Saving Seafood

NOAA Gives Final Approval to 2018 Scallop Plan Which Will Result in 60 Million Lb. Harvest

April 19, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — NOAA Fisheries and NMFS have approved measures included in Framework Adjustment 29 to the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management plan. The final rule was published in the Federal Register on Thursday and sets an annual catch limit of 60 million pounds of scallops for FY 2018. In comparison, the 2017 fishing year was set at 51.7 million pounds.

Framework 29 sets management measures for the Atlantic Sea Scallop fishery for the remainder of the 2018 fishing year, which runs from April 19, 2018 to March 21, 2019. Northern Gulf of Maine management measures in Framework 29 were previously published on March 26, 2018 and were set to prevent overfishing and improve the yield-per-recruit and overall management of the Atlantic sea scallop resource in the Northern Gulf of Maine. Those measures went into effect on April 1, 2018. The Framework Adjustment 29 to the Atlantic Sea Scallop Fishery Management Plan is in addition to the March 26 final rule.

Framework 29 also “allocates effort into four rotational access areas (Mid-Atlantic, Nantucket Lightship-West, Nantucket Lightship-South, and Closed Area 1).” Both Closed Area 1 and Nantucket Lightship-West contain new area available to scallop fishing through the Omnibus Habitat Amendment. In addition, Framework 29 adjusts the scallop fleet’s accountability measures for Southern New England/ Mid-Atlantic yellowtail flounder and Georges Bank yellowtail flounder.

You can find the final rule in the Federal Register here.

This story was originally published by Seafood News, it is republished here with permission.

 

After a disastrous 2017 season, herring fishermen are cautiously optimistic

April 18, 2018 — As regulators consider alternatives to management of the Atlantic herring fishery — which extends from North Carolina to Maine — fishermen are cautiously hoping for a better year than recent ones.

In 2017, the New England Fishery Management Council released options that could affect the industry that provides food for consumption, fish oil and bait. The council will make a final decision this summer about possible changes regarding fishery catches and potential closures to address concerns about localized depletion and user conflicts.

Variation in the fishery, in terms of volume, area and season, is not uncommon, but what drives the swings depends on whom you ask.

In 2016, fishermen (mostly from Maine and Massachusetts) hit 60.4 percent of quota when they hauled in about 140 million pounds of herring — the lowest since 2002. But dockside, the catch was worth more than $28.8 million, among the highest value totals on record. In 2017, preliminary NOAA estimates indicate just 48.2 percent of herring’s annual catch limit was harvested from a quota just over 226 million pounds.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

Maine: In new cautionary approach, Maine shellfish areas will be closed at first sign of toxins

April 17, 2018 — BOOTHBAY, Maine — Public health officials say they will use extreme caution to manage toxic algae blooms this year to prevent another expensive and potentially dangerous shellfish recall.

In the last two years, sudden toxic algae blooms of a previously unrecorded type of phytoplankton forced the Maine Department of Marine Resources to close huge sections of the Down East coast to shellfish harvesting and to issue rare recalls of tons of clams and mussels from as far away as Utah.

Recalls are bad for public health, business and Maine’s seafood brand, said Kohl Kanwit, head of the department’s public health division, during a workshop Tuesday for harvesters, seafood dealers, regulators and researchers at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay.

“The risk is high; you never get 100 percent back” from a recall, Kanwit said. “It is really costly for the industry and bad all around.”

This year, the department isn’t taking any chances as it monitors for pseudo-nitzschia, a single-cell organism that can bloom unexpectedly and make domoic acid, a dangerous biotoxin that may cause amnesic shellfish poisoning, or ASP, in humans and animals. In serious cases, ASP can lead to memory loss, brain damage or even death. The first recorded ASP event, on Prince Edward Island in 1987, killed three people and made at least 100 sick.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Lobster shell disease nudges up slightly off of Maine

April 13, 2018 — PORTLAND, Maine — A disease that disfigures lobsters has ticked up slightly in Maine in the last couple of years, but authorities and scientists say it’s not time to sound the alarm.

The disease, often called epizootic shell disease, is a bacterial infection that makes lobsters impossible to sell as food, eating away at their shells and sometimes killing them. The Maine Department of Marine Resources said researchers found the disease in about 1 percent of lobsters last year.

Circa the early- and mid-2000s, they almost never found it in Maine. But overall prevalence of the disease remains low, especially compared to southern New England waters, where it’s in the 20 percent to 30 percent range, the department said.

Scientists who study the fishery, such as microbiologist Deborah Bouchard of the University of Maine, said it remains important to monitor for the disease, which appears to correlate with warming temperatures.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Globe

 

The oceans’ circulation hasn’t been this sluggish in 1,000 years. That’s bad news.

April 11, 2018 — The Atlantic Ocean circulation that carries warmth into the Northern Hemisphere’s high latitudes is slowing down because of climate change, a team of scientists asserted Wednesday, suggesting one of the most feared consequences is already coming to pass.

