Saving Seafood

Auction of historic lobster wharf could change life on this Maine island

April 13, 2017 — The first true sign of spring arrived Tuesday on Bailey Island, as temperatures hovered around 60 degrees and lobstermen painted buoys and repaired traps near Cook’s Lobster & Ale House, just over the historic Cribstone Bridge at the tip of Harpswell.

Nick and Jennifer Charboneau were busy at the 62-year-old restaurant, readying for the second weekend of the new season following an “amazing” 2016, their first full season at the helm of the waterfront restaurant that has been featured on national television advertising campaigns and multiple travel magazines.

Although the adjacent commercial wharf was still, with lobster boats not yet active for the season, it was the focus of much discussion in the area. Following a preview Wednesday and another next week, the wharf and associated docks and outbuildings will be auctioned “as is” to the highest bidder on April 25.

The outcome of that auction could mean big changes for the fishing community on the island.

For the dozen or so fishermen who moor their boats in tiny Garrison’s Cove and fish off the wharf, maintaining a commercial operation is critical, as it is for the Charboneaus and the Casco Bay Ferry cruise boat that arrives once each day during the summer,

Danny Coffin, whose lobster boat, the Twisted Halo, is moored in Garrison’s Cove, said Tuesday that while the wharf has fallen into disrepair in recent years, “we need it.”

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Sushi stress: Fishermen not catching many baby eels

April 11, 2017 — The chilly rivers of Maine are causing trouble in the world of sushi.

The state’s brief, annual season for baby eels is off to a slow start because of a cold spring that has prevented the fish from running in rivers.

The baby eels, called elvers, are an important piece of the worldwide sushi supply chain. They’re sold to Asian aquaculture companies — sometimes for more than $2,000 per pound — that raise them to maturity and use them as food.

“Everything is slow,” said state Rep. Henry Bear, who represents members of the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians who fish for elvers. “But we’re hopeful.”

Maine has the only significant fishery for elvers in the country, and fishermen are limited to a quota of a little less than 10,000 pounds (4,500 kilograms) per year.

The season started March 22, and state records say fishermen have only caught about 1,050 pounds (475 kilograms), so far. They have until June 7 to try to catch the entire allotment, which means they are well behind pace.

The average temperature for March in the Portland area this year was 28.8 degrees. The normal average is 33.5 degrees.

Fishermen said they are confident the season will pick up, as some warm weather is forecast for Monday and the rest of the week in southern Maine. Fishermen catch the elvers in rivers and streams with nets, and sell them to dealers. So far, they’re selling for $1,487 per pound at docks, state records say.

Elvers are a major fishery in Maine, and fishermen’s ability to reach quota fluctuates year to year. They reached quota in 2014, fell far short in 2015, and just about reached it last year. Early spring weather, which can be hard to predict in Maine, has emerged as a deciding factor in whether fishermen will reach quota.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald

Future lobstermen are staying in school thanks to unique Maine program

April 10, 2017 — Were it not for the fisherman’s academy at Oceanside High School, 16-year-old boat captain Payten Simmons said she would have little incentive to go to class.

“I don’t know if I [would have] dropped out, I don’t know what I’d be doing … [but] it makes me want to go to school,” she said. “I like to come to school now.”

Simmons, who lives in Friendship and is the only girl out of six 11th-graders in the program, bought her own lobster boat, Fear Knot, and has been operating it for the last three years. She is the only member of the program who hauls traps in the winter and the summer, which means most of her weekends during the school year are spent hauling, sometimes with the help of her dad, who also is a lobsterman.

Simmons, who has an apprentice lobster license, is limited to fishing 150 traps, which tend to yield around 1,000 pounds of lobster each time she goes out to haul her traps. With Maine fishermen being paid on average $4 per pound the past couple of years, she makes good money.

When the option of making that kind of money is on the table for a student, “part of me doesn’t blame them for not [wanting] to come to school,” said Ian Carey, a social studies teacher at Oceanside who also teaches academy students. “I can definitely see how the value of an education is definitely clouded.”

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Proposed closure of coral grounds in Gulf of Maine has lobster industry on edge

April 10, 2017 — Over the past 10 years, the issue of how to protect endangered whales from getting tangled in fishing gear has been a driving factor in how lobstermen configure their gear and how much money they have to spend to comply with regulations.

