Saving Seafood

NMFS closing Northern Gulf of Maine scallop area

April 20, 2023 — The federal Northern Gulf of Maine scallop management area will close one minute after midnight April 21, with projections now that 100 percent of the 380,855-pound quota set-aside will have been caught in little more than two weeks.

The closure announced late Wednesday by the National Marine Fisheries Service means no scallop vessels fishing under federal scallop regulations may fish for, possess, or land scallops in or from the Northern Gulf of Maine Scallop area until the end of the current fishing year on March 31, 2024.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Biologist warns that without new regulations, right whales will be ‘functionally extinct’ by 2035

April 19, 2023 — Maine lobstermen testified in Washington Tuesday against a bill that could put the industry back on the hook for regulations aimed at protecting endangered right whales. But without them, a marine biologist warns the whales could become functionally extinct within the next 12 years.

The warning came from Michael Moore of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who told federal lawmakers that based on their current trajectory, North Atlantic right whales are in “immediate jeopardy.” Fewer than 70 breeding females remain. And Moore said that number will plunge deeply if no conservation measures are taken within the next five years.

“The black arrow [indicates that in] 2035 [there will be] no more breeding females, no more calves,” he said. “The species will be functionally extinct in 2035.”

Read the full article at Maine Public

MAINE: Rock lobster concert to raise funds for Maine industry

April 17, 2023 — Todd Erickson, bassist and singer for the band Holy Smoke, has been a musician all his life. His son, Eliot Erickson, is taking a different path.

At 22-years-old, this is the younger Erickson’s third season lobstering out of Portland Harbor aboard his own boat, the Lisa Lee.

With the lobstering industry under pressure from increased federal regulation, blacklisting by environmental groups and looming wind power projects, Todd Erickson knew he wanted to help his son, somehow.

So he’s doing what he knows how to do best: put on a show and rock-n-roll like crazy.

On Sunday, May 7th, rock and lobster will combine for Band Together: A Concert to Celebrate Maine’s Lobstering Heritage. Featuring four bands and two comedians, the show kicks off at 2 p.m. at the Portland Elks Lodge on outer Congress Street.

All proceeds from the show will go to the Maine Lobstermen’s Community Alliance, a Kennebunk-based, non-profit organization supporting the Maine Lobstermen’s Association’s Save Maine Lobstermen campaign.

Through that campaign, the Lobstermen’s Association filed suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Secretary of Commerce in Sept. 2021, challenging a 10-year whale plan that Maine lobstermen believed would decimate the industry. The lawsuit is now in appeal.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

Right whales aren’t having a good year. The pressure is on to save this hard-to-track species

April 16, 2023 — It’s a chilly morning in early March. And New England Aquarium scientist Orla O’Brien and her team are preparing a small, twin propeller plane at the New Bedford Regional Airport for takeoff.

It’s perfectly clear, ideal for flying and, hopefully, for spotting North Atlantic right whales from about 1,000 feet in the air.

It hasn’t been a particularly good year for critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. Scientists have documented four right whale entanglements so far in 2023, which they say is a relatively high number for the first three months of the year. And with a population of fewer than 350 — scientists estimate the number is likely closer to 340 — the pressure is on to learn more about how and where the whales are becoming entangled.

But despite decades of research, biologists say tracking the species — and developing definitive answers about their encounters with fishing gear — are challenging tasks. And the answers that scientists have developed are often frustrating for New England fishing industries, which say the information has been used to unfairly regulate them.

For the New England Aquarium, the process starts with these monthly aerial surveys south of Martha’s Vineyard.

O’Brien points to one of two seats behind the pilot and co-pilot. “We sit there and then we’ll pop open that little square,” she explains.

Read the full article at Maine Public

MAINE: Nordic Aquafarms asks Maine to suspend permits as it faces an onslaught of legal challenges By Chris Chase April 14, 2023

April 16, 2023 — Nordic Aquafarms has requested the Maine Department of Environmental Protection pause permit deadlines for its planned salmon recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) facility in Belfast, Maine, U.S.A., as it continues to face several legal challenges.

In a release on 7 April, the company announced it is asking the DEP to suspend its permits to let multiple court decisions on property issues raised by project opponents play out. The company, which announced the large aquaculture project in January 2018 and originally said it hoped to have production start in 2020, has faced a barrage of legal challenges to its development.

Read the full article SeafoodSource

A new program to research American Lobster fishery’s sustainability

April 11, 2023 — Sea Grant is accepting applications for the American Lobster Research Program 2023. Applications must be submitted to Grants.gov until May 10, 2023.

