Saving Seafood

MAINE: Scallop season off to a good start

January 12, 2017 — AUGUSTA, Maine — Five weeks into the scallop season the winter weather has begun to take a toll on fishing days, but not on landings. According to the Department of Marine Resources, when fishermen have been able to get off the mooring they have been seeing good landing.

With snow, bitter temperatures and howling winds increasingly the norm since the last week of December, scallopers working outside the well-protected waters of Cobscook Bay got a break — or at least a chance for some relief — when several limited access areas opened to fishing on Monday, Jan. 2.

While four segments of the coast were closed to fishing on New Year’s Day after their harvest targets were reached, the opening of the limited access areas gave an additional opportunity to the drag fleet in more protected waters once a week.

“It was how the season was set up during rulemaking, with five-day weeks in Zone 2 in January and February,” DMR Resource Coordinator Trisha Cheney said Friday. Zone 2 stretches from Penobscot Bay eastward to the Lubec Narrows Bridge.

A number of areas that were subject to close monitoring were closed Jan. 1 after the fishery achieved harvest targets of between 30 percent and 40 percent of the “harvestable biomass” determined DMR using data collected during pre-season surveys. The department used emergency rulemaking in combination with in season monitoring efforts to ensure that the resource continues to rebuild by managing adaptively during the season and ensuring that areas are not overfished.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

Lobster prices high as catch drops and China imports climb

January 11, 2017 — Lobster lovers are used to adjusting to high prices, but this winter, they’re shelling out even more for the cherished crustaceans because of a lack of catch off of New England and Canada and heavy exports to China.

Winter is typically a slow season for U.S. lobster fishermen and an active one off Atlantic Canada. But catch is slow in both countries this year, in part because of bad weather, industry sources said.

And the winter months are also an important time for exports to lobster-crazy China, which celebrates its New Year holiday Jan. 28. It’s increasingly popular to celebrate the Chinese New Year with American lobster. That’s causing demand at a time when supply is low.

American consumers who were paying $9 to $11 per pound for a live lobster in September — already higher than the previous year — are now sometimes paying upward of $13 per pound. There are enough lobsters to go around, but China’s demand is likely to only grow, said Bill Bruns, operations manager at The Lobster Company of Arundel, Maine.

“They are building infrastructure to meet more demand,” Bruns said, who added that China’s middle class “hasn’t stopped growing, and they keep eating.”

American lobster exports to China have topped 12 million pounds and $85 million in value for three years in a row. The country imported a fraction of that amount as recently as 2010, when it imported less than a million pounds of the crustaceans.

Meanwhile, prices charged by wholesalers in the U.S. are rising, too. The wholesale price of a 1 ¼-pound live hard shell lobster rose about a dollar in the New England market from December to January, when it was $7.75 per pound, according to Urner Barry commodities publishing service.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Gloucester Times

MAINE: Are halibut headed for trouble?

January 11, 2017 — PORTLAND, Maine — Go to Scales, an elegant waterfront restaurant on a Portland pier, and a plate of pan-roasted halibut with hazelnuts, brown butter and new potatoes will cost you $38, tax and tip extra.

Go down to the dock in Lubec or Stonington during May and June, when Maine fishermen are allowed to harvest halibut from state waters inside the three-mile limit, and $38 would buy you about 5 pounds of halibut, if you could buy less than a whole fish directly off the boat.

And that’s the problem.

Over the decade between 2006 and 2015, the last year for which the Department of Marine Resources has figures, the boat price for halibut increased some 44 percent and landings increased from just 30,018 pounds worth about $139,000 to more than 93,000 pounds that brought fishermen some $623,000.

Now federal fisheries regulators are saying that halibut may be in trouble.

Of course, it isn’t just that Maine fishermen are landing more halibut. It’s fishermen from all over New England who are pulling in plenty of the pricy and delicious flatfish from federal waters.

In 2006, only Maine recorded halibut landings. In 2015, according to NOAA Fisheries, halibut landings throughout New England reached almost 216,000 pounds – worth about $1.4 million. Of that, about 123,000 pounds were landed outside Maine.

That may not be a lot of money compared to the nearly $511 million that Maine’s lobster fishermen reaped in 2015, but it is enough to attract more boats into the fishery and to have regulators and fisheries scientists worried. Early in December, the New England Fishery Management Council announced that a review of the rules governing the halibut fishery would be a priority during 2017.

