February 8, 2023 — Even with congressionally-approved six-year reprieve from economically restrictive rules related to preserving the remaining population of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales, the lobster fishery in the U.S. Northeast is facing an inflection point.
The Maine Lobstermen’s Association is continuing to battle the National Marine Fisheries Service in court, challenging the agency’s May 2022 biological opinion for right whales.
February 7, 2023 — After a two-year hiatus, members of the U.S. and Canadian lobster fisheries met in Portland over the weekend to discuss challenges facing their industry. Top of mind is how the industry will prepare before new federal regulations designed to protect endangered right whales begin in six years.
Fisheries in Maine had late last year expressed relief about the years-long delay in the rules change included in a federal spending bill, as it bought the industry more time to research and test new fishing techniques and other measures aimed at protecting North Atlantic right whales.
February 7, 2023 — The rules about the minimum and maximum sizes of lobsters that can be trapped off New England could soon become stricter, potentially bringing big changes to one of the most valuable seafood industries in the country.
Fishers are required to measure lobsters from eyes to tail and must throw back the crustaceans if they’re too large or too small. The rules, which can vary slightly based on fishing grounds, are intended to maintain a breeding population of the lobsters in key areas such as the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank.
The regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is considering changing the standards by a fraction of an inch in some of the fishing grounds. The commission said it’s considering the changes because of a worrisome lack of baby lobsters growing off New England.
The changes would arrive at a time when the lobster industry is experiencing record highs in both catch and value, and consumers are paying more for lobsters — already a premium product — than they were just a few years ago. The industry is also challenged by warming oceans and new fishing rules designed to protect rare whales.
February 6, 2023 — Environmental groups that have led litigation targeting the lobster fishing industry have been heavily funded by various liberal dark money groups that don’t disclose their individual donors, a Fox News Digital review of tax filings found.
The organizations — the Center For Biological Diversity, Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) and Defenders Of Wildlife — first filed a joint federal lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in 2018, arguing a rule issued by the agency years earlier failed to properly protect the endangered North Atlantic right whales from lobster fishing equipment. In April 2020, a federal judge ruled in favor of the groups, ordering the NMFS to issue tighter restrictions.
“Right whales have been getting tangled up and killed in lobster gear for far too long,” Kristen Monsell, the oceans program litigation director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said at the time. “This decision sends a clear signal that federal officials must protect these desperately endangered animals from more painful and deadly entanglements before it’s too late.”
February 6, 2023 — The Gulf of Maine lobster fishery has temporarily withdrawn its effort to pursue recertification under the Marine Stewardship Council sustainability standard.
The Maine Certified Sustainable Lobster Association (MCSLA), an industry group that has served as the fishery’s client group for the MSC certification process since it was first certified in 2016, decided not to continue to seek recertification, after it lost its certificate in November 2022.
February 6, 2023 — Active lobstermen are being advised to open mail from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission in the coming months, because the envelopes that arrive just might contain a check for up to $3,500.
Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher told members of the Lobster Advisory Council at their January 18 meeting that the checks—meant to partially offset the expense of gear modifications required by 2021 North Atlantic right whale protections—will be issued by ASMFC and should arrive this spring.
“These are checks that will be distributed to a lot of harvesters,” Keliher said. “The Commission will be writing the checks, so make sure you don’t see the envelope and throw it away.”
In an email clarifying the timing, DMR spokesman Jeff Nicholas wrote, “We cannot predict the timing for that, but we will keep license holders informed as the approval process is initiated.”
The money comes from a $14 million appropriation approved by Congress last year—prior to the December passage of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, usually referred to as the Omnibus spending bill. The December bill delayed new protection rules for the endangered whales for six years and includes $55 million for research and development of new technologies for lobstering and for monitoring the whales.
February 1, 2023 — Citing threats to the endangered North Atlantic right whale, federal officials are invoking an emergency rule to ban lobster and crab trap and pot fishermen from working in a vast area of Massachusetts Bay over the next three months.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Tuesday said the emergency rule, which was also deployed in 2022, means that trap and pot fishermen fishing federal waters in an area known as the Massachusetts Restricted Area Wedge “must remove all trap/pot gear from this area, and may not reset trawls being actively fished, or set new trawls in this area for the period from February 1 – April 30, 2023.”
January 30, 2023 — The Harraseeket River recedes slowly but steadily around Chad Coffin’s metal skiff, until the boat is beached on a partly exposed mudflat. Coffin and his daughter, Bailey Pennell, are already out of the skiff, rakes in hand and rubber boots sinking deep into the gray-brown muck.
They begin to dig — but not for soft-shell clams, also known as steamers, belly clams or Ipswich clams, a prized Maine commodity that Coffin has harvested here in Freeport for decades. Instead, he and Pennell are scrounging for quahogs, or hard clams. They fetch a lower price, but the part of these flats where any soft-shells might be found is closed to harvest after a recent rain.
“This used to be all clams when I started clamming,” Coffin said. “I would have been able to dig right there, where the mud’s showing already. And now we can’t. There’s nothing there.”
This is becoming a typical struggle for some Maine clammers. Though the soft-shell fishery is typically Maine’s second-most valuable after lobster, statewide landings for the clams are near all-time lows — down from close to 40 million pounds a year in the 1970s to fewer than 10 million pounds a year for most of the past decade.
Coffin and some researchers are confident they know the main reason: green crabs. This invasive species eats clams voraciously, and warming waters are causing the crabs’ population to explode.
“Climate change is just that piece of dynamite that’s been thrown into that room,” said Brian Beal, a professor of ecology and longtime clam researcher with the University of Maine at Machias. “That has just changed everything.”
Beal and Coffin are among the clammers, scientists and other observers who believe the problems facing the fishery are clear. But the solutions they’re calling for have been slow to gain traction at the state level.
January 30, 2023 — NOAA Fisheries announced a North Atlantic right whale was spotted entangled by ropes off the coast of Georgia, marking the third right whale entanglement discovered in 2023.
The whale, nicknamed “Nimbus,” was spotted entangled 13 miles off the coast of Jekyll Island, Georgia, U.S.A. According to NOAA, a team of authorized responders and experts managed to remove 375 feet of rope from the whale, leaving a “short segment” in its mouth that the responders are “optimistic” will dislodge over time.
January 25, 2023 — A big plan was revealed in Augusta Tuesday to bring floating wind turbines to the Gulf of Maine.
The bill to jumpstart offshore wind development was unveiled at the State House.
Supporters claim the bill is about boosting responsible offshore wind development in the Gulf of Maine, saying it will help drive down energy costs across the board.
They believe Maine could become an industry leader in offshore wind as a potential major source of clean energy.