Saving Seafood

Turning Maine’s Invasive Crab Problem Into a Potential Tasty Profit

August 16, 2018 — When it comes to the invasive green crab, some scientists in Maine have a suggestion: If you can’t beat ’em, eat ’em.

“Our goal is to strengthen and diversify fisheries opportunities in the Gulf of Maine, and we think green crabs could be one of those opportunities,” said Dr. Marissa McMahan, Senior Fisheries Specialist at Manomet.

McMahan has been working with students from the University of Southern Maine to study green crabs, and determine how viable a commercial fishery might be. So far, she’s optimistic.

“It’s an incredibly lucrative fishery,” she said, adding that some fishermen have sold to local restaurants for $3 for each small crab or about $20 per pound.

Read the full story at NBC 10

MAINE: Large pogy catch good news for lobstermen who feared bait shortage

August 14, 2018 — Maine has landed a record number of pogies this summer, forcing regulators to shut the bait fishery down just as lobster season peaks.

All of the landings have yet to be counted, but officials say it is likely that an unusually large pogy fleet will have caught almost 7 million pounds of the fish, which is more than double last year’s landings. This comes as especially good news for Maine lobstermen, who use pogies to bait their traps when the herring supply runs low, as it is expected to this year.

“Every pogy used was herring not used,” said Kristan Porter, a Cutler lobsterman and president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, which has been working with its members to prepare them for the herring shortage. “There also are some in coolers stored and ready. … The increase in landings is a good thing.”

State officials say Maine had run through its 2.4 million pound annual quota of pogy, also known as menhaden, by July 22, even though the quota was 13 times what it had been in 2017. Pogies were still running strong, however, with purse seiners harvesting them farther north than they had in decades, so Maine got regulatory approval to catch extra.

Over the last three weeks, the Maine pogy fleet has claimed almost all of the 4.5 million pound quota set aside for a handful of states to share when the oily forage species shows up in local waters in unusually high numbers. The high rate of catch prompted Maine to close the so-called episodic fishery on Saturday, with regulators expecting all of the shared quota to be used up.

Part of the high catch rate comes from the size of the fleet. In past years, only a handful of fishing vessels have entered Maine’s regular pogy fishery. This year, however, the fishery attracted 50 fishing vessels during the regular season and 64 in the special episodic event fishery, officials say – no doubt drawn to Maine by word of the large number of schools reported up the coast.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

The History of Atlantic Sea Scallops

August 13, 2018 — When it comes to shellfish, oysters get all the glory. It’s understandable, since they’ve played a significant role in the history of cuisine. But scallops? Those beautiful bivalves are a bit of a culinary mystery.

Despite their current popularity, you might be surprised to learn that scallops were often more prized for their aesthetically-pleasing shells than the rich, sweet flavor of their meat. But these days, it seems like almost every fine dining establishment with seafood on the menu has its own take on them, from ceviche to pan-seared to provencal. What’s more, East Coast scallop fisheries are positively booming.

But it hasn’t always been this way.

Underappreciated Treasures of the Deep

As you may know, the earliest settlers in what we now know as New England had access to a bounty of seafood. From fish to eel to a wide variety of shellfish, they had their pick of oceanic delights. By the time the Pilgrims arrived on the shores of Cape Cod in the 1600s, Europeans had been fishing for cod on nearby George’s Bank (a.k.a. St. George’s Bank) for well over a century.

Wild Atlantic scallops, which grew prodigiously in those cold northern waters, were also inevitably harvested for food. However, they weren’t considered highly desirable. Food historian Sandy Oliver, author of “Saltwater Foodways” and “Maine Home Cooking,” explains, “Scallops and mussels…ranked far below oysters, clams, and lobsters. Since scallops have a funny sweet taste, it didn’t line up with what people liked back then.”

But tastes change, and an appreciation for scallops in the U.S. gradually increased throughout the 19th century. One of the earliest known written recipes for cooking scallops, which called for lightly sauteeing or stewing them, was published in 1846 in “Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book.” Over the following decades, recipes for fried, boiled, steamed, stuffed, and pickled scallops began to appear more often in cookbooks. By the 1920s-30s, they had become a regular part of the American diet, especially in coastal communities.

By the mid-20th century, dishes like Coquille St. Jacques, which features scallops served in the shell with butter, cream, cheese, shallots, and herbs, appeared on the menus of French restaurants in cities nationwide. Meanwhile, fried scallops could often be found (and still can) at seaside clam shacks and other casual dining spots.

Read the full story at Chowhound

Glass ceiling: Regulators reject Maine elver quota increase

August 10, 2018 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission rejected an effort this week to expand Maine’s lucrative elver, or glass eel, by increasing the annual quota by 20 percent.