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

MAINE: Scallop Fishermen, Hurt by Weather, Will Get Extra Day

January 10, 2017 — LUBEC, Maine – Maine fishing regulators say they are allowing many of the state’s scallop fishermen to fish for an additional day per week because bad weather has hampered their ability to harvest the shellfish.

The state Department of Marine Resources says the dragger boat fleet that operates outside of the protected Cobscook Bay area will be afforded the extra day.

Regulators say fishermen are reporting good catches off of Maine when they are able to get out on the water. Prices are also strong. Maine scallops are some of the most sought after in the seafood industry.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at Maine Public

MAINE: New School teaching commercial fishing course

January 5, 2016 — I have been privileged to help design and instruct a “public policy in the commercial fishing industry” course for high school students, along with teacher Steven Schaefer, at The New School, here in Kennebunk.

When Schaefer first approached me about working with him, he wanted the students to hear from real people working in the industry and to learn from the men and women who know the ocean intimately, as only those who navigate it and rely on it to earn their living can. He wanted the students to learn about the side of fishing that you do not see in picturesque summer tourist photos in quaint harbors.

You know the stuff people don’t want to talk about as much – like rough days and close calls at sea, days without catches when you still have to pay for fuel and your boat mate’s wages. The ever rising cost of boat and gear maintenance, upkeep, insurance. The frustration of being told that the days you have to make your living have been cut back or the prices being paid for the fish you harvest have dropped – even though the cost of bait to catch those fish has skyrocketed.

The important role that the fishing industry plays in the economy and infrastructure of a community is seldom realized until fishermen are forced NOT to work because of cutbacks, rules and regulations – and when this happens, we all pay the price. Bait dealers don’t sell bait, fish markets and processing plant employees lose work, seafood truckers and transporters lose out, and seafood prices go up. Fuel companies lose money, marine mechanics lose work, boat mates don’t have work, lobster trap mill workers and marine supply stores cut back – it is a trickle down effect. Even people like me who write about the commercial fishing industry feel the impact. If the fishermen don’t work, I don’t work either.

Read the full story at SeacoastOnline

Regulators changing fishing rules to protect endangered tuna

January 4, 2017 — PORTLAND, Maine — The federal government is changing some of the rules about how fishermen harvest tuna in an attempt to protect one of the species of the fish.

The National Marine Fisheries Service says the rule change is designed to steer fishermen who catch yellowfin tuna and swordfish via longline away from bluefin tuna.

Atlantic bluefin tuna are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Fishing boats sometimes catch them incidentally while targeting other species.

The fisheries service says the rule change will modify the way it handles distribution of quota transfers in the longline tuna fishery. The service says that flexibility will improve fishing opportunities while limiting the number of bluefin tuna that are incidentally caught.

Read the full story at The Washington Post

MAINE: State seeks more authority in investigations of suspected lobstering violations

January 3, 2017 — Legislation is being drafted to make it easier for Maine Marine Patrol officers to secretly install tracking or surveillance devices on boats.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources is drafting legislation that would expand the authority of Marine Patrol officers to covertly install electronic surveillance devices on the boats of fishermen suspected of violating state fishing regulations.

The proposal is similar to one that faltered in the Legislature two years ago and is a response to ongoing concerns that some lobstermen are fishing more traps than allowed or engaging in other tactics to skirt Maine’s strict fisheries laws. The proposal also coincides with high-profile turf wars or personal disputes between lobstermen last year that resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost or damaged equipment.

The language of the bill has not been released, and DMR officials declined to provide specifics until the legislation has been finalized, consistent with a LePage administration policy. But in a general outline, DMR spokesman Jeff Nichols said the proposal would ease restrictions on Marine Patrol officers when they want to install electronic tracking or surveillance equipment on boats as part of investigations.

It was unclear last week whether the Marine Patrol would be required to obtain a warrant from a court before deploying surveillance devices, a question that could dictate whether the proposal raises constitutionality concerns among fishermen. But it appears the department is seeking to make it easier to track vessels of fishermen suspected of violations of fishing laws, whether civil or criminal.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: 2017 Maine Northern Shrimp Cooperative Winter Sampling Program Participants Announced

December 29, 2016 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

Maine participants in the cooperative winter sampling program for Northern Shrimp in the Gulf of Maine have been announced. The program, coordinated by the Maine Department of Marine Resources, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, and the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, is designed to provide biological data on the shrimp fishery which is closed for the fourth year in a row.

