Saving Seafood

Maine lobstermen sue over federal monitor requirements

January 10, 2024 — Maine lobstermen are making a last-ditch push to scuttle a federal monitoring program seeking to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, lawyers for five lobstermen argue that new federal fisheries monitoring rules violate the Fourth and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

The restrictions, which went into effect on Dec. 15, require Maine lobstermen with federal lobster fishing permits to install 24-hour electronic tracking devices on their vessels.

The lobstermen allege the feds are collecting the monitoring data for purposes unrelated to commercial fishing, such as mapping potential areas to develop offshore wind power, which is “improper and a manifest violation of their constitutionally protected privacy rights.”

Read the full article at the Center Square

US lobster project to use tracking data to avoid right whale entanglements

January 10, 2024 — A group of seafood processors and sellers, working in collaboration with fishery NGOs and fishery experts, have developed a fishery improvement project (FIP) to reduce North Atlantic Right Whale entanglements in the US lobster fishery.

The plan involves using data from the New England Aquarium’s publicly available WhaleMap web application, which pinpoints the location of right whales during their annual migration, according to a statement released Wednesday (Jan. 10).

“This fishery improvement project will give participants in the lobster fishery the information they need to avoid setting traps in areas where whales are known to be or expected to be,” said Northern Wind founder and chief executive officer Ken Melanson in the press release. “This puts our industry ahead of the curve to maintain lobster harvesting while addressing entanglement concerns.”

Melanson said the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Modernization Act mandates electronic traceability, and this project will address that.

“The approval of this project will provide buyers and processors with a pathway to develop internal sustainability policies, and to develop programs and procedures that foster and encourage sustainability,” he said. “It will allow large retail and food service buyers to continue to source from the fishery while the fishery is working to add additional protections beyond management measures in the overall effort to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.”

Read the full article at Undercurrent News

Massachusetts lobstermen drop lawsuit against California aquarium that told people to stop eating lobster

January 10, 2023 — The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association has ended its fight against a California aquarium that says people shouldn’t buy and eat lobster because of the risks the fishery poses on the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

A federal judge in the Northern District of California on Monday dismissed a class action lawsuit that four Bay State lobstermen filed last March against the Monterey Bay Aquarium after the two sides agreed to end the months-long dispute with prejudice.

Monterey Bay in September 2022 gave the American lobster a “red rating” on its Seafood Watch, recommending consumers to avoid the species caught by trap from the Gulf of Maine, Southern New England and Georges Bank stocks.

The action prompted the four lobstermen to file the suit months later, seeking $75,000 in damages for disparagement of their aquaculture product and interference with their proprietary rights.

“After lengthy discussions among the named individuals in the suit, they agreed to dismiss the Class Action Suit as a win in the California court is highly unlikely and extremely costly,” the MLA said in a statement to the Herald on Tuesday. “The laws in California would ultimately hold these individuals financially responsible for the defendant’s legal fees should they prevail.”

The aquarium had asserted that trapping lobsters had contributed to the depletion of the population of Northern Atlantic right whales, an endangered species at high risk of extinction. There are fewer than 340 such whales today, and the aquarium says entanglement in fishing gear is the leading cause of injury and death.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald

NOAA extends emergency measures for Gulf of Maine haddock quota

January 9, 2024 — NOAA Fisheries has taken emergency action to increase the Gulf of Maine haddock acceptable biological catch (ABC) for the 2023 fishing year.

At the New England Fishery Management Council’s request, NOAA Fisheries increased the fishing year 2023 ABC to the fishing mortality associated with the maximum sustainable yield (FMSY), which is 2,515 metric tons. The action is effective Tuesday, Jan. 9.

Read the full article at Gloucester Daily Times

Lobster fishers sue to block monitoring laws designed to help save a rare whale

January 8, 2024 — A group of lobster fishermen has sued fishing regulators in federal court, claiming that new electronic monitoring requirements designed to protect rare whales are unconstitutional.

The new rules went into effect on Dec. 15 and require fishermen with federal lobster fishing permits to install 24-hour electronic tracking devices on their boats. The Maine Department of Marine Resources, which regulates fisheries in Maine, has promoted the new rule as a way to collect better data that can both benefit the fishery and help save the vanishing North Atlantic right whale, which is vulnerable to potentially lethal entanglement in fishing gear.

Five lobstermen who are members of a lobster fishing union filed their lawsuit in federal court last week. The fishermen said they oppose the requirement that the tracking devices must be operational regardless of what the boat is being used for at the time.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

NMFS extends Gulf of Maine haddock increase

January 8, 2024 — An emergency action that boosted the Gulf of Maine haddock catch to prevent premature 2023 closings is now being extended to the end of the fishing  year April 30, the National Marine Fisheries Service announced Monday.

Faced with warnings from fishermen of unusually high catch rates, the New England Fishery Management Council in April 2023 asked NMFS for an increase in the allowable biological catch (ABC) of Gulf of Maine haddock for the coming fishing year that began May 1.

Without a one-time emergency increase for haddock, groundfish shutdowns appeared likely in August, the council warned.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Maine lobstermen sue over monitoring laws

January 7, 2024 — Five Maine lobstermen have filed a lawsuit against the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) over recently enacted rules requiring all Maine lobstermen with federal lobster fishing permits to install 24-hour electronic tracking devices on their vessels.

The rule went into force on 15 December and stems from a higher-level decision made by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) calling for individual state departments to create rules establishing around-the-clock tracking requirements on both American lobster fishing vessels and Jonah crab fishing vessels. One of the main stated goals of the plan is to help reduce the risk of lobster gear entangling critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Maine lobstermen sue state over requirement to track boats

January 4, 2024 — Five lobstermen are suing the Maine Department of Marine Resources over a new regulation that requires tracking devices on boats that fish in federal waters, saying the devices violate their privacy rights.

The trackers had to be installed by Dec. 15 under a new regulation from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. According to the department, the trackers periodically monitor the locations of a lobstering or crabbing vessel to help identify fishing patterns, which are then used to help grow the fishing stock and better protect the endangered North American right whale population – a contentious issue in the fishing community.

But the lobstermen and other fishing groups believe the trackers violate multiple amendments of the U.S. Constitution and threaten the fishermen’s personal and commercial interests.

“The plaintiffs contend that minute-by-minute surveillance of Maine’s federally licensed lobster fleet is unconstitutional, unwarranted and unfair to Maine lobstermen, who have proven through the actions of generations of lobstering families that they are good stewards of the ocean ecosystems essential to their livelihoods,” Portland attorney Thimi Mina, who is representing the lobstermen, said in a statement.

Read the full article at the Press Herald

MAINE: Maine lobstermen sue the state over electronic boat tracking rules

January 3, 2024 — Five lobstermen are suing the Maine Department of Marine Resources in an effort to stop new electronic boat monitoring requirements.

Under new rules that went into effect last month, lobstermen with federal fishing permits must install monitors on their boats that track their location each minute.

Attorney Thimi Mina said the lobstermen believe that the tracking is a violation of their constitutional right to privacy, equal protection and due process.

Read the full article at nhpr

To help rare whales, Maine and Massachusetts will spend $27 million on data and gear improvements

January 2, 2023 — Scientists and officials in New England hope to collect better data about a vanishing whale species, improve fishing gear to avoid harming the animals, and make other changes as Maine and Massachusetts receive more than $27 million in public funding.

The money is intended to aid the North Atlantic right whale, which is jeopardized by entanglement in commercial fishing gear and collisions with large ships. The population of the giant whales fell by about 25% from 2010 to 2020, and now numbers less than 360.

The largest chunk of the money is $17.2 million the Maine Department of Marine Resources has received from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to improve data collection about the whales, officials said Tuesday. The money will allow Maine to expand its right whale research and improve the assessment of risk to the whales posed by lobster fishing, which is a key industry in the state, Maine officials said.

Read the full article at the Associated Press