Saving Seafood

Can Fishing and Offshore Wind Coexist in the Gulf of Maine? It Depends, Experts Say

September 19, 2023 — Fisherman David Goethel is looking at the prospect of large scale wind production in the Gulf of Maine and what changes that may mean to fish behavior, marine environment and life as it has been known on the ocean for centuries.

He told an online seminar for the New Hampshire Network for Environmental, Energy and Climate Monday night that “Europe built first and studied later,” the impacts to turbines in their waters.

He said people should also think of food security versus energy security when they look at impacts.

“It’s just as vital and yet, I don’t think it’s getting enough discussion,” he told about 60 people listening to the presentation entitled “Planning for Offshore Wind AND Sustainable Fisheries in New England.”

The central question discussed was can both fishing and renewable wind harvesting coexist and what would the impacts be?

Panelists said it depends on what is built, where and who provides input in the planning.

Read the full article at InDepthNH.org

California’s floating wind lead threatened by fast-rising Maine

September 17, 2023 — The U.S. has allocated its first floating wind leases and aims to install 15 GW by 2035 but participants warn the first large-scale arrays may still be a decade away.

Development activity is growing on East and West coasts but transmission grids, ports and supply chains must be expanded to achieve commercially viable projects.

California and the East coast state of Maine have set out floating wind targets but different strategies towards the scaling up of floating wind could see their trajectories diverge.

In the U.S.’ first floating wind auction, the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) allocated five floating wind projects in California for a total 4.6 GW capacity.

The state of California aims to install 2 to 5 GW of floating wind capacity by 2030 and 25 GW by 2045 but market observers do not expect the first projects to come online before 2035.

The deep waters of the Pacific Coast mean that, unlike on the East Coast, developers will not benefit from infrastructure built earlier for conventional fixed-bottom offshore projects. Ports must be expanded and adapted to assemble huge components and regional supply chains must be built out to achieve economies of scale.

Read the full article at Reuters

MAINE: Haddock catch limits have been raised for Maine fishermen, but are still down over previous years

September 11, 2023 — Federal regulators have increased the amount of haddock Maine fishermen are allowed to catch this season.

The industry had been facing about a 70% cut in the allowable haddock catch as compared to last season. But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has raised those limits by about 30%, a level that regulators say should avoid a potential shutdown of Maine’s groundfish fishery but still prevent over-harvesting.

Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, says despite initial stock assessments that suggested otherwise, the Gulf of Maine haddock population appears healthy.

Read the full article at Maine Public

Drones hold promise as a new technique for tagging and monitoring endangered right whales

September 10, 2023 — North Atlantic right whales are notoriously difficult to track, but a new method for tagging them could hold promise for federal efforts to monitor the critically endangered species.

Researchers have traditionally approached right whales in a small boat and applied suction cup tags using a long pole. The method is often risky for both researchers applying the tags and for the whales themselves. And with a population of fewer than 340 right whales, poor weather conditions make it difficult to consistently tag and monitor them.

Read the full article at Maine Public

Maine court denies appeal of Kingfish Maine’s RAS farm site permits

August 30, 2023 — The Kingfish Company’s effort to build a recirculating aquaculture system farm to grow yellowtail kingfish in the U.S. state of Maine got a boost 29 August with the dismissal of an appeal of the approval of one its permits.

The appeal from the Roque Island Gardner Homestead Corporation and Eastern Maine Conservation Initiative sought to overturn the Maine Board of Environmental Protection’s granting of a Site Location of Development Act (SLODA) and Natural Resources Protection Act (NRPA) joint permit, which was issued in 2021 and finalized after an appeal in 2022.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

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