Saving Seafood

Lobster fishermen can sue environmental group for defamation, judge says

March 3, 2025 — A group of lobster fishermen can sue one of the world’s largest seafood watchdog groups for defamation, a federal court has ruled, over a report that described Maine lobster as an unwise choice for consumers.

The threat to a rare whale species from getting tangled in fishing gear has prompted Monterey Bay Aquarium in California to caution against eating a variety of lobster that New England fishermen have harvested for centuries.

Seafood Watch, a conservation program operated by the aquarium, placed lobster from the U.S. and Canada on its do-not-eat “red list” in 2022. Some retailers pulled lobster from stores after the recommendation.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Pacific bluefin tuna is yellow rated for the first time in the 25-year history of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program

October 8, 2024 — The following was released by the Monterey Bay Aquarium:

With a new assessment showing Pacific bluefin tuna rebounding, Pacific nations can build on progress with a long-term management plan

For the first time in the 25-year history of the program, Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch today released new assessments for Pacific bluefin tuna fisheries in the Eastern Pacific region and assigned a yellow (good alternative) rating to Pacific bluefin tuna caught by fisheries in California and Mexico using FAD-free purse seines, and the U.S. pole-and-line fishery.

Like all bluefin tuna, these fisheries were previously rated red (avoid) due to overfishing across the Pacific. The assessment did not include an update to Mexico’s ranching operations, which are still rated red.

Read the full article at The Associated Press

Massachusetts lobstermen drop lawsuit against California aquarium that told people to stop eating lobster

January 10, 2023 — The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association has ended its fight against a California aquarium that says people shouldn’t buy and eat lobster because of the risks the fishery poses on the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

A federal judge in the Northern District of California on Monday dismissed a class action lawsuit that four Bay State lobstermen filed last March against the Monterey Bay Aquarium after the two sides agreed to end the months-long dispute with prejudice.

Monterey Bay in September 2022 gave the American lobster a “red rating” on its Seafood Watch, recommending consumers to avoid the species caught by trap from the Gulf of Maine, Southern New England and Georges Bank stocks.

The action prompted the four lobstermen to file the suit months later, seeking $75,000 in damages for disparagement of their aquaculture product and interference with their proprietary rights.

“After lengthy discussions among the named individuals in the suit, they agreed to dismiss the Class Action Suit as a win in the California court is highly unlikely and extremely costly,” the MLA said in a statement to the Herald on Tuesday. “The laws in California would ultimately hold these individuals financially responsible for the defendant’s legal fees should they prevail.”

The aquarium had asserted that trapping lobsters had contributed to the depletion of the population of Northern Atlantic right whales, an endangered species at high risk of extinction. There are fewer than 340 such whales today, and the aquarium says entanglement in fishing gear is the leading cause of injury and death.

Read the full article at the Boston Herald

Responsible Seafood Summit Panel Talks About Issues With Certifications

October 3, 2023 — The topic of certifications came up on stage at the Global Seafood Alliance’s Responsible Seafood Summit in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.

Moderator James Wright, editor of the Responsible Seafood Advocate, was joined on stage by Megan Sorby who recently left Kingfish Maine to launch a new RAS project, Brice Phillips of Phillips Foods and chair of the National Fisheries Institute’s Crab Council, and Curtis Brown of Ready Seafood, for a panel called “Not All Sustainable Seafood Stories Are Simple.” All three individuals brought up some recent challenges that their companies have faced and the importance of outreach in order to educate and connect with both the buyers and consumers. For Kingfish Maine that’s the ongoing court-based issues for the Jonesport aquaculture facility. For Ready Seafood, Brown has been very vocal in Maine lobster’s fight against the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch’s red listing and the subsequent MSC suspension. And for Phillips, it’s been the education on Fishery Improvement Projects (FIP).

“There is a role in the market for [certifications],” explained Brown. “It’s on us as producers and suppliers to make those connections with our customers.”

Read the the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Defamation suit marks shift in fight over lobstering

April 3, 2023 — A University of Maine Law School professor says it’s unlikely a judge or jury will actually settle the science around lobstering’s impact on North Atlantic right whale mortality in a recently filed defamation lawsuit against Seafood Watch and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation.

Instead, Dmitry Bam explained, the case—if it ever reaches trial—will probably turn on whether the aquarium’s seafood sustainability program was negligent or reckless about the evidence it actually used to claim that scientific data demonstrate that lobstering harms the endangered whale species.

Last fall, Seafood Watch put American lobsters on its red list of foods to avoid because it “is caught or farmed in ways that have a high risk of causing harm to wildlife or the environment.” Among the findings in a summary of its decision-making, the organization noted that nearly nine out of every 10 right whales bears scars from entanglement with fishing gear. Furthermore, “90% of entanglements cannot be linked to a specific gear type, and only 12% of entanglements can be linked to a specific location.”

It concluded that, given recent declines in an already low right whale population, lobstering in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank poses an unacceptable risk to the species.

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association fired back in its March 13 lawsuit that the aquarium’s claims “are in fact not supported by science, and that the aquarium’s false statements have caused substantial economic harm to plaintiffs, as well as to the Maine lobster brand and to Maine’s long-standing reputation for a pristine coastal environment protected by a multi-generational tradition of preserving resources for the future.”

