Saving Seafood

Hunch about dogfish leads MDI scientists to potential heart disease breakthrough

March 10, 2017 — Researchers at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Bar Harbor may have discovered how a drug derived from a molecule found in dogfish sharks could someday help people recover from heart attacks and heart disease.

Dr. Viravuth Yin, the lead researcher from MDI, said a series of coincidences, combined with years of research on zebrafish and mice, led to the breakthrough.

“This is a potentially game-changing discovery we believe we have,” Yin said.

MDI secured a patent from the U.S. Patent Office in November and last week its research was published in a scholarly journal npj Regenerative Medicine.

The next step is obtaining about $2 million in funding to see if the research that has been done in zebrafish and mice can be replicated in pigs. The lab has an application pending with the National Institutes of Health for the pig research and is seeking venture capital funding, Yin said.

If all goes well, human clinical trials for the drug could begin in about five years. The drug could be on the market in 10-20 years, if research proves fruitful, Yin said.

Zebrafish share about 70 percent of the same genes as humans, and have a strong ability to regenerate.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

No one knows who ‘owns’ rockweed in Maine

March 10, 2017 — For 15 years, shore-front property owners, rockweed cutters and Maine Department of Marine Resources regulators have attempted to balance the competing interests that have tended to define the state’s rockweed industry.

Maine case law has produced mixed opinions on the question of who actually owns the olive-brown algae that is used in fertilizer and in some consumable products.

But a Washington County Superior Court case could help settle what’s become a contentious rockweed debate.

At high tide, rockweed floats on the water’s surface along the Maine coast, its rubbery, olive-brown plant strands buoyed by a series of air bladders. At low tide, it drapes shore-front rocks to provide protective habitat for crabs and other creatures. It was a source of fertilizer for English colonists who spelled out access rights in the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s Colonial Ordinance of 1641-1647. Since then, though, who owns Maine’s rockweed – or Ascophyllum nodosum, as it is known in scientific circles – remains an unanswered question for property owners, conservationists and harvesters.

Gordon Smith is a Portland attorney who represents several Washington County landowners upset that their shore-front properties have become targets for rockweed harvesters. They’ve made Acadian Seaplants Ltd. the focus of a lawsuit filed in Superior Court. The Nova Scotian biotech company is the largest independent manufacturer of marine plant products of its type in the world. Smith says that based on his reading of case law, it is clear to him that landowners control access in the inter-tidal zone of their property – a point he repeatedly made during arguments in court last week.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

GLEN MELVIN RECEIVES 2017 DMR AWARD OF EXCELLENCE

March 8, 2017 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

Glen Melvin a shellfish and elver harvester from Waldoboro has received the second annual Maine Department of Marine Resources Award of Excellence. The award, presented by DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher during the recent Fishermen’s Forum in Rockport, recognizes industry members who participate with the Department to ensure a sustainable future for Maine’s commercial fisheries. Melvin, pictured here with Commissioner Keliher during the award ceremony, was honored for his work on the Shellfish Advisory Council. “Glen is never shy about telling me what he thinks,” said Commissioner Keliher. “I have come to rely on him for straightforward, unvarnished opinions. He doesn’t always tell me what I want to hear, but that reality check is important for fisheries managers. His contributions are always appreciated and he is extremely deserving of this honor.”

Second midcoast man accused in lobster boat sinking is sentenced

March 8, 2017 — A St. George man was sentenced Thursday to two years in prison for sinking a competitor’s lobster boat last summer.

Vincent Hilt, 22, pleaded guilty during a hearing in Knox County Unified Court to felony charges of aggravated criminal mischief and felony theft.

Hilt is the second person convicted in the Sept. 1 sinking of the 36-foot lobster boat Oracle owned by Joshua Hupper of St. George. In January, Devlin Meklin, 21, of Warren admitted to the same charges as Hilt and was sentenced to two years with all but three months suspended.

The case against Hilt’s captain – Alan B. Norwood Jr., 47, of St. George – remains pending in court. Norwood has pleaded not guilty to aggravated criminal mischief for allegedly paying Hilt $500 to sink Hupper’s boat.