Maine harvesters are allowed to harvest 9,688 pounds of elvers annually under current regulations. The state hoped to increase the harvest to 11,749 pounds.

Ultimately, the commission voted 13-5 against a quota increase, with opponents of the effort citing the “depleted” state of the stock as reason for rejecting the proposal.

Prices for elvers have been steadily increasing with market demand from Asia, where the juvenile eels are raised to adult size in controlled farms. Prices have averaged $2,400 per pound in recent seasons. The 2017 season, which ran from March 22 to May 24, earned more than $21 million for Maine harvesters.

The lucrative fishery known for high catches and rising prices is becoming a bigger target for illegal harvests and trafficking.

In May, a U.S. District Court in Portland, Maine, handed down the final sentencing in the drawn out trials of 21 fishermen involved in an elver poaching ring along the East Coast.

William “Bill” Sheldon, 71, who has been called “grandfather of eel fishing” and “Maine’s elver kingpin,” was sentenced to six months in prison and three years of supervised release. The entire ring made an estimated $5 million selling elvers to Asia on the black market after netting their catch along the Atlantic seaboard in states where the fishery is banned. The ring funneled poached elvers through Maine and South Carolina, which have commercial eel fisheries.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Fishing industry gears up for a fight over China tariffs

August 10, 2018 — A national fishing industry group is using local workers to put human faces on the plight that the commercial fishing sector faces amid the trade fight with China.

The National Fisheries Institute just released a series of videos featuring New Englanders — a processing plant manager in Boston, a Quincy seafood shop owner, a supplier to Maine lobstermen — extolling the virtues of free trade. Institute spokesman Gavin Gibbons says the group started featuring people in the Northeast because of the balance of import and export work that happens here. You can’t treat fish like steel, he says. Commercial fishermen, for the most part, face strict federal quotas. There’s simply no way to ramp up domestic production if it becomes tough to import seafood.

Gibbons’ group fears imports will become much more challenging if the Trump administration follows through on plans to impose tariffs of up to 25 percent on seafood imports from China. An NFI lobbyist will testify before the International Trade Commission on Aug. 20 to argue against them. (NFI represents all corners of the industry: fishermen, retailers, wholesalers.)

The US has plunged headlong into a tit-for-tat fight. China has already imposed a 25 percent tariff on US seafood exports, much to the chagrin of the lobstermen who had found a burgeoning new foreign market in that country.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

ASMFC American Eel Board Approves Addendum V

August 10, 2018 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s American Eel Management Board approved Addendum V to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for American Eel. The Addendum increases the yellow eel coastwide cap starting in 2019 to 916,473 pounds. This modest increase in the cap (less than 1%) reflects a correction in the historical harvest. Further, the Addendum adjusts the method (management trigger) to reduce total landings to the coastwide cap when the cap has been exceeded and removes the implementation of state-by-state allocations if the management trigger is met. Lastly, the Addendum maintains Maine’s glass eel quota of 9,688 pounds.

The Addendum responds to concerns with the previous Addendum’s (IV) yellow eel management triggers given the timing and precision of landings data and the challenges of state-by-state quota management. Under Addendum IV, management action would have be triggered when (1) the coastwide cap is exceeded by more than 10% in a given year; or (2) the coastwide cap is exceeded in two consecutive years, regardless of the percent overage. If either of these triggers had been met, state-by-state quotas would have been required to be implemented.

Under Addendum V, management action will now be initiated if the yellow eel coastwide cap is exceeded by 10% in two consecutive years.  If the management trigger is exceeded, only those states accounting for more than 1% of the total yellow eel landings will be responsible for adjusting their measures. A workgroup will be formed to define the process to equitably reduce landings among the affected states when the management trigger has been met.

The Board slightly modified the glass eel aquaculture provisions, maintaining the 200 pound limit for glass eel harvest but modifying the criteria for evaluating the proposed harvest area’s contribution to the overall population consistent with the recommendations of the Technical Committee. Under the revised provisions, the Board approved Maine’s glass eel aquaculture proposal for the 2019 fishing season, allowing for an additional 200 pounds of glass eels to be harvested for development in domestic aquaculture facilities. This amount is in addition to the Maine’s glass eel quota.

The implementation date for Addendum V is January 1, 2019. The Addendum will be posted to the Commission’s website by the end of August at http://www.asmfc.org/species/american-eel under Managements Plans.  For more information, please contact Kirby Rootes-Murdy, Senior Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at krootes-murdy@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.

