Saving Seafood

Cod Fishing Catches Plummet in Waters off New England

March 24, 2017 — ROCKPORT, Maine — The cod isn’t so sacred in New England anymore.

The fish-and-chips staple was once a critical piece of New England’s fishing industry, but catch is plummeting to all-time lows in the region. The decline of the fishery has made the U.S. reliant on foreign cod, and cod fish fillets and steaks purchased in American supermarkets and restaurants are now typically caught by Norway, Russia or Iceland in the north Atlantic.

In Maine, which is home to the country’s second-largest Atlantic cod fishery, the dwindling catch has many wondering if cod fishing is a thing of the past.

“It’s going to be more and more difficult for people to make this work,” said Maggie Raymond, executive director of the Associated Fisheries of Maine.

State records say 2016 was historically bad for cod fishing in Maine. Fishermen brought less than 170,000 pounds (77,110 kilograms) of the fish to land in the state last year.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News & World Report

Lobster exports to China boom

March 24, 2017 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — A trade war with China may be somewhere on the horizon, but the Maine lobster industry is hoping that the horizon is a distant one.

According to the figures published by the National Marine Fisheries Service, in 2016 China imported more than $108 million worth of lobsters from the United States. That’s a reported 14-fold jump from 2010, when lobster imports were about $7.4 million.

More than 80 percent of U.S. lobster imported to China comes from Maine.

The price of lobster was high last year, but so was demand. Published trade figures show that, in 2015, China imported about 13 million pounds of lobster from the United States. Last year, imports of American lobster topped 14 million pounds.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

Maine fishermen see warning signs in lobster surge

March 23, 2017 — After Maine’s lobster industry set sales records for a second straight year, area fishermen are enjoying the boom while the water is warm.

Literally.

Rising sea temperatures are benefiting Maine’s iconic crustacean, leading to an increase in population while other marine species, such as soft-shell crabs, have suffered a decline, according to fishermen who spoke at a March 16 Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association panel.

But the factors for today’s success may portend tomorrow’s economic and cultural disaster, according to some area fishermen.

“We’re going to start going down when it gets warmer,” Maine Lobstermen’s Association President Dave Cousens told the audience at the Frontier Cafe.

Cousens was joined by MCFA President Gerry Cushing, of Port Clyde; Chebeague Island fisherman Alex Todd, and lobsterman Steve Train of Long Island.

Between July and October 2016, Cousens said, the ocean temperature was 60 degrees where he fishes in South Thomaston – a rise of three degrees since he began hauling traps three decades ago.

If temperatures rise three more degrees, he said, “lobster larvae will not survive. That’s what we’re facing.”

Last year, Maine fishermen hauled a record $130 million pounds of lobster, and the industry saw its value rocket $30 million, according to the Department of Marine Resources.

But the panelists warned the boom will be temporary.

“You don’t have to look too far south to see what’s coming,” Cousens said, noting the sharp demise of lobster populations off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Long Island, New York.

“That line’s just moving north,” Scott Moody, owner of Moody’s Seafood in Cundy’s Harbor, agreed the next day over the phone.

Moody, a fourth-generation lobsterman, fished in Harpswell for 30 years before starting his wholesale business, which includes five retail locations along Maine’s coast.

He buys directly from lobstermen and shellfish harvesters, and sells their product mostly to a distributor in Boston.

“In shellfish, we’ve seen a big turn,” Moody said last week. “I used to buy about $1 million in soft-shell (clams) in the Harpswell location,” at 337 Cundy’s Harbor Road.

“Since the climate change, I’m doing ($750,000) in hard-shell and only $250,000 in soft-shell,” he said.

Years ago, waiting to unload at his Boston distributor, “I’d be sitting behind five or six trucks of soft-shell clams,” he recalled. “They started to disappear. Then I’ve see guys bringing in hard-shell.”

He explained how warming waters increased the number of predators, such as Japanese green crabs, that can smash a clam’s soft shell.

Read the full story at The Forecaster

Conflict in Gulf of Maine Scallop Fishery

March 23, 2017 — Since the start of the scallop season this month, Jim Wotton has dragged heavy dredges along the seabed off Gloucester, hauling in as much as 200 pounds a day of the valuable clams, the area’s federal limit for small-boat fishermen.

Now, to his dismay, dozens of larger, industrial-sized boats have been steaming into the same gray waters, scooping up as many scallops as they can. Unlike their smaller counterparts, the large vessels have no quota on the amount they can catch; they’re only limited by the number of days they can fish.