Now federal officials have cited the need to protect deep-sea corals in a proposal to close some areas to fishing — a proposal that, according to lobstermen, could pose a serious threat to how they ply their trade.

“The [potential] financial impact is huge,” Jim Dow, a Bass Harbor lobsterman and board member with Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said Wednesday. “You’re talking a lot of the coast that is going to be affected by it.”

The discovery in 2014 of deep-sea corals in the gulf, near Mount Desert Rock and along the Outer Schoodic Ridges, has prompted the New England Fisheries Management Council to consider making those area off-limits to fishing vessels in order to protect the coral from damage. According to Maine Department of Marine Resources, fishermen from at least 15 harbors in Hancock and Washington counties could be affected by the proposed closure.

 But what has fishermen on edge the most about the concept is that regulators don’t know how much more coral has yet to be discovered in the gulf. They fear the proposed closure could set a precedent that would result in even more areas becoming off-limits to Maine’s $500 million lobster fishery, which is the biggest fishery in Maine and one of the most lucrative in the country.

“They could probably find coral along the entire coast of Maine, outside of 3 miles [in federal waters], if they start hunting for it,” David Cousens, a South Thomaston fishermen and president of Maine Lobstermen’s Association, told more than 100 fishermen last month at a meeting on the topic at the annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum in Rockport.

Terry Stockwell, a senior DMR official who represents Maine on the council and other fishing regulatory entities, said the state has been lobbying the council to consider making an exception for the lobster trap fishery at the proposed closure sites in the gulf but so far without success. Traps are lowered and then raised from the bottom and so should cause less damage to coral than other types of gear such as scallop dredges, which are dragged along the bottom, according to Stockwell and others who support making lobster traps exempt.

“Twice I’ve gone down in flames,” Stockwell said of his efforts to date to get the council to agree to an exemption for lobster trap gear.

Further offshore in the Gulf of Maine, beyond the reach of the small boats that make up Maine’s lobster fishing fleet, the council also is proposing coral-related fishing closures in parts of the Jordan and Georges basins.

Outside the Gulf of Maine, roughly 100 to 200 nautical miles southeast of Cape Cod, are 20 underwater canyons at the edge of the continental shelf, where coral closures also could be enacted. Five of those canyons, along with four seamounts off the continental shelf, are part of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, which former President Obama created last September and which is being challenged in federal court by the Pacific Legal Foundation.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Molly Payne Wynne: Maine’s coastal communities depend on agencies Trump plans to gut

April 5, 2017 — Let me be open from the start — I’m a scientist, and I’m from away.

I spent my first summer in Maine navigating backroads along the coast, collecting fish, and water samples in ponds, rivers and estuaries for a study I was conducting. I’d get up with the sun and travel to various fishways for this work. I’d meet and talk with alewife harvesters, who would often treat me to a cooler full of alewife and blueback herring. I used these fish samples — and the harvesters’ anecdotes — in my research to shed light on where river herring live and grow, and how best to manage populations for the benefit of the fish and the people who depend on this valuable resource. Meeting these fishermen and studying the nearby fish habitats made the mutual dependence coastal communities have with the resources of Maine’s coastal rivers very clear.

As media reports continue to unveil the Trump administration’s proposals, it is also clear that our nation’s environment and natural resources programs are increasingly at risk. Coastal states such as Maine need to pay attention to proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The White House is proposing to slice its budget by 17 percent. Cuts to programs such as the National Marine Fisheries Service and National Weather Service would have far-reaching consequences for programs created to ensure healthy coastal environments and economies. In Maine, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a significant contributor in the effort to save endangered Atlantic salmon in the last remaining rivers in the country in which they still spawn.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Maine lobsterman denied bail in federal manslaughter case

April 4, 2017 — A lobsterman from Cushing will remain jailed until his manslaughter trial despite an impassioned plea to have him released to the custody and supervision of his parents.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John Rich ruled Monday that Christopher Hutchinson, 28, should not be allowed bail since he already violated conditions when he used drugs and overdosed last month.

His parents, who sat in the courtroom during the hearing in Portland, cried as the judge read his decision. As Hutchinson left the courthouse in handcuffs, he turned to them and said, “I’ll be all right.”

