Saving Seafood

Sen. Collins, Rep. Golden Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Help Lobster Industry Afford New Gear

March 9, 2022 — The following was released by the office of Congressman Jared Golden:

U.S. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and Congressman Jared Golden (D-ME) today introduced bipartisan legislation to support lobstermen by creating a grant program to help them comply with federal right whale regulations requiring a change in fishing gear. The Stewarding Atlantic Fisheries Ecosystems by Supporting Economic Assistance and Sustainability (SAFE SEAS) Act of 2022 will help lobstermen and women with the financial burden of this transition by authorizing grant assistance for fiscal years 2022 through 2024 to help cover the costs of compliance. Senator Angus King (I-ME) and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME) have signed on as cosponsors of the bill.

According to an estimate by the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan (ALWTRP) rule will cost Maine lobstermen and women at least $45 million due to the expense of trawling up, acquiring and adding weak points, purchasing specialized rope, lengthening groundlines, marking gear, and hiring additional crew to complete this work.  Notably, there are no known cases of Maine’s lobster industry being responsible for killing a right whale, and there has not been a single right whale entanglement attributed to Maine lobster fisheries in nearly two decades.

 “Maine lobstermen and women have always been good stewards of the environment and have taken numerous actions to protect right whales when the science has warranted it,” said Senator Collins.  “As NOAA moves ahead with this rule despite the Maine delegation’s urging against it, our legislation would help alleviate the financial burden our lobstermen and women face. We must ensure that this heritage industry has the assistance it needs to continue to support coastal families and communities for generations to come.”

Read the full release at the office of Congressman Jared Golden

 

Lawmakers propose grant to help lobster industry navigate whale protections

March 9, 2022 — Lawmakers on Tuesday introduced legislation aimed at establishing a grant program to assist the lobster industry as it upgrades its gear to reduce risk of entanglement with critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.  

The “Stewarding Atlantic Fisheries Ecosystems by Supporting Economic Assistance and Sustainability Act of 2022” was introduced by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) to support the transition, which is expected to cost “tens of millions of dollars each year.” The lawmakers secured $10 million in draft appropriations for fiscal year 2022.  

“This bipartisan bill helps ensure that lobstermen aren’t put out of business and can afford equipment to reduce mortalities of endangered right whales,” Shaheen said in a statement. “I’ll keep working in Congress to support our fishing industry as we enhance protections for endangered species.” 

Read the full story at The Hill

Local right whale advocates say they feel sidelined by the powerful Maine lobster industry

March 9, 2022 — As Maine’s lobstermen fight national conservation groups over federal gear rules and fishery closures intended to protect endangered whales, they have found fierce allies among the state’s political leaders. That’s left some local advocates for the whales feeling sidelined by the powerful industry.

A few weeks ago, lobstermen joined lawmakers to support a bill that would give nearly a million dollars directly to the industry for its legal battles over whale protection measures.

None of Maine’s more well-known conservation groups weighed in, but a handful of local advocates for the planet’s estimated 340 North Atlantic right whales testified against it.

Holly Travers, a Westbrook retiree, was interrupted by Rep. James Thorne of Carmel while testifying that “Maine has the highest concentration of all vertical gear in U.S. waters, and whales travel through Maine waters.”

Travers was directed to focus her comments narrowly on the bill. The third opponent to receive such a caution, she quickly wrapped up her testimony.

Read the full story at Maine Public

 

Harvesters of valuable baby eels hope for a stable 2022

March 9, 2022 — The industry that harvests one of the most valuable fish species in the United States is hoping for a more stable year in 2022 after two years of volatile price swings.

Fishermen in Maine harvest baby eels, called elvers. The elvers are sometimes worth more than $2,000 per pound because they are vitally important for Asian aquaculture companies.

Maine is the only U.S. state with a significant fishery for the eels. Prices have fluctuated wildly since the start of COVID-19 pandemic. They sank to $525 per pound in 2020 and rose to about $1,850 last year.

This year’s season begins March 22 amid another cloud of uncertainty. The season is always dependent on weather conditions and the timing of rivers thawing, because that allows the eels to run and be fished with nets. Unrest in Europe also has the ability to disrupt the international supply chain for seafood, said Darrell Young, co-director of the Maine Elver Fishermen Association.

Read the full story from the Associated Press

 

Out of 2,600 applicants, 13 Mainers get licenses for elver harvesting this season

March 8, 2022 — Spring’s arrival will mean the reappearance of tiny baby eels in Maine’s estuaries — and of intrepid fishermen up before dawn hoping to net allowable quotas for excellent prices.

The baby eels are called “elvers” and they’ve been drifting northward since late winter from the Sargasso Sea, a region of the western Atlantic Ocean, south of Bermuda, where they were born. Their mission is to make it safely to inland waters and grow into adult eels.