Depleted stock sinks Maine’s bid to increase its fishing quota for lucrative baby eels

August 9, 2018 — Maine’s efforts to expand its lucrative baby eel fishery by increasing its annual quota by 20 percent were shot down Wednesday. But the state did secure an extra 200 pounds of yearly landings to help a Thomaston eel farmer build a new aquaculture center.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the interstate body that oversees the American eel fishery, cited the “depleted” state of the stock when it rejected the proposal. Licensed Maine fishermen are currently allowed to harvest 9,688 pounds of baby eels, which are also called glass eels or elvers. Maine sought to increase that annual harvest to 11,749 pounds.

The final vote was 13-5, with each of the 15 member states, as well as the District of Columbia and two federal agencies, getting a say.

During discussion, commissioners cited the difficulty that scientists face when estimating the size of the American eel population, especially baby eels, but noted that scientists generally agreed that the stock is depleted. Eels do not reproduce until they are about 30 years old, at the end of their life cycle, so measuring the impact of harvesting babies won’t be known for decades.

“I’m impressed with the efforts that Maine has gone through to strengthen the reporting and monitoring of the fishery,” said Roy Miller, a Delaware commissioner. “Nonetheless, our only advice from the stock assessment scientists was that this stock remains depleted, and that we don’t know what the effect of harvest of Maine glass eels will have on the rest.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Regulators will not allow lucrative baby eel fishery to grow

August 8, 2018 –A regulatory board decided Wednesday that Maine’s baby eel fishery, the only one of its kind in the U.S. and one of the most lucrative fisheries in the country, will not be allowed to expand next year.

Fishermen in Maine are allowed to harvest a total of 9,688 pounds of the elvers per year, and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission shot down a proposal to increase that by about 20 percent. The increase would’ve been a boost to a fishery that routinely fetches some of the highest prices in the country on a per-pound basis.

Baby eels, called elvers, can be worth more than $2,000 per pound at docks because they are used by Asian aquaculture companies in the worldwide supply chain for Japanese food. Maine is the only state in the U.S. with a significant fishery for them, and worldwide supplies have been low, making them even more valuable.

Maine’s elver fishery is coming out of a contentious season that ended in May, when authorities shut down the fishery early amid concerns about illegal sales. The fishery is tightly monitored to deter poaching, and the illegal transactions circumvented a swipe card system used to track elver sales in Maine, authorities said.

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

Small-scale fisheries threatened—shared management, communication key to success

August 7, 2018 –Intertidal ecosystems and the small-scale fisheries they support are an important part of coastal economies, environments, and cultures. Globally, fisheries such as the soft-shell clams (Mya arenaria), face multiple stresses related to climate change, invasive species and unsustainable land use.

In a paper published in Ocean and Coastal Management, University of Maine researchers and colleagues show how co-management approaches—based on shared responsibility for resource management among individuals and institutions—can build resilience to socio-environmental change by strengthening the use of science in decision making and promoting adaptive capacities such as learning and leadership.

“We see an urgent need to find ways to wade into the complicated and sometimes messy work of co-management as a space for bringing differences together in productive, creative and equitable ways,” says lead author Bridie McGreavy, assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism and faculty member in the Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions.

Co-management’s commitment to shared responsibility points to the important role of communication, and requires that people share information, learn from each other, and collaborate.

“The communication aspect of shellfish management is critical to its success,” McGreavy adds. “Our paper demonstrates how taking an engaged approach to research—creating in-depth partnerships to design research that can be used for decision making—can help strengthen co-management.”

In addition to environmental threats, these also face complex social issues, many of which are related to poverty and limited access to educational opportunities. However, small-scale fishing communities in Maine and around the world are also rising to meet these challenges.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

Scientists struggle to measure change in the natural world

August 6, 2018 –We face a paradoxical bind, needing simultaneously to look backward and move forward. It’s dangerous, warn the editors of “Shifting Baselines: The Past and the Future of Ocean Fisheries,” to “ignore historical change and accept the present as natural.”

First coined in 1995 by marine ecologist Daniel Pauly, the term “shifting baselines” describes a widespread tendency to assess change using too recent a reference point – typically how conditions appeared early in a researcher’s life or career. When that pattern extends across generations, it can lead to a persistent ratcheting down of expectations – coming to accept as “normal” simplified food webs with less diversity and resilience.

Shifting baselines can, for example, prompt us to celebrate a population rebound that looks impressive in the context of a 30-year time span but pales in comparison to the population and range of that species 300 – or 3,000 – years ago.

Lisa Kerr, a fisheries ecologist at Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI) in Portland, acknowledges how hard it can be for marine researchers to find appropriate reference points against which to measure change in fish stocks. Fisheries managers, she says, typically rely on data from 1980 onward. A longer historical context would be valuable, but is not always possible due to limited data.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald