Saving Seafood

Maine Lobstermen’s court appeal heard; new attempt to rescind gear delay

March 1, 2023 — A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. is considering the Maine Lobstermen’s Association appeal of the government’s fishing gear restrictions aimed at saving endangered whales.

In arguments Feb. 24, the MLA’s lead attorney Paul Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general during the Bush administration, laid out the fishermen’s case, arguing the National Marine Fisheries Service went overboard in making worst-case assumptions about the danger of Maine lobster gear entangling whales.

The North Atlantic right whale is highly endangered, with fewer than 350 animals believed to be surviving, with ship strikes and fishing gear entanglement leading causes of mortality. Clement made the MLA’s case that none in recent years have been documented to involve Maine lobster gear.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

National animal rights group sues Maine over aquaculture rules

March 1, 2023 — A national animal rights group is suing the state, alleging that it has failed to adequately protect fish raised in aquaculture facilities and that it does not have rules in place to regulate large-scale fish farms.

Animal Outlook, an animal advocacy organization based in Washington DC and California, filed suit Feb. 22 in Kennebec County Superior Court to challenge the state’s decision to reject its citizen petition.

The petition, signed by 152 registered Maine voters, calls on the state agriculture department to adopt new rules regarding inspections and enforcement of animal cruelty laws for fish raised by commercial companies.

But the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry rejected the petition in September, calling it “incomplete and defective,” primarily because Animal Outlook didn’t provide text for the rule it wants the state to adopt.

In the February lawsuit, Animal Outlook accuses the state of refusing to adopt standards for aquaculture facilities, failing to investigate the facilities and failing to enforce existing animal cruelty laws.

The agriculture department did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Read the full article at Spectrum News

MAINE: Mills Offshore Wind Roadmap Stirs Debate in Augusta

February 28, 2023 — Proponents of offshore wind power generated off the coast of Maine are no longer just blowing cold air: they will soon be brokering leases for development, a report issued by the state last week highlighted.

Given the scale and scope of what’s in the State of Maine’s Offshore Wind Roadmap that Gov. Janet Mills’ administration unveiled on Thursday, it’s a little odd that the governor didn’t directly mention the ambitious project in her state of the budget speech two weeks ago. What she did tell us then was her new goal is to have 100 percent of energy in the state coming from renewable sources by 2040, and in this context the offshore wind scheme begins to make more sense.

Until you consider the intense opposition to installing 500-900 foot tall wind turbines throughout the offshore waters of Maine.

The “roadmap” envisions 2,100 installations. Fishermen have been vocal in their opposition, and a state law Mills signed in 2021 prohibits offshore wind development in state waters. But what does that really mean?

Read the full article at the Maine Wire

Rep. Allison Hepler: More and better data can protect lobstering and right whales

February 28, 2o23 — The word “reprieve” is being used to describe the late-December federal action that produced a 6-year delay in implementing federal whale rules, as well as new funding for research and gear innovations in the lobster fishery. A reprieve is welcome, but it does not mean that the industry can step back and go about business as usual. Fortunately, that’s not what is happening.

This past summer, the National Oceanic and Aeronautical Administration (NOAA) had fast-tracked its implementation of rules around the endangered North Atlantic Right Whales, which would have made immediate and dramatic changes to Maine’s lobster fishery in two years rather than 10. In response, in the midst of our early-winter coastal storm that occurred just before Christmas last year, Maine’s federal delegation secured a 6-year pause in the implementation of those regulations, and also provided $55 million in funding for research and monitoring. This action was a welcome break for Maine lobstermen.

Science is at the heart of the work that needs to be done. Some of the funding will allow for continued research into better understanding the behavior and distribution of right whales as a result of the changing environmental situation in the Gulf of Maine. It is dramatically warming, and the whales’ favorite food is shifting east into Canadian waters. Organizations such as Bigelow Laboratories are likely to receive some of this funding to continue its research on the impact of this shift.

Read the full article at the Press Herald

 

Gulf of Maine sees second-hottest year on record, report shows, ‘getting to the edge of habitability’

February 27, 2023 — Already one of the fastest-warming bodies of water in the world, the Gulf of Maine recorded its second-hottest year ever in 2022, another ominous indicator of how global warming threatens the rich marine world off New England.

