trap in Maine’s frigid waters—home to North America’s richest fishery—could surface on a dinner plate in Beijing two days later. The first months of 2018 were the best start in Island Seafood’s history, says Barlow, who this year expected to ship a million pounds of lobster to Shanghai, Guangzhou, and other Chinese cities, where he’s built relationships for a decade. Then, as Barlow, a 57-year-old bear of a man who speaks like someone who’s spent years negotiating on the docks, puts it: “The orangutan in Washington woke up from a nap and decided to put tariffs on China,” and “the Chinese stopped buying immediately.”

If you want to understand the modern global economy, the implications of climate change, and the unintended consequences of President Trump’s trade wars, then you ought to “consider the lobster.” The writer David Foster Wallace’s 2004 essay of that name riffed on the history (“Up until sometime in the 1800s … lobster was literally low-class food, eaten only by the poor and institutionalized”) and morality (“It’s not just that lobsters get boiled alive, it’s that you do it yourself”) of our love affair with Homarus americanus. To consider the lobster now, almost 15 years later, is to study crustacean economics just as U.S.-China trade tensions reach a roiling boil.

As Trump has rewritten America’s economic relationships, some of the country’s most prized exports—Kentucky bourbon, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Midwestern soybeans—have become retaliatory targets for China and the European Union. For its part, Beijing began imposing a 25 percent tariff on a long list of imports from the U.S., including live lobsters, on July 6. “The second this happened, I said to my sales team, ‘China’s dead,’ ” Barlow says. Correspondence with his Chinese customers confirmed his hunch. “I don’t think there is [a] way to import U.S. lobster,” one buyer texted.

Read the full story at Bloomberg Businessweek