The Maine fishermen have been chosen from over 60 applicants, based on a random drawing of those fully qualified in each region. Qualifications include a demonstrated shrimp fishing history, and successfully passing a Marine Patrol review of marine resource violations.

Preference was given to trawlers willing to participate in a test of a compound grate for harvesting. Compound grates are devices used by trawlers to reduce the catch of small shrimp.

Maine harvesters chosen include trawlers Vincent Balzano, Joseph Leask, and Rob Tetrault from western Maine, Troy Benner, David Osier and Arthur Poland Jr. from mid-coast Maine, and Randy Cushman and Glenn Libby from eastern Maine.

Shrimp trappers include Chad Gamage, Daryl Chadwick, George Gilbert and Robert Tracy from mid-coast Maine, and Thomas Riedel from eastern Maine.

In response to the depleted condition of the northern shrimp resource, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section extended the moratorium on commercial fishing for the 2017 fishing season. The Section also approved a 53 metric ton research set aside (RSA) which will be used by the cooperative sampling program to provide managers with much-needed biological data. Biological data gathered will include size composition and egg hatch timing.

In total, the sampling program will include the participation of 10 trawlers (8 Maine trawlers, 1 Massachusetts trawler, and 1 New Hampshire trawler) and 5 Maine trappers, fishing for 8 weeks from mid‐January to mid‐March, 2017.

The trawlers will be allowed a maximum trip limit of 1,200 pounds, with 1 trip per week, while the trappers will have a maximum possession limit of 500 pounds per week, with a 40 trap limit per vessel. All participants will provide shrimp samples to the Maine DMR weekly.

Information on the sampling program can be found at http://www.maine.gov/dmr/science-research/species/shrimp/winter2017.html.

Mercury Levels in Gulf of Maine Tuna on the Decline

December 29, 2016 — There’s some good news for sushi lovers. A new report finds that over an 8-year period, mercury levels in Gulf of Maine tuna declined 2 percent a year — a decline that parallels reductions in mercury pollution from Midwest coal-fired power plants.

Two years ago, Dr. Nicholas Fisher, a professor of marine sciences at Stony Brook University in New York, had a bit of luck — he found out that a colleague had established a collection of 1,300 western Atlantic bluefin taken from the Gulf of Maine between 2004 and 2012.

“They were frozen, wasn’t the entire fish, just about a pound from each fish or so. And then my colleagues and I in New York dissected out muscle tissue from each sample and analyzed it to determine the mercury content of each fish,” he says.

And as they created a timeline for mercury content for each year, taking into account the age and size of each fish sampled, a clear picture emerged.

“There was a fairly steady decline for all ages of fish, and the decline rate was approximately 2 percent per year, which doesn’t sound all that dramatic, but over 10 years it’s about 20 percent. Over two decades its about 40 percent,” Fisher says.

Most mercury pollution in this region originates from coal-fired plants in the Midwest, drifting east on the prevailing winds to drop on the coast and coastal waters. In response to regulatory and industry efforts, and to market forces, those emissions happen to have been declining by about 2 percent a year.

Read the full story at Rhode Island Public Radio 

Are Maine halibut heading for trouble?

December 28, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — Go to Scales, an elegant waterfront restaurant on a Portland pier, and a plate of pan-roasted halibut with hazelnuts, brown butter and new potatoes will cost you $38, tax and tip extra.

Over the decade between 2006 and 2015, the last year for which the Department of Marine Resources has figures, the boat price for halibut increased some 44 percent and landings increased from just 30,018 pounds worth about $139,000 to more than 93,000 pounds that brought fishermen some $623,000. Go down to the dock in Lubec or Stonington during May and June, when Maine fishermen are allowed to harvest halibut from state waters inside the three-mile limit, and $38 would buy you about 5 pounds of halibut, if you could buy less than a whole fish directly off the boat. And that’s the problem.

Now federal fisheries regulators are saying that halibut may be in trouble.

Of course, it isn’t just that Maine fishermen are landing more halibut. It’s fishermen from all over New England who are pulling in plenty of the pricy and delicious flatfish from federal waters.

In 2006, only Maine recorded halibut landings. In 2015, according to NOAA Fisheries, halibut landings throughout New England reached almost 216,000 pounds — worth about $1.4 million. Of that, about 123,000 pounds were landed outside Maine.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American