At noon on March 22, a short harvest season will open that allows 425 Maine-based fishermen to net small amounts of elvers, most of which will be sold to Far East markets, where elvers are cultured and reared to adult size for the food fish market.

With elvers selling for $1,800 per pound in 2021, licenses are highly coveted, and fishermen hang onto them.

That’s why, when the Maine Department of Marine Resources opened a lottery for 13 licenses that became earlier this year, there were over 2,600 applicants.

Read the full story at Mainebiz

100 lobstermen sign petition to quash proposed salmon farm in Frenchman Bay

March 8, 2022 — A grassroots group opposed to a proposed salmon farm in Frenchman Bay presented Gouldsboro selectmen last week with petitions signed by 100 local fishermen who also are opposed to the project.

Norway-based American Aquafarms proposes to lease two sites between Bar Harbor and Schoodic Peninsula to install 15 “closed pens” plus an operations barge at each site, with the goal of eventually producing 30,000 metric tons, or 66 million pounds, of salmon annually.

“This is going to take away more of our lobster fishing ground,” Jerry Potter of South Gouldsboro said in a news release.

Potter, 75, has fished in Frenchman Bay for his entire working life.

“We’re worried about disease,” he said. “And I’m very concerned it would pollute the bay and destroy the bay’s entire ecosystem.”

Read the full story at Mainebiz

Millinocket wants in on Maine’s aquaculture boom

March 8, 2022 — The U.S. state of Maine has become a hub of land-based aquaculture development, and the town of Millinocket wants in on the action.

Our Katahdin, a local redevelopment group named after the nearby landmark Mount Katahdin, is actively marketing the former Great Northern Paper Co. mill site as an ideal landing spot for a recirculating aquaculture system farm, with Our Katahdin President Sean DeWitt saying the site has many of the attributes European salmon-farming companies are looking for as they seek to expand into the United States.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

Along the Gulf of Maine, lawsuits over North Atlantic right whale regulations coming to boil

March 7, 2022 — Lobsterman Brian Cates lives so far at the edge of Maine he can look out the windows of his house and see Canadian boats out in Canadian waters. It puts the fourth-generation lobsterman living on the eastern-most extreme of the U.S. in a situation unlike many of the lobstermen up and down the New England coast.

Years ago, Cates said that he and other fishermen around Cutler, Maine would go into the woods in the winter when the fishing slowed and cut pulp wood to sell to the local paper mills. But the paper mills went away. And over the last decade or so, more individuals have been turning to lobstering to earn a living, Cates said.

Over the last few years, lobstering has been good for the industry most associated with Maine, an industry that supports communities up and down its coasts. In February, Maine announced that in 2021 lobstermen hauled in 108 million pounds of lobster, netting a record-breaking $724.9 million.

But Cates and other New England lobstermen are worried about how the coming regulations issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service will affect their livelihoods.

The rules are intended to protect the approximately 336 North Atlantic right whales still alive today, once the prey of the historical whaling industry.

Read the full story at Courthouse News Service

 

Maine mulling legal defense fund for lobster industry

March 4, 2022 — A legislative committee in the U.S. state of Maine has reversed itself on the establishment of a bill to provide financial support to Maine’s lobster industry for court battles against federal rules intended to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale, ultimately deciding to unanimously move the bill forward.

Federal rules established by NOAA in 2021 have drawn criticism from the lobster industry, which launched a lawsuit challenging the rules. The new rules include fishing bans in certain areas and gear requirements mandating less-harmful vertical lines.

Read the full story at SeafoodSource

 

MAINE: DMR sets public hearing on whale rule changes

March 3, 2022 — Now that new federal regulations are in place to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales from entanglement with fishing lines, the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) has drafted revisions to state lobster and crab fishing laws to implement the changes.

For Chapter 75, Protected Resources Compliance with Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan, the proposed changes align with gear marking, fishing ropes, weak links in fishing rope, the minimum number of traps per trawl and the seasonal closure of Lobster Management Area 1. For Chapter 25, Lobster and Crab Fishing, proposed changes to Zone B increase the trawl limit from a maximum of three traps per line to five traps from 3 to 12 nautical miles from shore.

A remote public hearing is scheduled for March 15 at 5 p.m. for Chapter 75 and 5:30 p.m. for Chapter 25.

“These changes are routine in nature to implement such a large federal mandate,” Maine Lobstering Union member and Deer Isle lobsterman Virginia Olsen said. “However, we, the MLU, do not feel the goal of a 98 percent reduction is a way the Maine lobster industry can survive moving forward. We feel more real-time science needs to be done and the restrictions put in place to date need to be reviewed for effectiveness before additional restrictions are implemented.”

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American