Saving Seafood

Maine: Lobstermen must report total catch

February 22, 2018 — New regulations passed February 6 by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission requires 100 percent catch reporting by all Maine lobster and Jonah crab fishermen within five years. Developing an electronic reporting method for Maine fishermen is also under way.

“We argued against it heavily for quite a while,” Sen. Brian Langley (R-Ellsworth) said. “Stonington lands more than all of Southern New England.”

Langley, along with Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher and Stephen Train of Long Island, represent Maine on the commission.

“It’s like a game of Survivor down there,” Langley added. With the collapse of the lobster industry in Southern New England, “Maine sometimes is up against other states.”

Currently, only 10 percent of Maine lobstermen, selected randomly within specific categories, are required to file catch reports for each trip. Fishermen in the 14 other ASFMC member states report all their catch.

However, Maine has the largest lobster fishery of all member states, producing about four-fifths of the nation’s lobster harvest.

“It’s unfortunate states with a few hundred fishermen voted for Maine fishermen,” said Rep. Walter Kumiega (D-Deer Isle), House Chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources and 2018 candidate for state senator.

Keliher’s motion to maintain current harvester reporting efforts was amended to add that 100 percent harvester reporting be required within five years—better than the immediate adoption of the regulation that had been earlier presented. A further amendment, that if a commercial harvester landed less than 1,000 pounds of lobster or Jonah crab in the previous year a monthly summary could be submitted, was also successful. The amended motion unanimously passed, as did a provision to develop electronic reporting.

Read the full story at Island Ad-Vantages

 

Maine men indicted in New Jersey as part of ongoing elver sting operation

February 22, 2018 — Two men from midcoast Maine have been indicted in New Jersey as part of an East Coast baby eel trafficking scheme that so far has netted 19 guilty pleas.

Joseph Kelley of Woolwich and James Lewis of West Bath are charged in U.S. District Court in New Jersey with conspiracy to violate the Lacey Act, two counts of violation of the Lacey Act and smuggling.

Prosecutors allege that during 2013 and 2014, the two men illegally harvested, transported and sold baby eels, also known as elvers.

Fishing for elvers is illegal in all states except Maine, where it is permitted along the entire coast, and South Carolina, where the practice is permitted only in the Cooper River.

Federal prosecutors charged Kelley and Lewis with conspiring with other named conspirators — including Albert Cray of Phippsburg; Mark Green of West Bath; John Pinkham of Bath; George Anestis of Boxborough, Massachusetts; Michael Bryant of West Yarmouth, Massachusetts; and Thomas Choi, who owned a seafood company in Cambridge, Maryland — who purchased, sold or exported elvers worth more than $1.5 million, according to court documents.

Choi was sentenced in December to serve six months in prison for his role in the scheme.

Woolwich resident Bill Sheldon, one of the country’s major elver dealers, pleaded guilty in October to elver trafficking, but his sentencing date has not yet been set.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Head of Maine’s largest commercial fishing advocacy group to retire after 27 years

February 20, 2018 — David Cousens, the president of Maine Lobstermen’s Association since 1991, has decided to step down from the advocacy group.

“I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s time for the younger generation to step up,” the South Thomaston lobsterman said Thursday. “I’m retiring from the political [stuff].”

Cousens says he officially will step down at the MLA annual meeting, which will be held Friday, March 2 as part of the annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum in Rockport.

Cousens, 60, said he wants more time to focus on lobster fishing, spare time to spend with his first grandchild who is expected to be born soon, and less time on the road driving to fishery management gatherings throughout the Northeast.

“I burned out I don’t know how many trucks,” said Cousens, adding he drives between 25,000 and 30,000 miles each year just going to meetings.

He also said someone else should take the lead in addressing what has turned into the dominant factor that likely will shape Maine’s $500 million lobster fishery for years to come: whale conservation.

As Maine’s lobster fishery has changed in recent decades, with many fishermen going further offshore and using more durable rope and multi-trap trawls, it also has faced increased scrutiny from regulators and conservationists who say whales are increasingly at risk of entanglements. In 2009 and again in 2014, lobstermen were required to change how they fish in order to reduce the threat of entanglement to whales, which are protected by federal law.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

 

Maine: Longtime leader of Lobstermen’s Association to step down

February 14, 2018 — David Cousens, a South Thomaston lobsterman who has led the Maine Lobstermen’s Association for 27 years, is stepping down as president of the organization.

