Saving Seafood

MAINE: How Maine’s logging industry could boost fish farms

November 8, 2022 — With several fish farms planned to open in Maine over the next few years, new research shows an unlikely union between the seafood and logging industries could help the environment and both of their bottom lines.

A study from earlier this year has raised the idea of using byproducts from Maine’s sawmills to grow yeast for fish food on fish farms. Gina Scott, an at-sea fishing monitor who conducted the study at the University of New England, found the strategy could save fish farmers money, cut back on fishmeal’s environmental impact and provide a new market for wood waste after the downturn of Maine’s paper mills.

One of the main ways fish farms feed their fish is fishmeal, a food that is often made with herring or menhaden. But the cost of the fish food has tripled in the past 20 years, sending farmers in search of other potential foods. It’s also in low supply and uses a high amount of the important forage fish to make it.

At the same time, the closure of several paper mills has cut down the market for forestry byproducts such as sawdust and woodchips.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News

Maine lobstering group backs new speed limit on ships to protect whales

November 7, 2022 — As it seeks sweeping restrictions on lobstering in order to protect North Atlantic right whales, the federal government also wants to slow down more boats in hopes of reducing collisions with the endangered marine mammals.

A proposal to expand speed limits along the East Coast might have little impact on vessels off Maine, and is not directly linked to two lawsuits over pending federal regulations for the state’s lobster fishery.

Still, the groups involved in that litigation recently weighed in on the speeding proposal, which is part of broader efforts to save right whales from extinction.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association and four conservation groups supported the stricter limits, but took issue with other aspects of the rules and reiterated the priorities that have driven their court battles.

The current rule says vessels 65 feet or longer have to slow down to 10 knots or less in certain areas at certain times. Earlier this year, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration proposed the new rule that would greatly expand those areas and also apply the speed limit to vessels as small as 35 feet in length.

The speed zones stretch from Massachusetts to Florida. Boats off the coast of Maine would only be required to follow the limit temporarily if right whales are spotted by survey planes or detected by auditory buoys.

Read the full article at the Press Herald

MAINE: Maine organizations help fishermen start aquaculture farms

November 7, 2022 — According to the Maine Aquaculture Association, the state’s aquaculture has enjoyed responsible growth over the last 20 years at an average rate of 2 percent, but less than 1 percent of Maine’s coastal waters are used for aquaculture. A group of organizations in Maine has opened registration for a training program designed for fishermen to learn how to farm seafood.  

Hosted by Coastal Enterprises Inc., Maine Aquaculture Association, Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center and Maine Sea Grant, the Aquaculture in Shared Waters program focuses on the cultivation of commercially valuable species including oysters, mussels, scallops and kelp. Students learn from leading industry, regulatory and scientific experts on topics like site selection, permitting, animal husbandry, equipment, business planning, financing, marketing and community relations.  

“For the past 10 years, the Aquaculture in Shared Waters course has served as a vital tool to help fishermen learn to farm the sea, diversify their income and pioneer a new industry on Maine’s working waterfront,” said Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association.  

Since the program began in 2013, over 400 students have completed the course, 30 new aquaculture businesses have been established and 60 businesses have been expanded or retained through economic diversification. 

“Having fished in Penobscot Bay and southeast Alaska for many years, this training course was a great fit for me, and I’m now in the early stages of starting a scallop farm,” said Michael Scott from Isle au Haut.  

The Shared Waters program received national recognition in 2020 as the recipient of the Superior Outreach Programming Award from the National Sea Grant Program. 

The 2023 course will begin on Jan. 3 on Tuesday evenings from 6-8 p.m. each week for 14 sessions, concluding in early April with optional field trip opportunities in the spring. It will be offered in person at the University of Maine Hutchinson Center in Belfast, with a virtual option available. It’s free of charge and applications are open to all based in Maine. Applications will be accepted at www.aquacultureinsharedwaters.org until Dec.1. 

The 2023 course is made possible with funding from the Consolidated Appropriations Act, administered through the Maine Department of Marine Resources.  

Read the full article at Mount Desert Islander

MAINE: Maine organizations are helping fishermen start aquaculture farms

November 3, 2022 — A group of organizations in Maine on Nov. 1 opened registration for a training program designed for fishermen to learn how to farm seafood. Maine’s vibrant working waterfront, including aquaculture, builds resilience for generations of Maine’s fishing families, who have long navigated the waters to feed our community. Hosted by Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI), Maine Aquaculture Association (MAA), Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center (MAIC), and Maine Sea Grant (MSG), the Aquaculture in Shared Waters (ASW) program focuses on the cultivation of commercially valuable species including oysters, mussels, scallops, and kelp. Students learn from leading industry, regulatory, and scientific experts on fundamental topics like site selection, permitting, animal husbandry, equipment, business planning, financing, marketing, community relations, and more.

“For the past ten years, the Aquaculture in Shared Waters course has served as a vital tool to help fishermen learn to farm the sea, diversify their income, and pioneer a new industry on Maine’s working waterfront,” said Sebastian Belle, executive director of the Maine Aquaculture Association. Since the program began in 2013, over 400 students have completed the course and 30 new aquaculture businesses have been established. and 60 have been expanded or retained through economic diversification.

