Saving Seafood

MAINE: A behind-the-scenes look at Maine’s growing scallop farming industry

August 18, 2023 — Maine’s wild scallop harvest is still a few months away, but a group of fishermen in Penobscot Bay can fish scallops year-round thanks to Maine’s growing aquaculture industry.

“This just puts another tool in the toolbox to allow them to adapt. We’re not looking to be replaced. We just want the opportunity to adapt,” said scallop farmer, Marsden Brewer.

Marsden has been fishing off of Stonington for decades.

He and his son, Robert, have been learning more about scallop farming, setting their nets in Penobscot Bay.

Read the full article at WABI

MAINE: Have you seen a blue crab in Maine? Researchers want to know where

August 17, 2023 — The reports have come from up and down the coast of Maine: Blue crabs have been spotted around dock pilings, pulled up in lobster traps and found washed up on beaches.

The crabs, usually associated with coastal Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay, have been showing up more often and in larger numbers in the Gulf of Maine over the past few years. To better understand the shifting population, scientists are now asking fishermen and members of the public to report their sightings through an online survey.

Jessie Batchelder, a fisheries project manager with Manomet, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit focused on conservation and science education that has been studying blue crabs in Maine, said the information submitted by lobstermen, clam harvesters and others who are frequently on the water is key to getting a better picture of the blue crab population.

“They have a vast knowledge of what’s going on and what they’re seeing,” she said.

In the past, researchers would occasionally hear about stray blue crabs being found in lobster traps or by clam harvesters, but the reports started to become more frequent in 2021. That got researchers thinking about studying how blue crabs are moving into the Gulf of Maine as waters warm because of climate change, Batchelder said.

Last year was the second warmest on record in the Gulf of Maine, with an average surface water temperature of 53.66 degrees Fahrenheit. While that temperature fell just short of the 2021 record, it continued the Gulf’s historic trend as one of the fastest-warming ocean areas on the planet.

The Gulf of Maine, 36,000 sprawling square miles stretching from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia, is home to rare whales and seabirds, valuable fish such as cod and haddock, and the $1.5 billion U.S. lobster industry, all of which are affected by warming waters.

Read the full article at Spectrum News

MAINE: Hungry seals blamed for loss of 50,000 salmon at Maine fish farms

August 14, 2023 — A seal attack is being blamed for the loss of 50,000 juvenile Atlantic salmon at two fish farming sites near Cutler, Maine.

Cooke Aquaculture spokesperson Joel Richardson said that divers discovered on Aug. 7 that seals had chewed through two cage nets near Cross Island. Each normally holds about 25,000 juvenile salmon, but were empty when workers found them.

The company said that the “unusually aggressive seal behavior” is result of a significant increase in the seal population across the Gulf of Maine, and particularly in Machias Bay.

“This is actually the first time that we’ve ever experienced such an attack by seals, who quite voraciously went after two of our salmon cages to feed,” Richardson said.

Read the full article at wbur

MAINE: Scientists call on fishermen to report blue crab sightings, which are becoming more common in Maine

August 12, 2023 — Stray blue crabs have been known to show up in a Maine lobster trap here and there. But scientists say the species, which is common in the mid-Atlantic, is showing up more frequently in the Gulf of Maine as waters warm.

Manomet and the Maine Department of Marine Fisheries are calling on fishermen to track and report their sightings and observations through an online survey.

Fishermen and members of the public have reported 24 blue crab sightings so far this year, and that’s on top of the blue crabs that are routinely found in researchers’ traps placed around the Casco and Damariscotta estuaries.

Juvenile blue crabs and females carrying eggs are among those spotted in Maine, said Jessie Batchelder, a project manager for Manomet’s fisheries team. They’ve also been seen during the winter.

Read the full article at Maine Public

A fishermen’s alliance fights back against offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine

August 10, 2023 — The New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) released an “Offshore Wind Research Summary” on Monday – a compilation of existing scientific research on the environmental impacts of offshore wind power development.

An alliance comprised of the Downeast Lobstermen’s Association, the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, the Maine Lobstering Union, the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, New England Young Fishermen’s Alliance, New Hampshire Commercial Fishing Association, Responsible Offshore Development Alliance all signed on to the NEFSA letter urging federal and state governments to pause offshore wind development plans in the Gulf of Maine. 

NEFSA and many other organizations in Maine are pushing for a delay on any offshore wind development until an environmental review of its impacts is completed. This appeal comes shortly after Gov. Janet Mills’ recent signing of a bill that will begin the process of construction of a port on the coast of Maine that is specifically designed to facilitate a proposed offshore wind buildout.