Cousens, 60, said the organization needs new leadership when it faces new challenges, including lawsuits aimed at protecting whales that become entangled in fishing lines.

He said resolving that issue will require a lot of time and effort and it will be better handled if he turns over the reins to someone else.

Besides, Cousens said Tuesday, “it’s time to step back and enjoy life a little bit.” Cousens said running the organization is a full-time job and he puts 50,000 miles a year on his pickup truck, mostly to attend meetings. The lawsuits, he said, will only add to the workload. He also tends 800 lobster traps, and his first grandchild is due to be born in a couple of weeks, he said.

Cousens will officially step down when the association holds its annual meeting March 2 in conjunction with the Maine Fishermen’s Forum in Rockland.

The organization’s board will choose a replacement for Cousens, said Melissa Waterman, the group’s communications coordinator.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Patrice McCarron: Lobstermen’s conservation efforts an investment in the future

February 14, 2018 — KENNEBUNK, Maine — How many of you keep money in the bank? Savings accounts, money market accounts, certificates of deposit or investments – we all use different methods to ensure that we have something set aside for the future. Maine lobstermen have been doing just that for the past century, making sure that there will be lobsters in the Gulf of Maine for their children and grandchildren to harvest. In doing so, they have earned a worldwide reputation as leaders in stewardship of marine resources.

Their conservation practices certainly have paid off, according to a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Maine’s lobstermen have built one of the world’s most sustainable fisheries by implementing common-sense conservation measures aimed at ensuring that lobsters are able to reproduce before being caught.

It started more than 100 years ago, long before the establishment of extensive government survey programs or sophisticated computer models. Lobstermen began marking female lobsters that were carrying eggs with a notch in their tails, a practice now known as “v-notching.” It was a simple method that let any lobsterman who might catch that female later, without eggs, know to not harvest her order to allow the lobster to spawn again. Since that time, lobstermen have rallied behind other important conservation measures, such as protecting large lobsters, because the bigger the lobster, the more young they can produce. Lobster traps are equipped with vents to allow smaller lobsters to escape and grow to legal size. Only lobster traps, rather than nets, can be used to catch lobsters, a passive gear that ensures that under- or oversized lobsters can be returned to the sea alive.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

As Fishermen Age, Maine Looks For New Scallop Harvesters

February 14, 2018 — PORTLAND, Maine — Maine’s fishing managers are considering letting new people into the scallop fishery for the first time in nearly a decade.

A legislative committee is set to vote on a proposal to create a license lottery system on Wednesday. The average age of Maine scallop fishermen is higher than 50. The fishery has been closed to new people since 2009.

Maine’s scallop fishery has stabilized recently after crashing in the mid-2000s. It set a record value at $12.77 per pound at the docks in 2016.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Maine Public Radio

 

Maine: Benchmark study of lobsters begins

February 13, 2018 — In 2015, data collected in a benchmark assessment of New England lobster stocks showed record-high abundance for the combined stocks of the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank and record lows for the lobster stock of southern New England.

Now, about three years later, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is beginning preparations for the next American lobster benchmark assessment that is expected to be completed around March 2020.

“We’re in the very early stages right now,” said Jeff Kipp, senior stock assessment scientist at the Arlington, Virginia-based ASMFC that regulates the Northeast lobster fishery. “The process will be mostly data-driven.”

Nothing is certain in the periodic assessments of various seafood species. But if some recent projections hold, the 2020 assessment could sketch a different picture from the 2015 assessment, possibly reflecting the declining abundance predicted by a recent Gulf of Maine Research Institute study.

The study, compiled with the University of Maine and NOAA Fisheries, forecast a 30-year decline in the Gulf of Maine lobster boom that began around 2010. The culprit? Increasingly warmer temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, which scientists have said is warming faster than 99.9 percent of the rest of the world’s ocean waters.

“In the Gulf of Maine, the lobster fishery is vulnerable to future temperature increases,” the authors of the study wrote. “The researchers’ population projections suggest that lobster productivity will decrease as temperatures continue to warm, but continued conservation efforts can mitigate the impacts of future warming.”

