Saving Seafood

Maine to acquire soft-bottom boat for whale entanglements

December 20, 2015 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — The Maine Department of Marine Resources is getting a $20,000 grant that it will use to help make it safer for its staff members to respond to whale entanglements along the coast.

The grant from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Fund will be used to purchase an inflatable, soft-bottom boat that will be used by Marine Patrol to help free whales from ropes in the ocean, the state agency announced in a prepared statement released this week.

The agency currently uses one or more boats with rigid, v-shaped hulls to deal with entanglements, but such boats can pose a hazard both to whales and the people in the boats if the whale should surface underneath the vessel, according to Department of Marine Resources staff. The hard bottom is more likely to injure the whale, which already could be sick or injured, than a soft-bottom boat. A hard-bottom boat also is more likely to tip or capsize if the whale pushes it up out of the water.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

 

Shrimpers wanted for research program

December 19, 2015 —  The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is closer to embarking on its planned sampling program for the endangered Gulf of Maine northern shrimp stock and is looking for trawl and trap vessels to help collect shrimp and data.

The commission, which hopes to begin the test-tow portion of the the program in mid-January and the trap portion about a month after that, is looking for a total of four trawl vessels and two trap vessels from New Hampshire, Maine or Massachusetts, according to Tina Berger, spokeswoman for the ASMFC.

Anyone interested in participating in the project should contact Maggie Hunter at the Maine Department of Marine Resources by Jan. 4.

The $10,000 program is designed to catch the northern shrimp, Pandalus borealis, while they are in inshore waters to collect data on the timing of the egg hatch, as well as the size, gender and development stages of the shrimp.

The vessels will be expected to fish approximately once every two weeks until the shrimp no longer carry eggs, which Berger estimated will be some time near the end of March.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

 

MASSACHUSETTS: New herring fishing rules to come before fishermen

December 14, 2015 — Interstate regulators will hold hearings for fishermen in Gloucester and throughout New England about a plan to amend some of the rules for Atlantic herring fishing.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is soliciting comments about the amended rules. The proposal includes alternatives to the current spawning monitoring program and changes to the requirements about a boat’s condition before it leaves on a fishing trip.

Read the full story at Gloucester Daily Times

New herring fishing rules to come before fishermen

December 13, 2015 — AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Interstate regulators will hold hearings for fishermen throughout New England about a plan to amend some of the rules for Atlantic herring fishing.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is soliciting comments about the amended rules. The proposal includes alternatives to the current spawning monitoring program and changes to the requirements about a boat’s condition before it leaves on a fishing trip.

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

 

Navy’s new Zumwalt destroyer rescues ailing fishing boat captain off Portland

December 12, 2015 — The Navy’s new stealth destroyer endured a real life-and-death test Saturday when crew members aboard the future USS Zumwalt helped rescue a Maine fisherman suffering a medical emergency at sea.

The Zumwalt, a 600-foot-long guided missile destroyer built at Bath Iron Works, was conducting sea trials early Saturday morning when the U.S. Coast Guard requested assistance from any boats in the vicinity of the fishing vessel Danny Boy, located about 40 nautical miles southeast of Portland at 3 a.m. The captain of the Portland-based Danny Boy, 46-year-old Dale Sparrow, was experiencing chest pains, but a Coast Guard helicopter crew determined it was too dangerous to try to hoist the captain because of the 45-foot boat’s deck configuration.

The Zumwalt responded to the scene and launched an 11-meter “rigid hull inflatable boat” – the type used by Navy SEALs and other special forces – to bring Sparrow on board the destroyer.

“After medical evaluation, the patient was transferred from Zumwalt to a Coast Guard helicopter and then to an area hospital,” a Navy spokeswoman, Capt. Thurraya Kent, said in a statement Saturday night. The Coast Guard said Sparrow was flown to Portland International Jetport and then taken to Maine Medical Center.

Read the full story at Portland Press Herald

 

AUDIO: Cause of Action & Plaintiffs Discuss At-Sea Monitoring Lawsuit

December 10, 2015 (Saving Seafood) — This afternoon, Cause of Action, a government accountability organization “committed to ensuring that decisions made by federal agencies are open, honest, and fair,” held a media call with David Goethel and John Haran, the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the Department of Commerce to overturn the Department’s decision to have the commercial fishing industry pay for the cost of at-sea monitoring.

According to Cause of Action, “a large majority” of the commercial fishing operations in New England “will be forced to shut down if the government forces those who fish for cod, flounder and other ‘ground fish’ to pay out of pocket for at-sea monitoring, a program the government has traditionally funded.” The industry is expected to begin paying for the cost of at-sea monitors sometime in 2016.

