Saving Seafood

MAINE: Maine leaders urge federal government to ban offshore wind in fishing area

November 20, 2023 — Maine leaders are urging federal energy regulators not to pursue offshore wind projects in fertile fishing grounds off the state’s coastline.

In a letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Gov. Janet Mills and the state’s congressional delegation members call on the agency to remove a section of state waters — included in the so-called Lobster Management Area 1 — from the federal government’s plans to develop offshore wind.

“Given the importance of these fishing grounds to Maine’s fishing industry, the significant feedback that your agency has already received, and the recently passed Maine law that disincentivizes development in LMA 1, it is clear these areas are inappropriate for inclusion in the final Wind Energy Area,” they wrote.

Read the full article at the Center Square

Maine governor, congressional delegation want vital fishing area free of offshore wind development

November 18, 2023 — Despite last month’s proposed map for offshore wind in the Gulf of Maine being dubbed a “victory” for the fishing industry, Maine’s congressional delegation and Gov. Janet Mills are calling for more.

Along with Mills, U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King along with Reps. Jared Golden and Chellie Pingree sent a letter urging that all of a vital fishing area be excluded from the project, according to a news release from Golden’s office. The map proposed last month by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management excluded most, but not all, of Lobster Management Area 1.

“We want to ensure that any areas leased in the Gulf of Maine avoid and at the very least minimize impacts to the fishing industry whenever possible,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter.

Read the full article at Rhode Island Current

US has already imported most of its holiday-season goods; Portland, Maine gets funding for port upgrades

November 10, 2023 — SeafoodSource is closely following the international shipping sector by compiling a regular round-up of updates about shipping port updates.

The flow of imports to the U.S. expected to slow through the remainder of 2023, despite the expectation the holiday sales season will be record-setting.

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), most merchandise and goods has already arrived in the U.S. in advance of the holidays, resulting in an expected lull for the shipping sector.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

MAINE: Portland Fish Exchange considers merging with pier authority amid financial losses

November 9, 2023 — The Portland Fish Exchange (PFE) has bought and sold daily catch in the U.S. state of Maine since 1986. On the eastern side of the pier, the fish exchange houses auctions of fresh seafood and acts as a financial intermediary for buyers and sellers.

Almost every day of the week, commercial fishermen unload their vessels’ catch, which then gets sorted, graded, and weighed in-house at the fish exchange. With a capacity of 22,000 square feet of refrigerated storage, PFE can accommodate a substantial amount of product from local fishermen.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Weakening Gulf Stream could cause decline in Maine’s lobster fishery

November 7, 2023 — Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution confirmed with 99 percent certainty that the Gulf Stream is weakening, and with it the future of seafood species like lobster off the U.S. East Coast is uncertain.

The Gulf Stream transports warm water north from Florida along the East Coast of the U.S., influencing everything from water temperature to weather in Europe. According to a recent study, the Gulf Stream has slowed by 4 percent over the past four decades, and there is 99 percent certainty that the weakening is from more than just random chance.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Maine senator advocates grant program for working waterfronts

November 6, 2023 — U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has introduced legislation that would create a new grant program that would help the commercial fishing sector gain or preserve access to “working waterfront” areas.

“In Maine, our fisheries are one of our state’s most important resources and are vital to our economy,” Collins said in remarks on the Senate floor. “A report of Maine’s seafood sector as a whole, which included downstream contributors, found that in 2019, the sector contributed more than USD 3.2 billion [EUR 3 billion] to Maine’s economy. Although the fishing industry is a significant economic contributor both nationwide and in Maine, it is losing access to the working waterfronts that are vital to the industry’s survival.”

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

National Fisherman Highliner: Maggie Raymond

October 31, 2o23 — Maggie Raymond’s fishing career spans the trajectory of New England groundfish – from the good times of the 1980s, to helping fishermen and managers navigate brutal conflicts and challenges as the fleet moved to days-at-sea management and organizing into sectors.

The former executive director of the Associated Fisheries of Maine, Raymond, 70, of South Berwick, Maine, became essential to the industry and New England Fishery Management Council’s efforts to stabilize fishing communities during a traumatic era.

“Maggie helped people navigate these tumultuous changes and served as an invaluable conduit to explain the science and management implications to fishermen. She was a fierce advocate for industry interests.” said council chairman Eric Reid when Raymond was presented with the council’s 2022 Janice M. Plante Award for Excellence.

While working with the New England council over a quarter-century, Raymond also has been a longtime board member of the Maine Fishermen’s Forum. As a member of the Maine Fishermen’s Wives Association, she was active in effort to promote consumers’ awareness of seafood values and Maine’s fisheries.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

A ‘whole way of life’ at risk as warming waters change Maine’s lobster fishing

October 30, 2023 — Lobsterwoman Krista Tripp doesn’t need a scientist to tell her the normally cold waters off the coast of Maine are warming. The submersible thermometer she takes on every fishing trip proves that.

But it’s not just the warmer water that’s changing fishing here on the rocky coast of northern New England. Heavy rains are lowering the ocean’s salinity. And warm-water fish that don’t belong keep showing up.

“You can tell the water’s changing, and we’re getting new species,” says Tripp, 38. “People are posting fish they catch on Facebook and asking ‘What’s this?’ And they’re tropical fish.'”

Tripp started lobstering at her grandfather’s knee, where she learned to bait traps. She still tries to fish some of his old favorite spots near to shore, but increasingly she’s plumbing the waters right at the edge of where her permit allows, three miles offshore.

Her grandfather trapped lobster his whole life, and now Tripp, like her father before her, carries on that legacy. For generations, lobstering has helped define this slice of northern New England, where the cold Atlantic waters have been home to the species that helped build a young United States: cod, whales, lobster.

But what Tripp sees from the Shearwater’s wheelhouse is just one part of a larger problem facing the United States, as climate change warms the world’s oceans and transforms the creatures that live in them. As the oceans get hotter, sea life adapts, and many species that used to be easily fished close to land are fleeing to colder, deeper waters.

Read the full article at USA Today

Aquaculture debate reignited as towns consider moratoriums

October 30, 2023 — While concerns about fish farming in Maine have been fairly muted for some time in areas like Eastport and Lubec, where it began in the 1980s, towns along the coast that have been the focus of recent industrial-scale projects, including Jonesport, Gouldsboro, Bucksport and Belfast, have been seeing intense debates.

Prompted by those proposals, a group called Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation has been working to have municipalities enact moratoriums and ordinances limiting any large-scale proposals.

While eight municipalities have now passed moratoriums, the state has stepped in, questioning if they have the right to do so, since the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) has exclusive jurisdiction to lease state waters for aquaculture.

However, both the foundation and some towns are questioning that exclusive authority.

Two municipalities, Cutler and Waldoboro, have approved ordinances regulating aquaculture, and the other towns that have approved moratoriums are Machiasport, Beals, Roque Bluffs, Winter Harbor, Penobscot and South Bristol. Cutler approved its ordinance, which limits aquaculture leases to a half acre, in November 2022. Waldoboro’s ordinance does not allow for any aquaculture leases.

Crystal Canney, executive director of Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation, says the moratoriums, which are for six months and can be renewed multiple times, allow towns the time to develop and approve an ordinance.

The foundation is providing municipalities with possible language both for moratoriums on any new large-scale aquaculture projects and for municipal ordinances that would require a permit from the town’s planning board before an aquaculture facility could be built.

“We provide the towns with proposed moratorium and ordinance wording, but we leave it up to the towns on how to word them,” Canney said. The moratoriums provide “breathing room” so that towns can develop an aquaculture ordinance.

Canney noted that “the majority of the concern is Downeast,” and numerous other municipalities have been approached by the group, including Eastport and Lubec, which were not interested in pursuing a moratorium or ordinance. She points out that the foundation is targeting only large-scale aquaculture projects.

“We are not against owner/operated aquaculture that’s properly sited,” she said.

The foundation’s main concerns are both competition with fishermen for space and environmental effects of aquaculture. According to its website, Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage believes that “fishermen and marine harvesters are losing bottom and fishing space to large aquaculture leases.”

The website states, “We are working to ensure proper state regulations are in place to prevent a rapid, unplanned expansion of aquaculture in Maine. Conflicts are arising up and down the Maine coast for the lobstering, marine harvesters and boating communities. We must find a way to co‑exist without hurting the environment or fisheries that have been well managed and sustained for generations.”

Canney noted it’s possible for an aquaculture company to be able to lease 1,000 acres of state waters, since they can have up to 10 leases of up to 100 acres each.

Read the full article the Maine Monitor

MAINE: Lobster dealers hope for a fall surge

October 26, 2023 — Steamed, boiled, broiled or baked under hot coals and sand or shipped to restaurants and processors hundreds or thousands of miles away, lobster remains a major driver of Maine’s economy, contributing more than $1 billion each year.

And lobstermen’s earnings accounted for more than a third of that amount last year — $388 million, according to preliminary data from the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) — bolstering local communities up and down the coast.

This year, boat prices are high but the catch is down, dealers say. Supply is meeting demand but the demand is lower than last year. While at least one local seafood retailer had a great summer, wholesale dealers’ reports are unenthusiastic. Both lobstermen and dealers are keeping fingers crossed for a big fall surge in catch.

With the state’s commercial fishery granted a six-year reprieve in December from new federal regulations that many industry voices said would decimate the fishery, the 2023 season has focused on traditional concerns, such as supply, demand, prices and bait.

“The price is up but the catch is down, and we’ve had horrible weather,” said Susan Soper, general manager of Winter Harbor Lobster Co-op. “Our retail sales were almost 60 percent down.”

Read the full article at the Ellsworth American