The findings of the GMRI study were strongly disputed by some Maine lobster dealers and the state’s Department of Marine Resources. The Maine DMR criticized the GMRI computer model used to arrive at the study’s conclusions, calling it “an unreliable tool on which to base management decisions.”

The benchmark assessment of the region’s lobster populations — which will include data on lobster landings, lobster growth and prevalent diseases among the population — could go a long way toward determining exactly what is happening to the region’s American lobster stocks.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Local group seeks lawsuit to aid right whales

February 9, 2018 — After a year of major losses for North Atlantic right whales, a local environmental advocacy group filed a federal lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service Thursday, arguing that the agency should do more to protect the critically endangered mammals.

Over the past year, 18 right whales have died — a grave blow to a species with only about 450 left in the world. Scientists fear they’re not reproducing fast enough and could face extinction as soon as 2040.

In response, federal regulators declared an “unusual mortality event,” triggering an investigation into the deaths and bringing more resources to protect the whales.

But lawyers at the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston, which filed the suit, argued that the agency should be doing more.

“Regulators are not just morally mandated to act . . . they are also legally required to ensure fishing efforts do not cause harm to these animals,” said Emily Green, an attorney at the foundation.

Green noted that the vast majority of right whale deaths have been attributed to entanglements in fishing gear, especially the lines that connect surface buoys to lobster traps.

“Tragically, chronic entanglement is a source of extreme stress, pain, and suffering for right whales, and can interfere with eating, moving, and reproducing,” Green said. “And we know that entanglement can cause long-term adverse health impacts, even for whales that manage to escape the ropes.”

Officials at the National Marine Fisheries Service declined to comment.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

 

All Maine lobstermen will have to report fishing details, including secrets of success

February 9, 2018 — All Maine lobstermen will have to start giving up their most treasured fishing secrets, including where they set their traps and how much they catch, in five years.

Starting in 2023, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission will require all lobster fishermen to submit detailed reports on their fishing activities, including those in Maine, the nation’s lobster capital, where current regulations only require 10 percent of licensed lobstermen to share their fishing data. In other states, lobster fishermen have been submitting reports on every trip for years.

The commission was considering a plan to require Maine lobstermen to begin filling out these reports immediately, but Maine Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher argued against it. He said it would require state government to hire five employees and raise industry fees by $500,000 to review that many paper records. Keliher said he would rather wait a couple of years for the development of a cheap and easy electronic monitoring system before requiring 100 percent reporting in Maine.

“I’d rather spend my money on things that are more important at this time while we focus on electronic reporting development,” Keliher told the commission.

Fisheries managers say the data is necessary to assess the health of the Gulf of Maine lobster stock and understand the economic impact of other ocean projects, such as deep-sea coral protections or wind farms, on the valuable lobster fishery. In Maine, which lands 83 percent of the nation’s lobsters, the industry caught more than 130 million pounds of lobster valued at $533.1 million in 2016.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Maine’s lucrative elver harvest might be allowed to grow by millions of eels

February 7, 2018 — Maine fishermen might be allowed to catch millions more baby eels next year, regulators said Tuesday.

Baby eels, called elvers, are typically worth more than $1,000 per pound at the docks in Maine. Maine is the only U.S. state with a significant fishery for elvers, which are sold to aquaculture companies to be raised to maturity and used as food.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission limits Maine fishermen to 9,688 pounds of elvers per year, but on Tuesday it unveiled new rules that could increase that total to 11,479 pounds. There are more than 2,000 elvers in a pound.

Members of the eel fishing industry, as well as some chefs and seafood dealers, have called for the added quota because of years of stewardship in Maine to keep the elver population healthy. The state’s elvers are worth so much in part because foreign stocks of eels have dried up.

“Maine has addressed poaching in a very successful manner,” said Jeffrey Pierce, a consultant to Maine’s elver industry. He cited a swipe card system that allows the state to “track every elver from stream to exporter.”

The fisheries commission voted Tuesday to send the proposed new fishing rules out for public comment. It must vote on the new rules for them to take effect and could do so as soon as May. This year’s elver fishing season begins next month and will be limited by the current quota.

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