Saving Seafood

Maine intervenes over lobstering rules to protect whales

January 5, 2022 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources has been granted intervenor status in a federal lawsuit brought over new lobstering restrictions intended to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a new set of rules for the lobster fishery last summer with a goal of reducing the entanglement risk for the remaining 336 North Atlantic right whales.

But Maine’s governor said that it’s misguided to impose restrictions on the state’s signature seafood.

“There’s never been a known right whale mortality associated with the Maine lobster fishery, and there have been zero known right whale entanglements associated with Maine lobster gear in almost two decades,” said Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

Future of Maine’s lobster industry to be decided in federal court

January 5, 2022 — The new year could bring about big changes for Maine’s lobster industry. Two lawsuits are scheduled to be heard in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., involving a federal proposal to protect North Atlantic right whales. The outcome could determine when, where and how lobstermen can fish off the state’s coastline.

“If you take one of the largest-earning industries away from Maine, we’re already in a position where young people continue to move away because there aren’t enough jobs or good paying jobs and if you go ahead and eliminate more of them, you will lose more and more assets in the state,” says Chris Welch, a full-time lobsterman from Kennebunk.

The 10‐year whale protection plan proposed by the National Marine Fisheries Service would close more than 950 square miles of fishing grounds, about 30 miles off Maine’s coast, to traditional lobster fishing.

The proposed regulations also would require lobstermen to make numerous changes to their gear, and to when and where they are allowed to fish based on when right whales are believed to be in the area.

Read the full story at Spectrum News 1

Maine joins lawsuit on right whale regulations

January 4, 2022 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources has joined as an intervenor in the Maine Lobstermen’s Association lawsuit challenging NMFS restrictions on lobster gear to protect North Atlantic right whales.

A Dec. 30 announcement from Maine Gov. Janet Mills’ office said “NMFS acted arbitrarily by failing to rely on the best available scientific information and by failing to account for the positive impact of conservation measures already adopted by the Maine lobster fishery.”

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association lawsuit in Washington, D.C, federal court challenges the NMFS biological opinion on right whales issued in May 2021, the agency’s response to federal court rulings that whale protections so far have failed to meet requirements of endangered species and marine mammal laws.

NMFS has put on new regulations for using lobster traps and their vertical floating lines to buoys that the agency and whale experts see as a serious threat to the survival of the right whale population, estimated at around 360 animals.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

As Maine’s climate changes, scallop farming offers optimism

January 3, 2021 — As rapidly warming oceans continue to drive Maine lobster into more remote waters, some in the state’s fishing industry regard sea scallop farming as the prime candidate to help bring added stability to the industry and offset anticipated revenue losses.

But to fully capitalize on the species, renowned for its delicate texture and taste, the industry must solve a handful of nagging problems. Maine’s scallop fishery has been notoriously unstable over the past few decades, culminating in an outright crash in the mid-2000s from which the commercial fishery still hasn’t fully recovered.

Aside from concerns about overfishing, which Maine regulators have addressed through rotating fishery closures, harvesters also must contend with testing for biotoxins found naturally in scallops, which can add substantially to their cost.

But automation technology and farming techniques borrowed from more mature scallop fisheries as far away as Japan are giving some Maine seafood harvesters cause for optimism. They believe the growth potential for sustainable, farm-raised scallops is nearly limitless in Maine, if they can just figure out the right approach and make it affordable.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Counting Maine lobsters? There’s an app for that

December 28, 2021 — A new digital app that maps lobster fishing activity is expected to help the industry manage interactions with two other users of the ocean — the endangered North Atlantic right whale and the burgeoning offshore wind industry.

Developed by Louisiana technology company Bluefin Data under a contract with the Maine Department of Marine Resources, the app, called VESL, is the result of a required increase in the percentage of lobster harvesters who must submit reports.

The app is being provided for free to commercial fishermen and is meant to simplify required harvest reporting for both state and federally licensed fishermen, according to a news release. The required reporting includes location of fishing activity and pounds landed.

“We decided to develop a new app to make it easier for lobstermen to comply with the new reporting requirement,” the department’s commissioner, Patrick Keliher, said in the release.

Read the full story at Mainebiz

Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association files motion to join fight against federal lobster fishing regulations

December 27, 2021 — Maine lobstermen have a new ally in the fight against federal fishing regulations.

The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association filed a motion to join the Maine Lobstermen’s Association’s lawsuit, challenging the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 10-year right whale protection plan. The plan requires lobstermen to make significant changes to prevent whales from getting tangled in their gear.

The group filed the motion in Washington D.C. District Court, looking to join the lawsuit as a third party.