It’s a regulatory loophole that small-boat fishermen fear could wipe out the resurgent scallop grounds in the northern Gulf of Maine. This year, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimate that the large boats are likely to catch about a million pounds of scallops – roughly half of the area’s estimated stock.

“That would be devastating,” said Wotton, 48, who fishes out of Friendship, Maine. “They’re taking our future. There won’t be anything for us next year.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Fisheries Survival Fund Corrects the Record on Gulf of Maine Scallops

WASHINGTON — March 22, 2017 — The following was released by the Fisheries Survival Fund:

Atlantic sea scallops remain one of the most sustainably harvested stocks in the United States. With recent media attention on scallops in the northern Gulf of Maine (NGOM), the Fisheries Survival Fund, which represents the majority of the full-time Limited Access scallop fleet, has produced a fact sheet clarifying the true status of scallops in the region.

Recent data from the New England Fishery Management Council, which is responsible for sustainably managing the region’s scallop population, shows that Atlantic sea scallops in the NGOM are not overfished, nor are they experiencing overfishing. The Limited Access fleet is operating within its allocated federal quota, and the Atlantic sea scallop fishery remains certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council. It also shows that most fishing in the area does not actually take place in the geographical NGOM, but rather in southwestern Stellwagen Bank, off the coast of Massachusetts. There are currently 36 active NGOM scallop fishing vessels in the NGOM, only 18 of which are home-ported in Maine.

We have provided a fact sheet below using the official documents in order to clarify these claims.

Fact Sheet on Scallops in the Northern Gulf of Maine

  • There is no overfishing of the Northern Gulf of Maine (NGOM) scallop stock, nor is it rebuilding, as scallops in the NGOM are not considered a separate, unique stock. There are not separate reference points for NGOM scallops, nor are there separate Annual Catch Limits. For all management and scientific purposes, NGOM scallops are part of the overall scallop stock, and are included in the full scallop assessment. According to that assessment, scallops are not overfished and are not experiencing overfishing.
  • The catch limit for the general category scallop boats in NGOM, currently set at 70,000 pounds, is based upon historical catch. The NGOM scallopers were given these allocations because they did not qualify for the limited access scallop fleet. More information can be found in Amendment 11 to the scallop Fishery Management Plan on the NEFMC website: http://www.nefmc.org/library/amendment-11
  • There are 81 NGOM permits and only 36 active NGOM scallop vessels fishing in NGOM. Out of those, only 18 are home-ported in Maine. This can be verified in Table 4 below, which was obtained from the New England Fishery Management Council website, from the March 1 meeting of the Scallop Plan Development Team. The table can also be found in section 3.2.1 of Draft Discussions Document on NGOM management.
  • Most of the scallop fishing activity in the NGOM does not occur near Maine, but offshore Massachusetts, in the southwest corner of Stellwagen Bank. Some of this activity is outside the actual NGOM management area. A table illustrating this can be found below, and can also be found in the Draft Discussions Document on NGOM management in section 3.1.
  • The fishing activity of the limited access scallop fleet in the NGOM does not count towards the quota of the NGOM. The limited access fleet operates on a federal quota, in federal waters, under an entirely separate management system. This is not new: the limited access scallop fleet has been fishing in this area under this management program for many years.
  • The Atlantic Sea Scallop fishery is certified as sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council. The scallop fishery’s commitment to sustainability is also reflected in their participation in the Research Set Aside program. Every year, a portion of revenue from the scallop catch is redirected towards research, which allows the scallop fishery to be managed by the most up-to-date science.
  • All points made have been confirmed with the most up to date NEFMC findings. These links are provided below:
  • http://www.nefmc.org/calendar/mar-1-2017-scallop-plan-development-team-meeting
  • http://www.nefmc.org/library/amendment-11
  • http://s3.amazonaws.com/nefmc.org/Doc4-170224_NGOM-Discussion-Draftv.2.pdf
  • http://s3.amazonaws.com/nefmc.org/Doc4a-NGOM-PDT_DataRequest_Feb2017_V2.pdf

 

 

Read the release here 

Plan to save New England shrimp fishery will go to public

March 20, 2017 — The public will have a chance to comment on a plan to change the way New England’s shuttered shrimp fishery is managed with an eye toward saving it.

The regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has been working on a plan to try to make the fishery more sustainable in the long term. It includes options such as changing the way the quota system is managed.