Read the full article at Pen Bay Pilot

MAINE: Lobsters v. Whales: Is the future hopeless or ropeless?

November 2, 2022 — If you’re looking for a resolution to an escalating clash between advocates for right whales and the Maine lobstering industry, your best bet these days could be something called the Ropeless Consortium.

The one-day event, held Oct. 24 at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts, seems like one of few arenas these days where fishermen, scientists, regulators, environmentalists and business representatives can get together and find common ground.

“What everyone is trying to do,” says Michael Moore, a marine veterinarian at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a major proponent of ropeless fishing gear, “is to enable the lobster fishery to survive and the right whale to survive. We have to allow both to prosper.”

At the Ropeless Consortium, those in the industry discussed ropeless gear, an innovative new lobster fishing system that uses acoustic signals to activate a trap on the bottom of the ocean. At the signal, a buoy inflates and carries a line stored on the bottom up to the surface so the lobsterman can haul their trap.

The new ropeless technology has some in the industry optimistic because it would drastically lessen the odds that it would become entangled with right whales. That’s a start, because everywhere else – like the courts, the waterfront, the research labs and the political sphere — has seen the issue get pretty hopeless.

Lobster fishing and right whales have been coming into increasing conflict in recent years, both in the waters of the North Atlantic and in federal courts of law. Most Maine citizens probably would like to support both the Maine lobster industry and the North Atlantic right whale, but the lobster-whale wars have tended to force people to take sides – lobstermen and politicians on one side, scientists, regulators, conservationists and the courts on the other.

“I would completely agree” that all parties have to allow both species to prosper, says Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. McCarron said there “could be a place” for ropeless technology in certain areas, but doesn’t see lobstermen using it everywhere without a federal mandate requiring them to.

“Maine fishermen really do care deeply about the right whale. They are working hard to do the right thing, but they are worried our fishery will be regulated out of existence.”

Read the full article at the Portland Phoniex

MLA motion to expedite appeal granted

October 31, 2022 — On October 18, a federal appeals court sided with the Maine Lobstermen’s Association in granting the MLA’s request to expedite consideration of its appeal of the decision in Maine Lobstermen’s Association v. National Marine Fisheries Service. The Court rarely grants motions to expedite, according to a press release.

On October 11, the MLA announced that it has retained former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement and had filed for expedited consideration of MLA’s appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in its lawsuit to reverse a scientifically-flawed federal whale plan that will cripple Maine’s lobster industry.

In granting the motion for expedited appeal, the court laid out a timeline that requires all briefs to be submitted by January 10, 2023.

Read the full article at Penobscot Bay Press

MAINE: Lobster union looks to White House for help

October 31, 2022 — A local Maine Lobstering Union member expects to meet personally with President Joe Biden to ask him to prevent the destruction of Maine’s lobster industry.

Ginny Olsen, MLU’s political liaison, said she will ask President Biden to prevent federal agencies from imposing draconian whale-protection rules. The White House meeting hasn’t been scheduled yet, she said, but she is meeting virtually with representatives from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on October 27.

“I’m throwing any Hail Mary I can think of,” Olsen said in a phone interview.

Getting the president’s attention

Olsen sent a letter last month to Biden saying NOAA is denying climate-change science that shows right whales moved out of the Gulf of Maine.

She further pointed out Biden has ordered federal agencies to review regulations issued during the Trump presidency to make sure they are in line with the science. In Executive Order 13990, Biden directed agencies to address those rules that don’t comply with his administration’s policies—which include listening to climate-change science and creating good-paying union jobs. NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries Service have ignored that order, Olsen wrote.

She said she was hoping to appease both environmentalists and lobster fishermen with that argument.

After the letter was sent, she said, “We were contacted for further information, which we provided.”

Something else may have gotten the White House’s attention—a letter and press release from Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat, calling out Biden for reneging on his campaign promise to save Maine’s lobster fishery.

“You cannot espouse being a president for working people while simultaneously overseeing the destruction of an entire blue-collar fishery and its community’s heritage and way of life,” wrote Golden in a letter dated October 5. He asked for a meeting with Maine’s congressional delegation and lobster industry representatives.

Read the full article at Penobscot Bay Press

MAINE: An uncertain future is spurring some Maine lobstermen to sell their boats

October 28, 2022 — Jake Smith has been lobstering in Maine since he was 11. Fishing the waters off Blue Hill, he’s run his own boat since 2011 and rebuilt it twice.

But now, Smith, who lives in Surry and turns 31 in December, is fishing for something else: someone to buy the vessel off him.

Facing the prospect of stricter regulations that many fear could choke the state’s largest fishery — plus high fuel costs and bottom of the barrel lobster prices this season — Smith is one of a growing number of Maine lobstermen who are wondering if now is the time to get out of the business.

“It’s pretty grim times,” he said after listing his 34-foot lobster boat on Facebook Marketplace earlier this month. “I hate to give up on it, but I can’t make the money that I used to.”

Many lobstermen are pondering if it’s better to stay the course or if they should sell now while the fishery is still robust and there’s a market for boats, said Virginia Olsen, a leader in the Maine Lobstering Union and a fisherman out of Stonington.

Read the full article at Bangor Daily News