Saving Seafood

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

Decision due on whether to increase harvest of baby eels

August 6, 2018 –Maine’s baby eel fishery has been through ups and downs in recent years, and regulators might be about to let fishermen catch a lot more of the valuable fish.

Baby eels, called elvers, can be worth more than $2,000 per pound because they are used by Asian aquaculture companies and worldwide supplies are low. Maine is the only state in the U.S. with a significant fishery for them.

Fishermen in Maine are allowed to harvest a total of 9,688 pounds of the elvers per year. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will consider increasing that by about 20 percent on Wednesday.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WABI

Maine Department Of Marine Resources Implements Rules To Avert Gear and Territory Conflicts

August 3, 2018 –The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) is imposing a new five-trap limit for lobster trawlers in a restricted area around Mt. Desert Rock — about 6 miles off Frenchboro. Gear conflicts are growing common in the area, as smaller and larger boats compete for access to fertile lobster habitat.

Lobstermen in management Zone B, which includes Mt. Desert Rock, voted for the limit earlier this year, a limit that they say is in keeping with their longtime fishing traditions. They were responding to increased conflicts with bigger boats, many from other zones, fishing 15 traps and more on a single line.

“It’s pitting one group of fishermen against another,” says Patrick Keliher, DMR’s Commissioner.

Keliher says large lobster trawlers based in neighboring management zones — particularly Zone C to the south and west — are venturing into far offshore waters, in Zone B.

Read the full story at Maine Public

With fewer types of fish to catch, Maine fishermen may be losing their knowledge of the sea

August 3, 2018 –Maine fishermen have a long history of being involved in fisheries management. Communication between harvesters and policymakers has been instrumental in the development of rules and regulations that have helped to sustain the region’s coastal fisheries—from clams to alewives to lobsters.

In part, this success results from the deep understanding of the natural environment held by . “Local ecological ” is a term used to describe the collective perceptions held by a particular group about their environment, resulting from the transmission of cultural knowledge from one generation to the next, combined with regular and persistent interactions between people and the environment.

Fishermen’s experience-derived “local ecological knowledge” can be equally valuable as data gained through modern scientific methods for informing resource management and building community resilience. Yet the very experience that forms the basis for fishermen’s knowledge is being eroded by increasing specialization in Maine’s fisheries, with more harvesters focusing on one or two target species. As fishermen focus on fewer types of fish, they have less access to the environment. Does this mean they are losing environmental knowledge, too?

Joshua Stoll, University of Maine assistant research professor of marine policy and cooperating scientist at the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, worked with Emily Farr, a recent graduate of Yale University, and assistant professor Christine Beitl of the Department of Anthropology to study how fishermen’s changing access to fish species over time (which Stoll documented in earlier research) has affected their knowledge of the . Marina Cucuzza, a student in the UMaine marine science and marine policy dual degree graduate program, assisted with some of the interviews.

Read the full story at PHYS.org