Hutchinson is charged with seaman’s manslaughter in connection with the Nov. 1, 2014, deaths of Tom Hammond, 27, of Rockland and Tyler Sawyer, 15, of St. George. Investigators believe Hutchinson was under the influence of alcohol and opioids when he sailed his lobster boat, No Limits, into a storm, sinking it. Hutchinson was rescued by Coast Guard officials, but his crewmen, Hammond and Sawyer, did not survive.

Hutchinson was arrested in December after a lengthy investigation and posted $10,000 bail three days later with conditions that he not use substances. He violated those conditions on March 14, when he overdosed on heroin and needed to be revived with the drug Narcan.

His attorney, Michael Turndorf, said Monday that his client should be released to his parents, who would monitor him constantly and ensure that he be treated for his addiction. His mother had even taken a leave of absence from her job as a nurse.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Halsey Frank, however, argued that he didn’t think Hutchinson would be able to abide by any bail condition and the judge agreed, although he commended the parents’ commitment to their son.

“The court has no doubt they will do everything in their power,” he said.

The Hutchinsons declined to speak with a reporter after the hearing.

Frank, in addition to his belief that Hutchinson could not abide by conditions that he not use drugs, told the judge he had concerns that the defendant was still operating a boat, potentially putting other crew members at risk.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

“Sacred Cod” Tells of Fishery and Way of Life in Peril

April 3, 2017 — New England’s iconic cod fishery has hit an all-time low. Scientists point the finger at a combination of fishing and climate change. Many fishermen reject that assessment and blame their woes on regulators. A new documentary film, Sacred Cod, tells the story of two populations in crisis – the cod, and the fishermen who’ve built a way of life around them.

Cod fishing is what brought the first Europeans to New England, and the commercial fishery is the oldest in the nation. Hundreds of years of fishing pressure has brought cod populations in southern New England and the Gulf of Maine to record low levels. Federal fishery biologists have estimated that the reproductively active population is just 3-4 percent of what would be needed for a healthy, sustainable fishery.

That hasn’t improved in the past few years, despite fishing restrictions that amount to a virtual closure of the fishery. Scientists say climate change is a likely culprit. Rising water temperatures affect reproductive success, reducing the number of eggs a female produces and also reducing survival of young codfish. Scientists are also seeing changes in the base of the food chain that may be linked to climate change.

Many fishermen reject this assessment, though, and say fishing restrictions are unnecessary. They contend that there are plenty of cod to be caught, if you just know where to look.

Read the full story at WCAI

MASSACHUSETTS: A milestone in the war over the true state of cod

April 3, 2017 — For years, fishermen from Gloucester to New Bedford have accused the federal government of relying on faulty science to assess the health of the region’s cod population, a fundamental flaw that has greatly exaggerated its demise, they say, and led officials to wrongly ban nearly all fishing of the iconic species.

The fishermen’s concerns resonated with Governor Charlie Baker, so last year he commissioned his own survey of the waters off New England, where cod were once so abundant that fishermen would say they could walk across the Atlantic on their backs.

Now, in a milestone in the war over the true state of cod in the Gulf of Maine, Massachusetts scientists have reached the same dismal conclusion that their federal counterparts did: The region’s cod are at a historic low — about 80 percent less than the population from just a decade ago.

“The bottom line is that the outlook of Gulf of Maine cod is not good,” said Micah Dean, a scientist who oversaw the survey for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. “What we’ve seen is a warning sign about the future of the fishery, and it’s a stark change from what we saw a decade ago.”

The state’s surveys, conducted on an industry trawler, also found a dearth of juvenile cod and large cod, suggesting that the population could remain in distress for years. The lack of small cod reflects limited reproduction, while the absence of the larger fish is a problem because they’re capable of prolific spawning. 

Dean said he hoped fishermen would find the results credible, given that the survey sought to accommodate their concerns about the federal survey, conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

To address their concerns, the state spent more than $500,000 to trawl for cod in 10 times as many locations. Rather than sampling the waters twice a year, as NOAA does, the state cast its nets every month from last April to January, and kept them in the water about 50 percent longer. They also searched for the fish in deeper waters, where fishermen have said they tend to congregate.

“It was an exhaustive survey meant to provide an answer to the questions that the fishermen were posing,” Dean said. “But the fish weren’t there.”

Some longtime cod fishermen remain unconvinced. They say the historic fishery has been fully rebuilt, although the federal and state surveys estimate it is only about 6 percent of the level needed to sustain a healthy population.