Massachusetts lobstermen said they want to get involved because they believe federal actions like this could directly impact their livelihoods.

The court still needs to approve the motion.

Some, including Maine’s lobster unions, have claimed the closure by NOAA falls during the peak fishing season.

According to data from the Maine Department of Marine Resources, lobstermen statewide hauled most consistently from July to October last year. They brought in a whopping 20 million pounds in October at peak, before numbers steadily fell back down through January.

Read the full story and watch the video at News Center Maine

 

4 years later, the 4 large fish farms planned for Maine haven’t started construction

December 27, 2021 — This year will be remembered in Maine, at least in part, as when interest in developing four large-scale fish farms on the state’s eastern coastline continued to intensify.

It also will be remembered by some as yet another year during which — nearly four years since plans for the first proposal were announced — none of the four separate projects began construction.

The projects are at various stages of the permitting process, with some being fully approved and others not yet having any permits. All have shied away from announcing specific timetables for when they hope to start to build.

Nordic Aquafarms

The biggest of the four proposals, and the first to be announced, is a $500 million land-based salmon farm near the Little River in Belfast. Nordic Aquafarms plans to produce more than 72 million pounds of salmon per year at the site.

The project received its final outstanding permit this summer, with local, state and federal authorities all giving the green light to move forward with construction.

But Nordic Aquafarms also has encountered fierce opposition, with critics fighting the company in court with a civil suit over the ownership of a strip of intertidal land that is instrumental to the project. This summer, the city of Belfast got involved by pursuing eminent domain in order to get the company an easement to cross the intertidal zone with its intake and outfall pipes to get to Penobscot Bay.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

MAINE: Whale rules, pending lawsuits focus of gloomy Advisory Council meeting

December 23, 2021 — A complicated and potentially grim future is predicted for the commercial lobster industry, with environmental groups, gear changes, the closure of offshore waters to lobster fishing and judicial rulings painting a “doom and gloom” picture, in the words of Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner Patrick Keliher. 

“I think there’s going to be a lot of moving pieces,” Keliher told Lobster Advisory Council members and others in virtual attendance at the council’s Dec. 15 meeting.  

Some of those pieces could spell the end of the commercial lobster fishery in Maine, DMR Deputy Commissioner Meredith Mendelson said, as she ran through the current lawsuits aimed at preserving the North Atlantic right whale. If any or all prevail, the lobster fishery will bear the brunt of the results. 

These days, lobstering is all about the right whale population, of which an estimated 336 whales – the lowest number in nearly 20 years – swam in the Atlantic Ocean in 2020. Right whales were listed as an endangered species in 1970 and became protected when the Endangered Species Act of 1973 was later passed. 

Read the full story at the Mount Desert Islander

Maine’s shrimp fishery will stay closed, but regulators warm to idea of limited harvest

December 20, 2021 — Maine’s northern shrimp fishery has been closed for seven years and regulators decided Friday to continue the harvest moratorium for another three years with no signs of rebound.

But in a change, officials with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission entertained the idea of opening a small personal-use fishery at the suggestion of the Maine Department of Marine Resources and planned to look into it in the future.

A moratorium was enacted after the northern shrimp stock collapsed in 2013 and has been in place ever since. It is unclear what caused the shrimp’s downturn but recent research suggests that a species of squid that rode into the Gulf of Maine on a historic 2012 heatwave may have played a significant role.

Maine is the southernmost range of the shrimp and the gulf’s warming waters are also suspected to be part of the reason the cold-loving shrimp have struggled to bounce back, even with no commercial fishing for nearly a decade.

Read the full story at The Bangor Daily News

Maine Voices: We need more awareness of mental health stresses on Maine’s fishermen

December 20, 2021 — Farmers and fishermen both rely on the weather to determine their schedules. One prays for rain, the other for clear skies and calm seas. Both wake up before the rooster crows and go to bed thinking about another full day of work ahead. They have similar concerns: regulations, development, finances, labor and their families.

Other parallels that can be drawn include the generational nature of the work; intrinsic family and community culture, and legacies of land, boats or buoys. Both industries are grappling with climate change: Farmers are stewards of the land; fishermen are stewards of the sea.

Farming and fishing are two industries that are historically comprised of men, and in the past decade, the median age of both has increased (around 57). While there has been increasing attention on the mental health impacts and suicide risk factors for farmers, little research is focused on the specific mental health challenges of fishermen. Because of the similarities in work factors and demographics, research on the suicide risk for farmers may inform risks for fishermen.

Read the full opinion piece at The Portland Press Herald