Saving Seafood

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

MAINE: Maine’s fisheries and agricultural expanded delegation returns to Cuba

October 25, 2022 — Representatives of Maine’s fisheries, apples, seed potatoes and vegetable seeds traveled to explore export opportunities in Cuba last May and an expanded delegation returned this October.

After a first visit in May, to develop a pipeline of Maine agricultural products for export to Cuba, representatives of Maine’s fisheries, apples, sustainable farming and vegetable seeds returned to Cuba, to met with buyers and top officials from Cuba’s Ministry of Agriculture (MINAG) on  Oct. 12, 2022.

The agricultural mission, the second of a two-phase delegation effort, is led by long-time facilitator, Doyle Marchant, President of Cedar Spring Agricultural Co. LLC, who organized the meeting following the direct invitation of the Cuba Ministry of Agriculture (MINAG).

Back in May Marchant told National Fisherman that “the expanded delegation in October will include representatives in the forest products and livestock medical products industries. At this time, Maine fisheries are well represented for the October delegation.”  Representing the fisheries was Robert Odlin, owner of Odlin Family Seaföod, a family that has fished from the Portland waterfront for three generations.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Lobstermen may get temporary delay on new right whale restrictions

October 25, 2022 — Maine lobstermen may get a temporary break on new rules aimed to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales. But it will be up to a federal judge in Washington, D.C. to decide.

The lobster industry, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) are involved in federal court negotiations over imposing new and tougher restrictions on fishing.

Read the full article at News Center Maine

MAINE: NOAA Sea Grant announces $2.1M to support Maine aquaculture

October 25, 2022 — Four projects that advance research into aquaculture, including sustainable aquaculture, in Maine will receive $2.1 million from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Sea Grant, the agency announced in a press release. The projects are part of a larger $14 million NOAA Sea Grant investment to strengthen aquaculture across the United States.  

Investigators from the University of Maine Aquaculture Research Institute, Maine Aquaculture Innovation Center, UMaine Center for Cooperative Aquaculture Research and Maine Sea Grant will lead projects to develop feed for finfish, improve Atlantic sea scallop hatchery techniques, diversify lumpfish broodstock and advance the work of the Maine Aquaculture Hub.  

The finfish feed project at UMaine Aquaculture Research Institute will focus on food for farm-raised finfish larvae, which require microscopic feeds that are challenging to produce as zooplankton, which the larvae eat in the wild, is not economically feasible in finfish farms. So researchers will work with industry partners to produce and refine microparticulate larval feeds and evaluate the effects of diets on the growth and survival of California yellowtail and yellowtail amberjack. 

“We are trying to get away from living organisms as feeds and move toward formulated diets, as we do in other fields of agriculture, Matt Hawkyard, of UMaine Aquaculture Research Institute, said. “This project will allow us to develop feeding technologies that are practical and adaptable to industry use.” 

Read the full article at Mount Desert Islander

Commentary: For Seafood Watch, facts apparently don’t matter

October 22, 2022 — Maine’s lobster industry is renowned for harvesting the sweetest, most tender lobster meat in the world. Our rocky coastline, craggy ocean bottoms and water that is neither too warm nor too cold set us up perfectly for the Homarus americanus, or American lobster, species we harvest. They are the most sought after in the world, and even inspired the name of a restaurant chain.

Maine’s iconic crustacean is not only a billion-dollar industry, but also a part of our state’s ethos and heritage. We’ve been fishing for these “bugs” since the 1800s, and the industry was one of the first to self-regulate when fishermen adopted a rule 150 years ago to protect the fishery by returning egg-bearing females. Size and other limitations have been put in place since to ensure the population’s sustainability.

Lobstering can be a hazardous profession, too. The typical season for most of Maine’s lobstermen is June to October when lobsters are closer to shore in their preferred habitat of up to 164 feet of water. When the water gets cold, however, they can move as far as 30 miles offshore where conditions are more challenging and dangerous for fishermen.

Read the full article at the Ellsworth American

Court agrees to fast-track Maine lobstering group’s appeal of whale rules

October 22, 2022 — A federal appeals court has agreed to expedite the Maine Lobstermen’s Association’s appeal of a National Marine Fisheries Service decision aimed at protecting endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled on Tuesday that all briefs from both sides must be submitted no later than Jan. 10. Once that step has been completed, oral arguments will be scheduled. The court gave no indication of when that might occur.

Read the full article at the Press Herald

Floating wind farms are planned for the Gulf of Maine to tap huge amounts of potential wind power far off shore

October 17, 2022 — It seems like an insurmountable engineering feat: Tow concrete hulls weighing 12,000 tons far offshore, erect towers atop them that rise hundreds of feet above the ocean with rotor blades the span of a football field, and somehow get them to produce significant amounts of wind energy despite the violent seas and notorious weather of the North Atlantic Ocean.

All that without embedding the colossal structures into the seafloor, because unlike traditional offshore wind turbines, these will float.

And that’s exactly what Habib Dagher intends to pull off in the Gulf of Maine, with the first of these monumental structures planned for a location a few miles off the coast of Monhegan Island in 2025.

Read the full article at the Boston Globe

MAINE: In Portland rally, lobstermen urge state to sue feds over regulations

October 13, 2022 — More than 350 lobstermen, their families and supporters rallied on the Portland waterfront Wednesday afternoon, calling for the state to sue federal regulators and stop proposed rules the fishermen say will decimate their industry.

One politician who attended the event, Republican U.S. House candidate Ed Thelander, went so far as to say working with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is like negotiating with a rapist.

Those who went to DiMillo’s on the Water restaurant were encouraged to visit a website, donttreadonmainelobster.com, to send a message to Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey, urging him to launch a lawsuit that would challenge the requirements. The mandates, intended to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale, would include restrictions on where lobstermen can place their traps and the need to use new equipment that breaks away if a whale is entangled in the gear.

Read the full article at the Press Herald

MAINE: Lobstermen to state: ‘Step up’ and sue feds over gear, fishing restrictions

October 13, 2022 — Stonington lobsterman Dwight Staples’ 37-foot lobster boat provides the essentials for 10 people.

His wife, his three children and his stern man’s wife and their three children all rely on Staples to put food on the table and pay the bills. But he fears new federal regulations will put an end to his livelihood and the paychecks of thousands of other Mainers who rely on lobster to make a living.

“This year has been different for me and maybe it has for you as well,” he told a large crowd in Portland Wednesday. “This year it seems so much I have to get up and fight to go to work. With all these restrictions, regulations coming down the pike, it seems as though we’ve had to get up and fight each and every day.”

Staples addressed hundreds at a rally organized by the Maine Lobstering Union to oppose federal regulations on lobster gear and restrictions on fishing areas designed to protect endangered right whales.

Union Director Virginia Olsen and others who are fighting the new federal regulations called on Attorney General Aaron Frey Wednesday to file suit against the federal government, rather than serve as an intervenor.

“We need the state to step up and say what’s happening is wrong,” Olsen said.

In response, Frey released a statement outlining efforts the state has taken since at least 2014 to push back on federal regulations.

Read the full article at Spectrum News