Vito Giacalone, policy director of the Northeast Seafood Coalition in Gloucester, which represents many of the region’s commercial fishermen, maintained that the state surveys had some of the same flaws as the federal surveys. Rather than conducting random sampling throughout the Gulf of Maine, the researchers should have trawled for cod in areas where fishermen are finding them, he and other critics said.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

Trapped by heroin: Lobster industry struggles with its deadly secret

April 3, 2017 — Maine lobstermen are plagued by opioid addiction, leading to deaths, ruined lives and even fishing violations to pay for the habit. Some in recovery also recognize the challenge: Getting help to an intensely independent breed that rarely asks for it.

Until last year, when he finally kicked a 20-year heroin habit, Tristen Nelson had always been too high to even notice the best things about being a lobsterman in Down East Maine, like the beauty of a Bucks Harbor sunrise or the freedom of fishing two dozen miles offshore.

He loves those things about his job now, but for two decades the 35-year-old Machias man only lobstered to make the quick cash he needed to buy heroin. He would spend all his money, up to $60,000 for six months of work, on drugs. And he would end every fishing season broke.

His captains didn’t care if he showed up high, as long as he came ready to work. He hauled traps like a madman at dawn, fueled by his morning fix. By noon, however, the drug would start to wear off. He would slow down and hope each trap hauled was the last.

“I was just one more junkie on a lobster boat, counting down the hours until I could get my cash, until I could score,” Nelson said. “All those years I didn’t even realize that I had the best job in the world. … What a waste.”

The Gulf of Maine is full of people battling addictions. Nelson has hauled traps beside them, shot up with them and attended their funerals. And now, as somebody who has kicked the habit, he is trying to help other fishermen find their way into recovery.

“There are guys like me in every port,” Nelson said. “Anyone says different, they’re blind.”

For years, industry leaders and regulators ignored the drug use. They didn’t want to risk tainting the iconic image of the Maine lobsterman, that rough-and-tumble ocean cowboy who braves the elements to hunt lobster, the backbone of the state’s $1.6 billion-a-year industry. And the lobstermen were intensely private, preferring to battle their demons on their own and rarely asking for help.

That is starting to change. As addiction surfaces in newspaper obituaries, public memorial services and fishermen’s forums, and is blamed as a motive for an increasing number of the state’s fishing crimes, industry leaders now admit that America’s deepening opioid epidemic is feeding on the labor force of the state’s most valuable fishery.

“Addiction is a disease and it is a problem within this industry,” Commissioner Pat Keliher of the Department of Marine Resources told the Maine Fishermen’s Forum last month. “I am certainly not making the statement that it is everybody in this industry, but it is a problem.”

There is no way to compare heroin use among Maine lobstermen with any other profession. The state doesn’t keep its drug use statistics that way, and it will not identify the 378 drug overdose victims in 2016, including 313 who died of heroin or other opioids. While some coastal towns, such as Machias, openly acknowledge drug use in the fleet and talk about what can be done, others, like Stonington, the state’s lobster capital, remain reluctant to do so.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MASSACHUSETTS: Gloucester to host hearing on new shrimp rules

March 31, 2017 — The traveling roadshow for public comment on proposed changes to the Gulf of Maine northern shrimp fishery is set to hit Gloucester the first week of June.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which regulates the northern shrimp fishery, has scheduled four public hearings on the draft of Amendment 3. The draft includes state-by-state allocations and increased accountability measures, but does not call for limiting the number of shrimpers allowed into the fishery.

The Gloucester public hearing is set for June 5 at 6 p.m. at the state Division of Marine Fisheries’s Annisquam River Station on Emerson Avenue. The deadline for all public comment is June 21.

The ASMFC closed the northern shrimp fishery in December 2013 and it remains shuttered because the stock has been plagued by historic lows in recruitment and spawning stock biomass.

Initially, the commission’s northern shrimp section said it was going to consider a limited access program “to address overcapacity” in the fishery that draws shrimpers from Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. It later changed course.

“Due to the uncertainty about if or when the resource would rebuild and the fishery reopen, the section shifted the focus of draft Amendment 3 to consider measures to improve management of the northern shrimp fishery and resource,” the AFMSC stated.

Beyond establishing state allocations and new accountability measures, the draft amendment includes gear provisions, including the mandatory use of “size-sorting grate systems designed to minimize harvest of small (presumably male) shrimp.”

Read the full story at The Gloucester Times