Hilt and Meklin both have been ordered by the court to pay restitution of $16,267 to Hupper for costs he incurred. Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Baroody said that damages totaled more than $100,000, but insurance paid for much of that loss.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Trump’s proposed cuts to NOAA alarm Maine’s marine community

March 7, 2017 — A Trump administration proposal to slash funding for the federal government’s principal marine agency and eliminate the national Sea Grant program is prompting alarm in Maine’s marine sector because it depends on services provided by both.

President Trump wants to slash the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the agency responsible for fisheries management, weather forecasting, nautical surveys and assisting marine industries – by 17 percent, The Washington Post reported Friday. And he wants to eliminate NOAA’s Sea Grant program, the marine equivalent of the federal agricultural extension and research service, in the fiscal 2018 budget, which begins Oct. 1.

“There was a lot of concern when the news broke, and a flurry of messages went out to our congressional delegation from fishermen and aquaculturists who understand how they benefit from Sea Grant,” said Paul Anderson, director of Maine Sea Grant at the University of Maine in Orono, one of 33 Sea Grant universities in the country. “I don’t now if on October 1st we will all of a sudden not exist.”

The news has sent reverberations across Maine’s marine community, which has long benefited from the partnership between UMaine and the federal government. Sea Grant researchers created the Fishermen’s Forum – the industry’s premier event – in 1976, and also helped found the Portland Fish Exchange and the university’s Lobster Institute, which researches issues of concern to the industry.

Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said the cuts to NOAA would be terrible for fishermen. “The industry relies pretty heavily on their forecast reports on the wind and the wave heights and make decisions day to day if they are going to go out, so those satellites are really important,” she said. “And nobody loves (the National Marine Fisheries Service), but keeping them fully funded and their research going is essential to manage our fisheries.”

She noted that recent cuts to the agency’s right-whale monitoring program had hurt fishermen because if scientists didn’t have time to find the whales, they had to assume they weren’t there, increasing the regulatory burden on lobstermen, whose gear the whales sometimes get entangled in.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Marine Patrol Officer Brandon Bezio Receives 2017 MLA Officer of the Year Award

March 6, 2017 — The following has been released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources: 

Marine Patrol Officer Brandon Bezio, who serves in the St. George-Warren Patrol, receives the 2017 Maine Lobstermen’s Association Maine Patrol Officer of the Year Award. The award, presented Saturday, March 4, 2017, at the Fishermen’s Forum in Rockport, is an annual recognition of Marine Patrol Officers who provide outstanding service in support of the Maine lobster industry. Pictured with MPO Bezio is Marine Patrol Colonel Jon Cornish (left), MLA Board President David Cousens (2nd from right), and MLA Executive Director Patrice McCarron (right). (Photo courtesy of Mark Haskell Photography)

Maine Fishermen Set Lobster Record for Seventh Straight Year

March 6, 2017 — For the seventh year in a row, Maine lobstermen have set a record for the value of their lobster catch.

Maine lobsters were worth a little more than $533 million at the docks in 2016, exceeding the previous year’s record by more than $30 million, Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher said Friday.

Interest in American lobsters has skyrocketed in Asia, especially China, in recent years, aiding the value of the crustaceans, which remain popular with Americans on summer vacation and Europeans at Christmas.

At the same time, U.S. lobster fishermen have been catching more lobsters. Maine also set a record for volume in 2016, with state fishermen catching nearly 131 million pounds of lobster last year. That surpassed the previous record of nearly 128 million in 2013.

Conservative management of the lobster fishery has allowed the fishery to thrive in recent years, regulators said. Scientists have said warming oceans might also play a role, as the center of the lobster population appears to be moving north as waters warm. The catch off of Rhode Island and Connecticut has plummeted as Maine’s has soared.

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

Trump staff reviewing Obama’s designation of Maine, Utah national monument sites

March 6, 2017 — Republican leaders in Maine and Utah are asking President Trump to step into uncharted territory and rescind national monument designations made by his predecessor.

The Antiquities Act of 1906 doesn’t give the president power to undo a designation, and no president has ever taken such a step. But Trump isn’t like other presidents.

Former President Obama used his power under the act to permanently preserve more land and water using national monument designations than any other president. The land is generally off-limits to timber harvesting, mining and pipelines, and commercial development.

