Saving Seafood

Game of inches: Lobster fishermen say tiny change in legal sizes could disrupt imperiled industry

August 14, 2024 — Gerry Cushman has seen Maine’s iconic lobster industry survive numerous threats in his three decades on the water, but the latest challenge — which might sound tiny — could be the biggest one yet.

Lobster fishing is a game of inches, and the number of inches is about to change. Fishing regulators are instituting a new rule that lobster fishermen must abide by stricter minimum sizes for crustaceans they harvest.

The impending change might be only 1/16th of an inch or 1.6 millimeters, but it will make a huge difference for fishermen when the fishery is already facing major threats from climate change and new rules designed to protect whales, numerous lobster fishers told The Associated Press.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Lobster Habitat in the Gulf of Maine Has Changed, Scientists Say

August 13, 2024 — Lobster fishing has been a good business in the Gulf of Maine for a long time. With the exception of a few notable dips, both the landings and value of the catch have been on an upward swing for decades.

Between 1984 and 2014, the lobster population in the Gulf of Maine jumped an estimated 515%, while simultaneously declining by 78% in southern New England as the water warmed in both regions.

While it’s started to decline in recent years, numbers are still far higher than they were several decades ago.

The result? A lobster housing crisis.

“The warming sea temperatures have actually created a real sweet spot for lobster reproduction,” said Brian Skerry, a National Geographic photographer and producer on the recent GBH/PBS series Sea Change, which explores the impact of climate change on the Gulf of Maine.

Skerry, who lives in York, has been diving in the Gulf of Maine since childhood. But when he began diving on the Isles of Shoals for his most recent project, he saw something he’d never seen before: lobsters crawling all over the bottom, digging foxholes in the sand.

“I wasn’t used to seeing that,” said Skerry. “Usually they’re tucked away in rocky crevices and dens.”

Win Watson, a lobster scientist at the University of New Hampshire, clued him in. “He said, ‘Well, what you’re seeing, Brian, is actually a direct result of climate change.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

MAINE: Sunken fishing vessel undergoing awaited salvage operations

August 9, 2024 — An 83-foot fishing vessel, Jacob Pike, sank over the winter during one of the severe storms that hit Maine’s coast. It has been sitting at the bottom of the New Meadows River in Harpswell for about seven months and is now to be removed.

The U.S. Coast Guard is coordinating with the Maine Department of Environmental Protections (DEP), NOAA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Maine Department of Marine Resources, Maine Department of Agriculture Conservation and Forestry (Bureau of Parks and Lands), and the Town of Harpswell, to develop a comprehensive plan to begin operations and safely remove the Jacob Pike.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

 

MAINE: Maine Department of Marine resources halts shellfish harvest due to water contamination

August 7, 2024 — Areas for shellfish harvesting have been closed due to contaminated runoff from recent heavy rainfall.

Maine’s Department of Marine Resources says it’s closed areas of the Freeport-Harpswell coast after rain showers carried animal waste into waters where shellfish feed.

Parts of Scarborough, Brunswick, and Yarmouth are also closed due to waste runoff.

Bryant Lewis at MDMR says that filter feeders like the shellfish in these areas are of special concern when water is contaminated like this.

Read the full article at WMTV

MAINE: Failure of wind turbine blade off Cape Cod raises questions for Maine officials

August 6, 2024 — The collapse of a wind energy turbine blade off Massachusetts in mid-July exposed a weakness in communications about environmental and mechanical hazards, raising an issue that Maine may have to address as it plans its own wind power presence in the Gulf of Maine.

Debris from the broken turbine blade, about 350 feet long and manufactured by GE Vernova, washed up on Nantucket beaches. Residents posted photos of fiberglass and foam littering the tony island’s beaches. The online images sparked a tug-of-war between environmentalists who said the incident should not set back efforts to promote zero-carbon energy and skeptics who said the incident proves that wind energy can pollute the environment.

“Obviously, it’s not great,” said Jack Shapiro, climate and clean energy director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine. But busted wind turbines washing up on beaches is far less damaging than oil from broken tankers or off-shore drilling sites, he said.

“The most concerning thing for Nantucket was the delayed direct notification to our community,” Brooke Mohr, chair of the town’s select board, said in a recent interview.

Vineyard Wind, the developer of New England’s first utility-scale offshore wind project, informed the town at 5 p.m. July 15, two days after the incident, she said. Vineyard Wind did not respond to an email seeking comment on Mohr’s account.