Sea Grant announced the launch of the American Lobster Research Program 2023, which will support collaborative projects that address priority research needs to enhance the understanding of and address impacts to the American lobster fishery.

According to Sea Grant “applications are sought from research teams and encourage partnerships between industry, state agencies, and/or academia that address population dynamics, including but not limited to distribution and abundance in regards to ecosystem changes; life history parameters, including but not limited to temperature effects, ocean acidification, and other changing climate conditions; species interactions and behavior; and/or social, behavioral, or economic research including but not limited to impact studies, assessments, and policy analyses regarding measures under consideration for inclusion in the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan.”

The institution says the program aims to address impacts to the American lobster fishery in the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, and southern New England, and applications must be submitted to Grants.gov by 11:59 p.m. Eastern time May 10, 2023. Eligible applicants are any individual; any public or private corporation, partnership, or other association or entity (including any Sea Grant College, Sea Grant Institute or other institution); or any State, political subdivision of a State, Tribal government or agency.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

MAINE: Maine’s seafood harvest fell by more than a third in past decade

April 10, 2023 — Many of Maine’s commercial marine fisheries have experienced notable highs in the past decade with lobsters, softshell clams and baby eels all hitting record annual harvest values.

But when it comes to 2022, the statewide fisheries harvest total stands out for a different reason: a record low.

At 197 million pounds for all commercially harvested marine species, 2022 was the first time since 1975 that Maine’s reported annual seafood harvest has fallen short of 200 million pounds. In fact, the cumulative volume of Maine’s commercial fisheries dropped by more than 120 million pounds between 2012 and 2022, state data show.

Patrick Keliher, head of the state’s Department of Marine Resources, said there are myriad reasons why fishery landings have declined — some regulatory, others environmental.

Some fisheries are well below their former harvest totals. Northern shrimp have migrated north out of the Gulf of Maine because of climate change, urchins were significantly overfished in the 1990s and the harvest of baby eels has been restricted to offset habitat loss. Softshell clams, which reached a record high harvest value in 2021, had their lowest-ever documented total harvest by volume in 2022.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

MAINE: New bill would expand state waters in attempt to protect Maine lobstermen from federal regulations

April 8, 2023 — Maine lawmakers are considering a new bill that would claim state control over a larger swath of coastal waters.

State Sen. Eric Brakey, the bill’s sponsor, said the proposal is intended to protect Maine lobstermen from what he says are overly burdensome federal regulations, particularly those aimed at protecting endangered right whales.

“LD 563 would throw the yolk of these federal regulators off our Maine lobstermen by extending Maine’s claim to the sovereignty of our oceans from three miles to 12 miles, subjecting our lobstermen to the rules of Maine regulators, accountable to Maine people, rather than Washington, DC regulators who seem accountable to no one,” he told the Legislature’s marine resources committee Thursday.

Read the full article at Maine Public

MAINE: Legislators hear about Mills administration offshore wind plans

April 6, 2023 — Representatives of the Governor’s Energy Office took questions from a legislative committee Wednesday about the scale of offshore wind projects that might be sited in the Gulf of Maine, and their potential impacts on whales, fisheries, and aesthetics.

Celina Cunningham of the Governor’s Energy Office says a network of floating wind turbines 20 miles offshore would require miles of cable buried 6 feet under the ocean floor. Cunningham expects that wind projects would eventually be interconnected with those elsewhere in New England.

Read the full article at Maine Public

MAINE: As the Gulf of Maine warms, a hardier clam could offer business opportunities

April 5, 2023 — It was the first official evening of spring and Mike Gaffney was ankle-deep in the mud of the tidal flats of his Georgetown oyster farm with two researchers.

The trio weren’t there for oysters – a delicacy at the center of an aquaculture boom in Maine – but were, instead, checking on an experiment that some hope could help usher in industry in the state. Half-buried in the mud were about a dozen mesh bags and crates containing thousands of tiny hard-shell clams, also known as quahogs.

“I have to say I am really glad to see them all here because we did have a period of really cold weather,” said Marissa McMahan, director of fisheries at Manomet, a scientific nonprofit studying how climate change is affecting species in the Gulf of Maine. “There’s a bridge down there that you can see. I would drive by and look into the cove and see ice everywhere. And it was like, ‘Oh no, I hope those bags are still here.’ So this is great!”

Read the full article at Maine Public