Obama created the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument in Maine last summer on 87,500 acres of donated forestland. The expanse includes part of the Penobscot River and stunning views of Mount Katahdin, Maine’s tallest mountain. In Utah, the former president created Bears Ears National Monument on 1.3 million acres of land that’s sacred to Native Americans and is home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings.

Trump’s staff is now reviewing those decisions by the Obama administration to determine economic impacts, whether the law was followed and whether there was appropriate consultation with local officials, the White House told The Associated Press.

Maine Republican Gov. Paul LePage is opposed to the designation, and says federal ownership could stymie industrial development. Republican leaders in Utah contend the monument designation adds another layer of unnecessary federal control in a state where there’s already heavy federal ownership.

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

Maine wants help from lobstermen affected by coral rules

March 6, 2017 — Maine marine authorities are looking for input from lobstermen about how they might be impacted by federal regulations designed to protect corals off New England.

The regulatory New England Fishery Management Council is considering protecting corals in the Gulf of Maine. Two of the proposed protection areas are Outer Schoodic Ridge and the area southwest of Mount Desert Rock.

The state Department of Marine Resources says one of the proposed management options is a complete ban on fishing. The department has proposed exempting the lobster and crab fisheries in the two areas.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Southern Business Journal 

Maine’s 2016 Commercial Marine Resources Top $700 Million for the First Time

March 3, 2017 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

Maine’s commercially harvested marine resources topped $700 million in overall value in 2016, according to preliminary data from the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The total reflects yet another all-time high and an increase of nearly $100 million in value over 2015.

“Mainers should take great pride in the success of our commercial fishing industry,” said Governor Paul R. LePage. “The hard working men and women who fish for a living along our coast have established Maine as a leader in the responsible management and harvest of seafood.”

For the second straight year, the largest single increase in value was in Maine’s lobster fishery. The fishery saw the overall landed value jump by more than $30 million while the average per pound value remained over $4 for the second year in a row, at $4.07.

The overall value of Maine’s lobster fishery was again by far the highest at $533,094,366. When factoring in bonuses paid to harvesters as reported by 14 of Maine’s 19 lobster co-ops, the overall landed value of Maine’s lobster fishery reached $547,249,010.

2016 marked the first year ever that Maine lobster harvesters landed over 130 million pounds, with a total of 130,844,773 pounds. It was also the fifth year in a row in which Maine lobster harvesters landed over 120 million pounds.

“The historic landings reflect the hard work of our harvesters to build and sustain this fishery,” said Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher. “The exceptional value is the result of growing demand by consumers who appreciate both the quality of Maine lobster and the long-standing commitment to sustainable harvesting practices that characterize this fishery.”

At $19,019,337 Atlantic herring, the primary bait source for Maine’s lobster industry, saw an increase in value over 2015 of more than $5 million. The dollar amount ranked it as Maine’s second most valuable fishery, despite a nearly 11 percent decline in landings. “Overall herring landings declined in 2016 as a result of a lack of fish off-shore, resulting in demand that far surpassed supply,” said Commissioner Keliher. 

Maine’s softshell clam industry dropped from second place in 2015 to third in 2016 with an overall value of $15,656,386. The decline in overall value reflected a 13.4 percent decline in per pound value as well as a 20 percent decline in pounds landed.

“One significant factor that contributed to the decline in softshell clam landings was a closure of harvest areas between the Canadian border and Mount Desert Island associated with Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning (ASP) late in the season,” said Kohl Kanwit, Director of the DMR Bureau of Public Health. While the closure was minimized as much as possible through rigorous testing, many areas were closed for 2 to 4 weeks to ensure public health and safety.   

Maine’s elver fishery was again by-far the most lucrative of Maine’s commercial fisheries on a per pound basis at $1,430.51 a pound. Maine harvesters netted 9,400 of the 9,688 available pounds of quota for an overall value of $13,446,828, an increase of more than $2 million from the previous year. The overall value ranked the elver fishery as Maine’s fourth highest.

“While we can take this moment to celebrate the great value of Maine’s marine resources, we cannot lose site of the signs of change,” said Commissioner Keliher. “The agency and the industry must work to not only safeguard our iconic lobster fishery but also to work together on solutions that ensure the health and resiliency of all Maine fisheries.”

More landings data can be found at http://www.maine.gov/dmr/commercial-fishing/.