Read the full article at Yahoo! News

Researchers are on a mission this summer to learn more about right whales in the Gulf of Maine

August 6, 2024 — As the 100-foot long whale watch vessel, “Acadia Explorer,” idles at the dock in Bar Harbor on this day in late July, passenger Sarah Leiter with the Maine Department of Marine Resources opens her laptop.

“This is the game plan for the next two days,” she said, pointing to a map of the Gulf of Maine marked with a series of red dots arranged in a grid-like pattern.

They show the locations of 26 passive acoustic monitors listening for North Atlantic right whales about 30 feet underwater.

On this trip, Leiter’s team will swap out some of the units that need new batteries — and will conduct visual surveillance for whales. They’ll travel at 10 knots along a predetermined path that zigs and zags in and offshore, stopping first at a point just southwest of Swan’s Island.

“Then along the coastline off of MDI, past Mount Desert Rock over to site 6, and then we kind of create the same pattern following a U, until we get to the last visual waypoint, and then we end up back in Bar Harbor,” Leiter said.

Along the way, the crew scans the water almost constantly, looking for signs of marine life.

So far this year they’ve seen humpback, fin and minke whales. But no right whales.

“All data is equally useful data, so those zeros are just as important as finding a pile of right whales,” said Erin Summers, who leads the new marine mammal research division for the Department of Marine Resources.

Read the full article at Maine Public

As Maine looks to harness Gulf of Maine winds, a big question looms: How much will utility customers pay?

August 1, 2024 — Maine’s offshore wind research project in the Gulf of Maine is the subject of negotiations that are picking up speed among state regulators, the project’s developers and the Public Advocate, who are trying to determine how much the zero-carbon energy will ultimately cost utility customers.

The PUC on July 11 ordered that the price — or how it’s structured for the project in a contract between the developer, Pine Tree Offshore Wind, and CMP or Versant — should be “sufficiently defined and certain” to allow regulators to determine whether the cost to ratepayers is the lowest reasonable amount to finance, build and operate the project. The low-cost provision is required by state law, which mandated that the PUC execute a long-term offshore wind contract between a utility of no less than 20 years.

The project is “intended to be a ‘kick-starter’ for an offshore wind industry in the Gulf of Maine,” regulators said. But it’s still years away from going online.

Jack Shapiro, climate and clean energy director of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, called the research project the “tip of the spear,” helping developers of future commercial wind power determine pricing and other factors.

Read the full story at Yahoo! News

$21.2M in resilience grants announced for Maine waterfront

August 1, 2024 — Maine Governor Mills announced $21.2 million in resilience grants for 68 working waterfronts damaged by winter storms. The Working Waterfront Resilience Grant Program funding stems from $60 million in recovery funds from the Maine Legislature following the December and January storms. The funding was approved on April 18, allocating direct funds to working waterfront communities, underlining their importance in the state.

“Working waterfronts are a cornerstone of our coastal communities and our economy, and last winter’s devastating storm demonstrated just how vulnerable they are to extreme weather and climate change,” said Governor Mills. “These grants will help rebuild working waterfronts, so they are able to better withstand future storms, protecting access to the water now and for generations to come.”

The recovery funds are the single largest investment in storm recovery by any administration in Maine’s history. The 68 working waterfront projects set to receive grant funds represent a range of needs. According to the release from Gov. Mills’ office, the needs include reconstructing and improving damaged wharves and piers, rebuilding and restoring key support buildings such as bait sheds, and repairing and upgrading fuel and electrical systems. A list of the preliminarily approved applicants and funding can be found here.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

They’re digging tiny bones out of tuna heads to help set future quotas

July 31, 2024 — Heidi Nydan revved a jagged, bloody reciprocating saw blade to life on Tuesday morning behind a building on Commercial Street, then sent it slashing down the length of a giant bluefin tuna’s decapitated head.

One lifeless, golf ball-sized fish eye stared up at the gray sky as Nydan, an intern at the University of Maine Pelagic Fisheries Lab, finished her whirring cut. Half the tuna’s head then hit the pavement with a wet thud.

“This is so fun,” Nydan said, her face splattered with flecks of fish spray. “I still can’t believe this is what I do when I come to work.”

Nydan, and a small team of other workers from the Portland-based lab, spent the morning cutting open 30 donated fish heads, then extracting tiny, fingernail-sized bones from within them. The small bits can reveal a lot about each fish and will eventually inform federal and international policymakers who set quotas and other regulations in the future.

But it takes a lot of itty bitty fish bones to do that. Lab interns and scientists sometimes process up to 2,000 bluefin tuna heads in a single fishing season.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News