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation has declined in strength by 15 percent since the mid-20th century to a “new record low,” the scientists conclude in a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Nature. That’s a decrease of 3 million cubic meters of water per second, the equivalent of nearly 15 Amazon rivers.

The AMOC brings warm water from the equator up toward the Atlantic’s northern reaches and cold water back down through the deep ocean. The current is partly why Western Europe enjoys temperate weather, and meteorologists are linking changes in North Atlantic Ocean temperatures to recent summer heat waves.

The circulation is also critical for fisheries off the U.S. Atlantic coast, a key part of New England’s economy that have seen changes in recent years, with the cod fishery collapsing as lobster populations have boomed off the Maine coast.

Some of the AMOC’s disruption may be driven by the melting ice sheet of Greenland, another consequence of climate change that is altering the region’s water composition and interrupts the natural processes.

Read the full story at the Washington Post

Maine: In new cautionary approach, Maine shellfish areas will be closed at first sign of toxins

April 11, 2018 — BOOTHBAY, Maine — Public health officials say they will use extreme caution to manage toxic algae blooms this year to prevent another expensive and potentially dangerous shellfish recall.

In the last two years, sudden toxic algae blooms of a previously unrecorded type of phytoplankton forced the Maine Department of Marine Resources to close huge sections of the Down East coast to shellfish harvesting and to issue rare recalls of tons of clams and mussels from as far away as Utah.

Recalls are bad for public health, business and Maine’s seafood brand, said Kohl Kanwit, head of the department’s public health division, during a workshop Tuesday for harvesters, seafood dealers, regulators and researchers at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay.

“The risk is high; you never get 100 percent back” from a recall, Kanwit said. “It is really costly for the industry and bad all around.”

This year, the department isn’t taking any chances as it monitors for pseudo-nitzschia, a single-cell organism that can bloom unexpectedly and make domoic acid, a dangerous biotoxin that may cause amnesic shellfish poisoning, or ASP, in humans and animals. In serious cases, ASP can lead to memory loss, brain damage or even death. The first recorded ASP event, on Prince Edward Island in 1987, killed three people and made at least 100 sick.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Lobstermen will get extension on medical waivers

April 11, 2018 — AUGUSTA, Maine — A Maine law is now on the books to extend the amount of time some commercial fishing license holders can receive a medical waiver.

Harpswell Democratic Rep. Jay McCreight’s measure allows the Maine Department of Marine Resources commissioner to renew a temporary medical waiver for lobster and crab fishing licenses up to one year.

McCreight says she was motivated to make the proposal at the request of a Harpswell lobsterman who needed help because he’s struggling with a terminal illness, but still needs to work.

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

 

Maine’s resurgent scallop fishery ending for the season

April 10, 2018 — PORTLAND, Maine — Maine’s scallop fishery is reaching the end of a season that showed signs of further rebuilding.

The fishery collapsed in the mid-2000s and has steadily rebuilt amid new management measures over the last few years. Tuesday is the final day of the 2017-18 season for scallop draggers to harvest the shellfish.

The fishery still includes a few divers who harvest scallops by hand, and they can continue working until April 15.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the News & Observer

 

Interior secretary: ‘Opposition’ to offshore drill plan

April 9, 2018 — PLAINSBORO, N.J. — Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Friday acknowledged there is “a lot of opposition” to President Donald Trump’s plan to open most of the nation’s coastline to oil and gas drilling.

Speaking at a forum on offshore wind energy in Plainsboro, New Jersey, Zinke touted Trump’s “all of the above” energy menu that calls for oil and gas, as well as renewable energy projects.

But he noted strong opposition to the drilling plan, adding there is little to no infrastructure in many of those areas to support drilling.

“There is a lot of opposition, particularly off the East Coast and the West Coast, on oil and gas,” Zinke said.

He said on the East Coast, only the Republican governors of Maine and Georgia have expressed support for the drilling plan, which has roiled environmentalists but cheered energy interests. Maine Gov. Paul LePage has endorsed the plan, but Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has hesitated to take a public position on it.

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

Harvest of clams continues to dwindle in New England

April 9, 2018 — The harvest of soft-shell clams is dwindling along the coast of New England, where the shellfish are embedded in the culture as much as the tidal muck.

Soft-shell clams, also called “steamers” or “longnecks,” are one of the northeastern U.S.’s most beloved seafood items, delighting shoreside diners in fried clam rolls, clam strips and clam chowders. But the nationwide harvest fell to a little less than 2.8 million pounds of meat in 2016, the lowest total since 2000, and there are new signs of decline in Maine.

The Pine Tree State produces more of the clams than any other, and state regulators there said clam harvesters collected a little more than 1.4 million pounds of the shellfish last year. That’s the lowest total since 1930, and less than half a typical haul in the early- and mid-1980s.

The clam fishery is coping with a declining number of fishermen, a warming ocean, harmful algal blooms in the marine environment and growing populations of predator species, said regulators and scientists who study the fishery. It leaves clammers like Chad Coffin of Freeport, Maine, concerned the harvest will decline to the point it will be difficult to make a living.

Read the full story at the Concord Monitor