According to Cause of Action, NOAA estimates that up to 60 percent of the groundfish fleet will be unable to afford the cost of at-sea monitoring. Among other reasons for the challenge, Cause of Action noted that “Congress has directed NOAA to use its appropriated funding to cover the cost of these at-sea monitors,” and “NOAA is specifically required by statute to implement regulations that allow fishing communities sustainable prosperity and ‘minimize adverse economic impacts on such communities.'”

Listen to the call here

 

MAINE: Legislature to consider fisheries bills on “emergency” basis

December 9, 2015 — The Legislature will take up bills dealing with the lobster and elver fisheries when it returns to work next month, but new licensing rules for the scallop industry will likely have to wait.

Last month, the Legislative Council approved two bills proposed by Rep. Walter Kumiega (D-Deer Isle) for consideration by the full Legislature when it returns to work in January. The council has to green-light any new bills that lawmakers want to introduce during the Legislature’s second session.

Kumiega, House chairman of the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee, will offer a bill that would, he said, “provide increased flexibility and promote maximum utilization of the elver quota by Maine’s elver harvesters,” if enacted.

Current law calls for a 48-hour fishing closure each week to provide an opportunity for juvenile eels to pass upstream on their seasonal journey from the sea to their spawning areas in Maine’s streams, lakes and ponds. The closed period is now set by statute and runs from Friday at noon to Sunday at noon. Kumiega’s bill would give DMR flexibility to set the 48-hour weekly closed period by rule prior to the start of the season based on the timing of the tidal cycle.

DMR would consult with industry members to determine which weekly 48-hour period would have the least impact on harvesting opportunity by setting the closed period when the tides are the least advantageous to harvesting.

The high price of elvers in recent years has made the fishery second only to lobster in terms of the value of the fishery in Maine.

Read the full story from The Ellsworth American

Warmer waters affecting the New England fishing industry

December 9, 2015 — A new study has found the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than almost every other ocean in the world. For the first time, it links warming sea temperatures to the collapse of cod stocks in the region.

For Portland’s fishing community, the first hours of daylight are the most important. At the town’s fish exchange, boats rush to unload their catch, ready to be sorted, and sold.

They are not just working against time.

Today’s landing at the Portland fish exchange was about 40,000 pounds worth. That’s not considered very much. Out of that, just seven boxes worth of cod; that’s about 500 pounds.”

Cod stocks have been declining here for decades. Federal quotas were slashed by 75 percent back in May, to help the species recover.

Now a new study suggests that intervention may have been too late.

Andrew Pershing, chief scientific officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute says, “You assume that if you pull back on the fishing, the stock will have the same productivity that it had in the past.  But our work really shows that the productivity in Gulf of Maine cod was declining pretty rapidly as the waters were getting warm and so by not factoring that in they weren’t able to rein in the quotas fast enough.”

Read the full story from CNN at WWLP

 

Regulators to decide whether to keep Maine shrimp ban

December 7, 2015 — PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire – Fishing regulators are ready to decide if a moratorium on fishing for Maine shrimp will be extended into next year.

Fishermen haven’t been able to catch the shrimp since 2013. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section is scheduled to meet on Monday in Portsmouth to decide if that will continue.

The commission’s Northern Shrimp Technical Committee says prospects for shrimp recovery are poor for the near future. It is asking the Northern Shrimp Section to extend the moratorium.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

Fishermen say lack of moorings could disrupt Maine scallops

December 5, 2015 — Fishermen in Maine’s lucrative scallop fishery say this year’s season could be disrupted somewhat by a lack of mooring space in one of the state’s most important fishing grounds.

Maine scallops were worth nearly $7.5 million in 2014 – the most in more than 20 years and by far the most since the industry recovered from a near-collapse in the mid-2000s. The richest scallop fishing grounds in the state are in Cobscook Bay on the northeastern coast, an area that fishermen said suffers from a lack of places to tie boats this year.

The collapse of the Eastport breakwater, which also damaged docked scalloping boats, contributed to the lack of space, scallop fisherman Alex Todd said. The loss of space in Eastport led to residual lack of moorings in nearby communities, he said.

However, Todd said he still expects a productive season, as Maine scallops have sold for high prices in recent years. The scallops, which are prized in the culinary world, sold for nearly $13 per pound at the dock last year, slightly edging the much larger Massachusetts fleet for the highest price per pound among states with a significant scallop fishery.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald