Saving Seafood

Great white sharks have returned to New England

July 30, 2020 — Maine saw its first fatal shark attack in the state’s history Monday when a shark killed a 63-year-old New York woman off Bailey Island, Maine, northeast of Portland.

“Based on the information I have from the state of Maine, including photos of tooth fragments, this was definitely caused by a white shark attack,” says Greg Skomal, a leading Atlantic great white shark expert and senior scientist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. Maine officials invited Skomal to consult on the investigation into the attack.

The return of great white sharks to New England over the past two decades is both a conservation success story and an emerging public safety concern. Though it is extremely rare for a shark to attack—much less kill—a human, incidents are on the rise in New England. Since 2012, there have been five attacks in the region, all in Massachusetts. Only two have been fatal: Monday’s, and the death of a boogie boarder off Cape Cod in 2018. Before 2012, the most recent attack occurred in 1936. (Read about how Cape Cod has grappled with becoming a great white shark hotspot.)

It’s not known precisely how many great white sharks are in New England waters, but a tagging program Skomal started in 2009 suggests the number is growing steadily. Data from a five-year population study he launched in 2014 is still being processed, but he tagged a record-breaking 50 white sharks off Cape Cod in 2019.

Read the full story at National Geographic

Great whites attracted by plentiful seal populations in Maine waters

July 29, 2020 — Monday’s fatal shark attack off Harpswell is the result of rebounding great white shark and seal populations along the Maine coast, experts say.

The attack on Julie Dimperio Holowach, 63, was the first fatal shark attack in the state’s history. A diver was attacked off Eastport in 2010, according to the Florida Museum’s International Shark Attack File, but he was not injured and fended off a porbeagle shark with his video camera.

Seal populations have grown since a 1972 law barred killing of marine mammals and white shark numbers have been rebounding for two decades as a result of a rule that said fishermen could no longer kill the fearsome predators, a shark expert based in Massachusetts said.

Gregory Skomal of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries dismissed speculation that warming water temperatures in the Gulf of Maine might be enticing more great whites to the state’s coastline.

He said the sharks always have been frequent visitors to Maine waters, but that growing seal populations might be drawing them closer to the shore. Seals are a favorite food of the great white, he said.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Federal fishing aid may not arrive until late July, August

June 11, 2020 — Eligible Massachusetts commercial fishermen and other seafood businesses could begin receiving funds in late July or early August from the $28 million in federal fishery assistance designated for the Massachusetts seafood industry, according to the state’s top fishery regulator.

But Dan McKiernan, the newly appointed director of the state Division of Marine Fisheries, also joined the growing chorus of public officials and seafood stakeholders who say the funds won’t come close to covering the more than $500 million in losses projected for the state’s four major seafood components: commercial fishing, seafood processing, for-hire charter services and aquaculture.

“That’s the unfortunate aspect,” McKiernan said in an interview with the Gloucester Daily Times. “The losses are so great that they can’t be covered by the $28 million. Commercial fishing lost $28 million in March and April alone. That’s just fishing.”

McKiernan said four separate groups began working this week to develop spending plans for each of the four industry components, along with eligibility requirements and the structure of payment methods and systems.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Local lobstermen face an uncertain season

May 5, 2020 — As Dave Cataldo Sr. loaded lobster traps into his boat with his son Monday at the Marshfield Town Pier, there was one person missing from the dock who in past years always made sure to stop by and say hello at the beginning of the season.

“This is the first year our dealer has not come down,” Cataldo said.

The wholesale lobster buyer normally comes down to the docks around the opening of the season to shake hands with him and his son, Dave Cataldo Jr., to check in and to ask how their winters were. The Cataldos’ buyer isn’t the only one missing.

“There’s nobody down here,” the senior Cataldo said.

Lobsters are normally a sought-after commodity and in past years, wholesalers have swamped the harbor with refrigerated trucks, ready and offering to buy the catch being unloaded at the harbor, he said.

With the economy on pause because of the coronavirus crisis, the future of lobstering, the demand and more importantly, the price per pound, is an unknown.

The younger Cataldo said restaurants, one of the biggest purchasers of lobsters, are mostly shut down and even when they are allowed to reopen, it will be with fewer customers spaced further apart.

Read the full story at The Patriot Ledger

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobster season opens on time after right whales move out of Cape Cod bay

May 1, 2020 — Lobster season for the South Shore will begin as planned after endangered right whales, spotted in Cape Cod Bay, moved out of the area.

The Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies estimated five whales, including two mother-and-calf pairs, were feeding in Cape Cod Bay, following an aerial survey on April 25. On Wednesday, another aerial inspection over the area found the whales had moved out of the bay and adjacent waters, the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries said in an announcement Thursday afternoon.

The Division previously extended the opening of the season to May 8 because the whales were spotted, spokesman Craig Gilvarg said in a statement. North Atlantic right whales are an endangered species and vulnerable to buoy entanglement and getting hit by boats, because they feed near the surface.

“Everybody is anxious to go,” John Haviland, president of the South Shore Lobster Fishermen’s Association, said. “They’ve been standing around for three months, basically in quarantine.”

Read the full story at The Patriot Ledger

Facebook page helps Massachusetts captains sell lobsters direct

April 8, 2020 — A small group of lobster harvesters in the US state of Massachusetts are defying the horrible market conditions created by the coronavirus pandemic by selling direct to consumers at the dock, and using Facebook to promote their efforts.

Two vessels with captains from the town of Mattapoisett — the Miss Molly and the Mary Anne — kicked off the effort on Sunday with a test run by offering their fresh catch, first-come/first-serve, at Union Wharf, in the town of Fairhaven, for $6.00 per pound. All 600 lbs caught by the two vessels were sold out in 90 minutes.

The captains bought a commercial-grade scale and accepted cash and Venmo payments.

The price might’ve been a little below what lobsters were selling for before COVID-19 hit the US, but it was much higher than the $4.35/lb to $4.50/lb paid recently by processors, many of whom have now stopped buying altogether, Troy Durr, a Mattapoisett-based real estate agent and one of the direct-to-consumer event’s organizers, told Undercurrent News.

He said he and his uncle, Doug Durr, a crew member on the Miss Molly, were pushed into action after the Miss Molly’s captain, Dave Magee, was told earlier by a commercial buyer that it could only take 250 of the 500 pounds of lobster it brought in more than a week earlier. (Mike Asci is the captain of the Mary Anne.)

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

MASSACHUSETTS: Local fishermen use social media to sell directly to consumers

April 7, 2020 — With their normal markets shrinking amid the coronavirus outbreak, SouthCoast fishermen are coming up with creative ways to sell their catch directly to consumers.

Troy Durr created the Facebook group “SouthCoast Direct Source Seafood” on March 28, with the goal of connecting local boat captains with local residents who are willing to buy seafood directly from the source, according to a post on the page.

“A lot of the fish houses are not buying from the boats, which left them in a situation to stop working or figure out their own way to sell,” Durr said.

The new way to sell is directly off their boats.

Daniel McKiernan, acting director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, said they have expedited seafood dealer permitting by waving the $65 fee.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard-Times

Federal stimulus not too soon for Massachusetts fish, shellfish industry

March 30, 2020 — Stimulus funds made possible by the signing of the phase three coronavirus bill can’t come fast enough for finfish and shellfish harvesters and dealers in the US state of Massachusetts, the Cape Cod Times reports.

The newspaper on Friday, the day the bill was passed by the House of Representatives by voice vote and signed by president Donald Trump, recounted how multiple seafood sectors were being affected by the virus. COVID-19 has now infected over 143,000 and killed over 2,500 in the US and caused the closing or partial closing of foodservice establishments all over the country.

Industry leaders had informed Daniel McKiernan, acting director of the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF), in a March 20 conference call that 70% of all seafood sold in Massachusetts is consumed in restaurants. Especially hard-hit are “luxury” seafood species, such as lobster, scallops, swordfish and tuna, the newspaper noted.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News