The fishermen’s alliance wants to draw attention to the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 388-page document attempting to synthesize the existing research on how offshore wind will further impact fisheries.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Glenn Prickett, incoming Gulf of Maine Research Institute CEO, welcomes industry collaboration

August 9, 2023 — The Portland, Maine, U.S.A.-based Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI), an independent marine nonprofit dedicated to studying the Gulf of Maine ecosystem and the people who depend on it, recently announced the hiring of Glenn Prickett as its next CEO. Prickett, who was previously president and CEO of the World Environment Center in Washington, D.C., has 35 years of environmental, climate, and business development experience working with NGOs, volunteer organizations, and the private sector. He will start his tenure at GMRI in September. In an interview with SeafoodSource, Prickett discussed his new role and what he hopes to accomplish during his time at the helm of GMRI.

The following was released by SeafoodSource

MAINE: Fishermen’s Alliance Highlights Offshore Wind Threat to Haddock, Lobster Fisheries in Gulf of Maine

August 8, 2023 — An alliance of groups representing New England’s fishermen is highlighting scientific research that suggests offshore wind development could have “population-scale effects” on key fish and crustacean species in the Gulf of Maine, including electromagnetism-induced deformities in lobsters.

The New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) on Monday released an “Offshore Wind Research Summary” summarizing the existing scientific research on the environmental impact of offshore wind power development.

The scientific evidence, they believe, shows that offshore wind development would have unpredictable and potentially harmful consequences for key marine species, such as lobster and haddock.

“The studies featured in the Research Summary indicate that there is no scientific consensus as to the effects of offshore wind on ocean ecosystems and marine life,” said Jerry Leeman, NEFSA CEO and a longtime commercial fishing captain.

“We cannot industrialize the Gulf of Maine until we understand how the wind industry interacts with the fisheries that wild harvesters have stewarded responsibly for decades,” Leeman said.

The interaction between wind power development and marine species is generally understudied. That means there could be massive unintended or unforeseeable consequences from an unprecedented industrial project in the Gulf of Maine.

Read the full article at the Maine Wire

MAINE: Maine approves lobster innovation fund as study reveals high costs of ropeless gear

August 4, 2023 — The U.S. state of Maine recently passed an act to create a Lobster Innovation Fund to provide financing to commercial fishermen to test new lobster fishing technologies, just days before the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) released a report finding a full transition to ropeless lobster gear would cost the fishery in more ways than just higher equipment costs.

The new fund, created through a law signed by Maine Governor Janet Mills on 27 July, would pay lobstermen to test new gear to learn how the gear would impact their fishing. The testing would add to the growing body of scientific data obtained through studies of alternative in both Maine and Massachusetts.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Leeman: Maine must hit pause on offshore wind turbines

August 2, 2023 — You wouldn’t buy a house without an inspection, so why would we fill the Gulf of Maine with wind turbine superstructures without understanding how they interact with the marine environment?

Offshore wind energy features too many unknowns to proceed at this point with widescale ocean industrialization. That’s why my organization, the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) has joined with partner organizations to call on state and federal authorities to reset our renewable energy policy.

The state of Maine is developing a floating offshore wind research array at a 15-square-mile site in the Gulf of Maine. NEFSA and its allies are asking state and federal authorities to delay any further development until experts have monitored and studied the research array. We should rescind the existing Gulf of Maine Call Area and conduct an environmental review for the Gulf of Maine before identifying any commercial wind energy areas.

I’ve been a fishing boat captain for over 20 years. I sailed out of New Bedford, Mass., and have scores of fishermen in my family lineage. From generation to generation, we have upheld a legacy of environmental stewardship and economic dynamism that has maintained the fishing industry in the Gulf of Maine while providing billions for New England’s economy. But every principle of stewardship and hard work we have upheld to preserve our maritime heritage is in jeopardy and could force our region into oblivion.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald

MAINE: Board votes to consider raising quota of valuable baby eels that Maine fisherman can catch

August 2, 2023 — Regulators voted Tuesday to consider raising the amount of a valuable baby eel that can be harvested from Maine’s waterways, though conservationists say the eel populations are declining and need better protection.

A board of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, an interstate regulatory panel that manages the baby eel fishing industry and other fisheries, voted unanimously to consider raising the total annual quota of slightly less than 10,000 pounds (4,535 kilograms) of the tiny eels that has been in place for nearly a decade.

The eels are typically worth more than $2,000 per pound because of their value to Asian aquaculture companies, which raise them to maturity and sell them for use in Japanese restaurants around the world.

Read the full article at the Associated Press