Read the full article at Penobscot Bay Pilot

MASSACHUSETTS: State official criticizes lobster red-listing as ‘counterproductive’

January 4, 2022 — Months after Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, a sustainable seafood advisory list, red-listed American lobster fisheries in the U.S. and Canada due to the risks they pose to the endangered North Atlantic right whales, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) director Dan McKiernan struck back by calling the decision “counterproductive.” The Times reached out to McKiernan in September but he did not provide comments after initial email correspondence.

Seafood Watch advises consumers on what seafood should be avoided or purchased based on whether procurement practices posed a risk to endangered marine life. For right whales, a species with an estimated 340 individuals left and fewer than 100 breeding females, a concern related to fishing includes entanglements from ropes.

However, McKiernan wrote that advising consumers not to buy lobsters, crabs, and fish caught with buoyed fixed fishing gears is “a colossal mistake.”

Read the full article at MV Times

MAINE: The Maine lobster issue demonstrates just how tricky sustainability is

October 7, 2022 — Maine lobsters may not be as sustainable as we think.

In September, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program downgraded the American lobster to its red list. The designation advises consumers to avoid eating them as “they’re caught or farmed in ways that harm other marine life or the environment.” The organization monitors the environmental impact of wild-caught and farmed seafood commonly found in US stores (pdf).

The organization says that the fishery poses a risk (pdf) to endangered North Atlantic right whales, with concerns that entanglement in fishing gear is the leading cause of serious injury and death to these marine mammals. The group recommends avoiding lobster caught by traps from the Gulf of Maine and other areas of New England and Canada.

American lobsters—also known as Maine lobsters—have a history of being sustainably harvested to help maintain a healthy lobster population. The bulk of lobsters are caught between June and December. Maine has established trap limits, size limits, and, to protect pregnant lobsters, if lobstermen or women find a lobster with eggs, they are expected to cut a V shape into one the tail before returning it to the ocean to let others know not to harvest it.

But lobster harvesting affects the right whale population, illustrating how sustainability is about more than just the depletion of a given species, but also about the entire ecosystem. “Sustainability has a bunch of different ways to look at it… The lobsters themselves are doing fairly well,” said Gib Brogan, the fisheries campaign manager at Oceana, a nonprofit ocean conservation organization. “The other side of sustainability is looking at the effect of the fishery on the oceans.”

Read the full article at Quartz

Congressman wants to halt aquarium money after lobster spat

October 7, 2022 — A congressman from Maine said Wednesday he will file a proposal to withhold federal money from a California aquarium and conservation group that has recommended seafood consumers avoid buying lobster.

The move from Democratic Rep. Jared Golden came a week after a spat with Republican former Rep. Bruce Poliquin about support for Maine’s lobster industry. Golden, Poliquin and independent candidate Tiffany Bond are running to represent Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, which is home to many lobster fishermen.

Poliquin called on Golden to return a donation of $667 from Julie Packard, the executive director of Monterey Bay Aquarium. The aquarium runs Seafood Watch, a conservation group that makes sustainability recommendations for seafood consumers. The group put lobster from the U.S. and Canada on its “red list” of seafood to avoid last month due to the threat posed to rare whales by entanglement in fishing gear.

Golden said Wednesday that he is presenting a bill to withhold any future federal funding from the aquarium and its programs. The aquarium has received more than $190 million in federal money since 2001, he said.

“This organization’s red list designation of American lobster could have a serious impact on the livelihoods of thousands of hard-working lobstermen, and I believe Congress must do something about it,” Golden said.

Read the full article at the Washington Post

MAINE: Maine’s congressional delegation introduces bill to strip Monterey Bay Aquarium of federal funding

October 7, 2022 — Two U.S. representatives of the state of Maine – U.S. Senator Angus King and U.S. Representative Jared Golden – have introduced a bill that would pull federal funding from the Monterey Bay Aquarium in response to its decision to red list Maine lobster.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch released a new set of updates in September 2022 that criticized the North American lobster fishery by placing it in the “avoid” category – largely due to the potential danger its lines pose to the approximately 300 remaining North Atlantic right whales left on earth.

Read the full article SeafoodSource

Diversifying the catch seen as more important than ever for Maine’s fishery

February 23, 2022 — While lobster dominates Maine’s seafood economy, threats to the industry suggest that improving the diversity of the state’s seafood production is an important solution to consider.

The lobster catch in Maine broke a record last year at $725 million, up more than $312 million from 2020. But concerns about the future of the industry are looming with new regulations that have been imposed to protect right whales.

More concern surfaced when the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program, based in California, said it is considering adding the North American lobster to its “red list,” which means Maine’s lobster fishery would lose its sustainability label.

The preliminary report on the American lobster, which questions the impact lobster traps have on right whales in the Gulf of Maine, remains under consideration and is open to public comment through the end of March.

Maine’s lobster fishery is currently rated “yellow,” meaning it’s OK to buy, but consumers should be aware of “concerns” regarding how the product is caught or managed.

Read the full story at the Portland Phoenix