An arm of the commission has voted to send the plan out for public comment.

Regulators shut down the fishery in 2013 amid declining populations of shrimp. Scientists say warming ocean temperature is one factor hurting them.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at WCSH 6

Lobster industry fears lost sales from ramped-up Canadian exports

March 20, 2017 — A new trade deal looming between Canada and the European Union is setting off alarm bells in the Maine lobster industry.

The deal between Canada and the EU – the largest seafood consumer market in the world – would eliminate tariffs on Canadian lobster exports into Europe and give the Maritimes a competitive advantage over their American counterparts, who would be stuck selling lobsters with tariffs ranging from 8 percent for a live lobster to 20 percent on processed or cooked lobster.

A weak Canadian dollar, which is now valued at about 75 percent of a U.S. dollar, will only make Canadian lobster that much more attractive to importers in the 28 member nations of the European Union, which is the second biggest importer of American lobsters, second only to Canada, according to trade data. In 2016, the EU imported $152 million worth of lobsters from the U.S., most of it from Maine.

“This is a big deal,” said Annie Tselikis, director of the Maine Lobster Dealers’ Association. “Canada recognizes that it is an export nation. They are putting their money where their mouth is and adopting a very aggressive trade policy. They are also developing a very aggressive, smart marketing campaign abroad. It is going to be very difficult to compete with that because we sell the same product.”

The Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA, has been under negotiation for years. The United States was negotiating one, too, called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP, but it has stalled. The Canadian-EU deal appears likely to get its final OK in May, and the first phase of the deal, including the trade tariffs, would go into effect in June.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Trump wants to end grants that support Maine fishing jobs

March 20, 2017 — The national $73 million Sea Grant program, which includes about a dozen researchers affiliated with the University of Maine, could be eliminated if Congress approves drastic budget cuts proposed for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by President Trump.

Funding for the state’s Department of Marine Resources and for collecting weather and climate data in the Gulf of Maine also could be put at risk by the president’s proposal.

Paul Anderson, director of the Sea Grant program at University of Maine, said Tuesday that the money NOAA has funded for the program has been “money well spent” because it has helped draw additional funding to Maine and has helped spur economic development.

“I think [Trump] has just got a fundamentally different attitude about government,” Anderson said Tuesday, without going into further detail. “What [people can do to try to protect the program] is write to our congressmen and senators.”

Trump’s administration already is considering slashing funding for the U.S. Coast Guard, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, and for the Environmental Protection Agency, which provides about 20 percent of Maine’s Department of Environmental Protection annual funding. Now, according to the Washington Post, the federal Office of Management and Budget is looking to cut funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration by 17 percent.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

How Luke’s Lobster is Upending the World of Lobstering through a New Kind of Co-Op

March 15, 2017 — While many things can be said about the success of Luke Holden and his multi-million-dollar company, Luke’s Lobster, two things, in particular, stand out. Going into finance post-graduation isn’t the only key to making it big, and nothing is so good that it can’t be made better.

As is the case for many in the industry, Holden comes from a long line of fisherman and began his foray into the lobstering world as a kid. Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, Holden spent his summers lobstering in the waters off Cape Elizabeth in Maine. During a stint as an investment banker in Manhattan in 2007, he realized that high-quality, affordable lobster rolls weren’t a thing in the city.

From that moment on, he made it his mission to change the lobster roll scene, and in 2009, the first Luke’s Lobster officially opened its doors in the East Village. With little-to-no business experience and a $15,000 loan from his father, Holden and his Craigslist-found business partner made Luke’s profitable within three weeks of being in business.

Read the full story at Paste Magazine

Feds accuse Maine man of trafficking in poached baby eels

March 15, 2017 — A 70-year-old Woolwich man has been indicted by a federal grand jury alleging that he trafficked in poached elvers — juvenile American eels — between 2011 and 2014.

William Sheldon, a longtime commercial elver dealer operating as Kennebec Glass Eels, is charged with conspiracy and violating the federal Lacey Act, which prohibits interstate transport or transactions of any species of fish or wildlife illegally harvested or handled in any state.

Each of the seven counts carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Sheldon will plead not guilty to the charges, his attorney, Walter McKee, said Tuesday. He is scheduled for arraignment on March 30 in U.S. District Court in Portland.

Prosecutors say that from 2011 to 2014, while Sheldon was licensed in Maine and South Carolina to commercially harvest elvers, he violated the Lacey Act by buying or selling eels illegally poached in Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia and North Carolina.