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute reported recently that average annual sea surface temperature for the sprawling ocean waters clocked in at 53.66 degrees Fahrenheit last year, more than 3.72 degrees above a 30-year average measured earlier this century. In 2021, the average annual sea surface temperature was even slightly higher, at 54.09 degrees.

The rapid rise in water temperatures has dire consequences, such as the loss of marine species, some of which are major sources of food and commercial fishing activities, and rising sea levels that can damage coastal communities.

“It’s part of a multidecadal trend that … has profound implications for not just people who rely on the Gulf of Maine for their livelihoods and well-being but also for coastal communities,” said Dave Reidmiller, director of the Climate Center at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

Home to more than 3,000 aquatic species and birds, the gulf is “one of the most biologically productive marine ecosystems” in the North Atlantic, according to the Gulf of Maine Association. It covers a 36,000-square-mile area from the tip of Cape Cod to Cape Sable in Nova Scotia, and its historically cold waters are a key reason why the gulf is such a viable environment for marine life.

The temperature of the gulf has been rising rapidly for more than a century, at a rate more than three times that of the world’s oceans, according to the institute’s report released last week. It surpassed the average temperature of the global oceans in the 1990s.

Rising gulf temperatures are also, in large part, why New England itself is warming faster than the planetary average, scientists say.

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

Federal court hears arguments from Maine lobstermen appealing right whale regulations

February 27, 2023 — A federal appeals court heard arguments Friday from the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, which is challenging a government plan to regulate the fishery and conserve endangered right whales.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association had promised to take its latest appeal of federal fishing regulations all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary.

But lobstermen hope they’ll avoid that prospect, especially with Paul Clement, an attorney with more than 100 past Supreme Court appearances, representing Maine.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

Bed-scale impact and recovery of a commercially important intertidal seaweed

February 17, 2023 — A study led by the University of Maine captured how entire rockweed beds recover from harvest, and the practice has a smaller impact than previously thought.

Rockweed wields immense influence over its intertidal habitat. Its tangled branches form the backbone of a rich ecosystem that shelters and feeds an abundance of marine life. Everywhere rockweed grows, invertebrates, fish and fowl follow.

The marine alga has also been valued as a soil amendment for centuries, and more recently as crop biostimulants. The Maine Department of Marine Resources reports that commercial  has more than tripled over the past 20 years. Rockweed grows back following harvest, with biomass recovering faster than height. This change, combined with climbing harvest pressure, has led to concern regarding the practice. Harvesters, landowners, ecologists and community scientists want to understand how cutting and removing rockweed affects the ecosystem it creates.

Read the full article at PHYS.org

Are cod ‘severely depleted’ in the Gulf of Maine? Why fishermen, scientists view ocean depths differently

February 16, 2023 — When fishermen and women look at the gray Atlantic waters off New England, they see a marine environment literally swimming with cod, the popular white fish prized around the world for its mild flavor.

Scientists, on the other hand, say Atlantic cod stocks in the Gulf of Maine are severely depleted and possibly vulnerable to extinction.

The question of how fishermen and marine scientists employed by government agencies can view cod numbers so differently has puzzled Micah Dean, a marine biologist with the state of Massachusetts, for years.

While a doctoral student at Northeastern University, Dean believed he came up with an answer.

In a paper published recently by the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences—appropriately titled “Lost in Translation”—Dean says that fishermen and scientists view the ocean depths with such different lenses that they are literally not seeing the same things.

“We did a telephone survey and we asked commercial fishermen, over the last 10 years, do you think the cod population in the Gulf of Maine has gone down a lot, gone down a little, stayed the same, gone up a little or gone up a lot,” Dean says.

Read the full article at Northeastern Global News

Nordic Aquafarms loses court battle over land crucial to its Maine RAS plans

February 16, 2023 — Nordic Aquafarms, which has plans to build a large land-based recirculating aquaculture system salmon farm in Belfast, Maine, U.S.A., has lost its fight over rights to intertidal land the company planned to use to site its inflow and outflow pipes.

In a 16 February ruling, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court found the plaintiffs in the case – Jeffrey R. Mabee and Judith B. Grace – were correct in their original assertion they are the owners of the intertidal land.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource