Saving Seafood

The Gulf of Maine is simmering, but its lobsters seem fine — for now

September 14, 2022 — Many tourists visiting coastal Maine may at some point purchase a lobster roll, with big chunks of lobster meat, a dash of mayo and a bag of potato chips on the side. But as summers become hotter and sea temperatures rise in the Gulf of Maine, there’s concern that warmer waters will cause the cold water crustacean to move elsewhere, making it harder to satisfy lobster cravings for the region’s tourists.

The Gulf of Maine has been a hotspot for ocean warming, increasing at a rate of 0.8 degrees Fahrenheit each decade in the last 40 years — about three times the global average. At higher water temperatures, lobsters hit what is known as a “stress threshold,” where they become more vulnerable to disease and less likely to reproduce.

But at least in recent years, it seems, the lobster — and some locals who depend on them for their livelihoods — have found success even as their future in warming ocean waters is more uncertain.

Read the full article at the Washington Post

MAINE: Mills urges feds to hold in-person hearings in Maine on fishing changes to protect right whales

September 14, 2022 — Gov. Janet Mills and members of Maine’s congressional delegation are raising concerns about the pace of federal efforts to prevent whale entanglements and whether Maine’s lobster industry will have a chance to provide input on potential changes.

In a letter sent Tuesday to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Mills accused the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of moving at a “breakneck pace” as it develops new plans to reduce the risks of whale entanglements in fishing gear. Mills also strongly criticized the agency for scheduling only a single webinar to gather feedback from the fishing community and other stakeholders as well as for suggesting that state officials hold additional scoping sessions on the potential federal changes.

“It is unconscionable for NOAA to only hold a single public hearing and a virtual meeting at that,” Mills wrote. “As NOAA well knows, effectively reaching an audience of fishermen with challenging schedules absolutely requires in-person meetings and opportunities for comment.” Instead, Mills is calling on the agency to hold multiple meetings in Maine so that NOAA staff can meet in-person with fishermen.

Read the full article at Maine Public

MAINE: Portland restaurant acknowledges misinformation about lobster sales

September 14, 2022 — A Portland seafood restaurant and several national companies are correcting misinformation circulating in the wake of the announcement by Seafood Watch that it was red-listing American lobster because of the risk lobster gear poses to endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Shortly after the announcement, national news outlets reported that meal kit delivery services Blue Apron and Hello Fresh pulled lobster from their menus. Calls to boycott those companies began circulating on social media in response to the red-listing by Seafood Watch, a seafood sustainability project of the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California.

However, a spokesperson for Blue Apron says the company did not pull lobster from its meal kits because of the red-listing.

“The lobster on (Blue Apron’s) menu was a limited seasonal box that was no longer available for purchase prior to the report,” the spokesperson said in an email Tuesday. “It was not removed as a response to the red-listing.”

Read the full article at Sun Journal

Lobsters Placed on “Red List,” Angering Maine Fishing Community

September 14, 2022 — American lobster are being pulled from menus after a conservation nonprofit placed them on its ‘Red List’ of unsustainable seafood to avoid.

The organization, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, cited lobster traps as threats to endangered North Atlantic right whales, which can become tangled in the nets.

Through its partnerships with major food companies, including HelloFresh, Whole Foods and The Cheesecake Factory, the nonprofit has the potential to significantly affect demand for lobsters with this listing. Already, both HelloFresh and Blue Apron have pledged to stop selling lobster in their meal kits, writes Patrick Whittle for the Associated Press.

But the Maine lobster industry has swiftly pushed back against the move, saying that Seafood Watch has no evidence of right whale entanglements in the state’s fishing gear. Senator Angus King from Maine called the listing “outrageous and egregiously irresponsible,” at a press conference. “What in the hell are these people thinking?”

Read the full article at Smithsonian Magazine 

Lobstermen, supporters push back hard on Seafood Watch ‘red listing’

September 13, 2022 — The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program is facing harsh criticism and pushback over its new “red list” designation for Northeast lobster, recommending seafood suppliers and consumers avoid lobster.

The influential Seafood Watch rating system has informed retailers and food service  providers since 1999, listing what it considers sustainable, environmentally responsible fisheries – and what species to avoid.

In February 2022 the aquarium signaled it would consider red-listing Northeast lobster, over the danger of entanglement in vertical trap lines for endangered North Atlantic right whales. The Sept. 6 announcement is provoking a furious campaign to reverse the designation.

“Your accusation that Maine lobstermen are to blame for the troubles of North Atlantic right whales is flat out wrong,” Maine elected officials declared in a letter harshly rebuking the aquarium. “Right whales are not dying in Maine lobster gear and the report blindly ignores everything that Maine lobstermen have done to create a sustainable industry. Make no mistake, your designation will have a real world impact – with the industry already facing challenges, the inaccurate designation will hurt the thousands of hardworking lobstermen, their families, and businesses across our state.”

The letter from Maine Gov. Janet Mills, Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins, and Reps. Chellie Pingree and Jared Golden slammed the aquarium’s new report on lobster as “irresponsible conjecture, a baseless smear, and an egregious violation of the scientific principles you claim to stand for. This is among the most irresponsible actions we have ever seen in our years of public service, and we are deeply disappointed that you have allowed this action to – perhaps irreparably – tarnish the name of your previously-respected institution.”

Read the full article at National Fisherman

Federal judge strikes down challenge by Maine, lobstermen to rules aimed at protecting right whales

September 12, 2022 — A federal judge has rejected a bid by lobstermen and the state of Maine to block new rules aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The National Marine Fisheries Service issued new rules last year that described where and how lobstermen can fish in federal waters. The agency has said the new rules are intended to protect the remaining population of right whales, which is estimated at about 340.

The plaintiffs, which included both the Maine and Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Associations, as well as Maine’s Department of Marine Resources and the Maine Lobstering Union, asked a federal judge to block those rules, contending that they overstate the risks caused by their trap lines and create needless economic harm to the lobster industry.

They argue that in drafting those rules, the NMFS committed “scientific errors,” in part, because Maine lobstermen say their gear hasn’t been involved with a right whale entanglement in nearly two decades.

Read the full article at Maine Public

Maine lobstermen, politicians rally in protest of fishing restrictions and boycott

September 12, 2022 — Maine lobstermen and their elected leaders are fighting back over two setbacks this week — one in court and one in the marketplace — that could threaten their livelihood.

At a rally in Portland on Friday, they protested a federal judge’s ruling allowing the National Marine Fisheries Service, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) to impose limits on where and how lobstermen fish in order to protect endangered North Atlantic Right Whales.

Gov. Janet Mills said, “Regulations that are not based on sound science, not proven fact, and will often pose a risk of devastating Maine’s lobster industry! These guys are fed up. I’m fed up. We’re all fed up!”

The rally was also protesting Seafood Watch, a California-based sustainable seafood advocacy group now advising food distributors and restaurants to boycott Maine lobster.

Read the full article at WABI

Judge rules against lobstermen, says federal rules protecting right whales don’t overreach

September 9, 2022 — A US District Court judge in Washington, D.C., handed a victory Thursday to environmental groups and rejected a challenge to federal rules to protect North Atlantic right whales that was brought by New England lobstermen, who argued the requirements go too far and are based on flawed data, court records show.

The ruling prompted sharp reactions from both sides of the issue.

Maine Governor Janet Mills, criticized the judge’s decision as being “so out of touch with reality.”

“The National Marine Fisheries Service has consistently interpreted the data in the most conservative way possible, without accounting for the impact of ship strikes on whales and whale entanglements in Canadian snow crab gear, putting all of the burden for right whale protection squarely on the shoulders of Maine’s lobster fishery,” Mills said in a statement.

“The good news today is that the court upheld the agency’s science,” Davenport said in an interview. “Of course, from the conservation point of view, the science has never really been in dispute. The question has been what’s the agency doing about the science. And our position has been that it’s not going far enough fast enough to meet the conservation crisis that the right whale is in.”

Lobstermen had argued that a report issued last year by the National Marine Fisheries Service that set new goals for reducing deaths of North Atlantic right whales “overstates the risks lobstering poses to the whale and consequently overregulates the industry,” according to court documents.

“Because [federal officials] overstated their industry’s risk to right whales, they contend, the Rule imposes some needless and draconian risk-reduction measures — e.g., restrictions on the number of vertical fishing lines in certain areas, seasonal closures, and the requirement that fishing lines contain weak links that whales can break free from,” Judge James E. Boasberg wrote.

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

Nordic Aquafarms wins one court victory, faces another legal battle in Maine

September 9, 2022 — Nordic Aquafarms, which is seeking to build a land-based Atlantic salmon farm in the U.S. state of Maine, won a court victory on 1 September that ended a challenge to the permitting of its proposed recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) farm.

Waldo County Superior Court Justice Robert Murray ruled in favor of Nordic Aquafarms, quashing a request by nonprofit and project opponent Upstream Watch, to require an official review of the authorizations given to the project.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource