Saving Seafood

First offshore fish farm proposed off New England

April 21, 2023 — The first offshore fish farm off from New England’s coast has been proposed by a New Hampshire group called Blue Water Fisheries in conjunction with Innovasea Systems, Inc.

The farm would be composed of about 40 submersible fish pens that would be moored roughly seven and a half miles off the coast of Newburyport, Mass.

Blue Water Fisheries hopes to grow millions of pounds of salmon and steelhead trout on the farm, as well as lumpfish for a research study. However, the group will have to go through many approvals with NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency before it is a set-in-stone project.

The farm will acquire all-female trout eggs from Trout Lodge and Riverance hatcheries of Rochester, Wash. The eggs are deemed as disease-free and will be hatched in the farm’s freshwater hatchery for up to eight months before being acclimated to saltwater and then be transferred into the offshore SeaStations.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

1st ocean fish farm proposed for East Coast off New England

April 10, 2023 — A New Hampshire group wants to be the first to bring offshore fish farming to the waters off New England by raising salmon and trout in open-ocean pens miles from land, but critics fear the plan could harm the environment.

The vast majority of U.S. aquaculture, the practice of raising and harvesting fish in controlled settings, takes place in coastal waters or on land, in tanks and ponds. But New Hampshire-based Blue Water Fisheries wants to place 40 submersible fish pens in water about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) off Newburyport, Massachusetts, on two sites that total nearly a square mile, according to federal documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

The farm would grow millions of pounds of Atlantic salmon and steelhead trout, two popular seafood species, documents state. The proposal needs a battery of approvals, and would be the first of its kind off the East Coast.

Read the full article at the Associated Press

Expert: New England herring industry to receive $11M

June 2, 2022 — The federal government is giving $11 million to New England herring fishermen following a declared disaster within the industry.

However, some experts claim the situation was avoidable.

Overfishing herring created the situation in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of New England, according to Niaz Dorry, director of the North American Marine Alliance.

In November, the federal government declared a “fishery disaster” allowing assistance in tax dollars to flow into the region, the Gloucester Daily Times in Massachusetts reported. Maine will receive $7 million, Massachusetts over $3.2 million, New Hampshire will receive $600,000, and Rhode Island is set to receive $241,299.

Read the full story at The Center Square

 

Haul of Atlantic cod, once abundant, reaches new low

May 10, 2022 — One of the oldest fishing industries in the U.S. sank to a new low in catch last year, signaling that efforts to rebuild the fishery still have a long way to go.

New England fishermen have caught Atlantic cod for centuries, but the catch has dwindled over the last decade due to overfishing, restrictive fishing quotas, and environmental changes. The vast majority of the fish come to the docks in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Maine fishermen brought fewer cod to the docks last year than any other in recorded history, state regulators said earlier this month. The state’s catch, which was more than 20 million pounds in the early 1990s, was less than 50,000 pounds last year, state records show.

Cod are the fish of choice for fish and chips in the U.S., but the industry’s collapse has left the country dependent on imports from countries such as Iceland. Russia is another major exporter, but the U.S. banned imports of Russian seafood due to the invasion of Ukraine.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at News Center Maine

 

Cultivating Tomorrow’s Fisherman Across New England

May 10, 2022 — The kids who hung around Perkins Cove, Maine, back in the 1960s wanted to be fishermen. By the time we were 10 or 12 years old, the ocean, boats, and fish had cast their spell on us. We knew who Mickey Mantle and Carl Yastrzemski were, but our heroes parked their pickups by the bait wharf and harpooned bluefin tuna from their boats.

We dreamed not so much of hitting home runs but of chugging into the harbor at night and unloading 600-pound giants in front of awestruck tourists peering down from the wharf.

Quite a few of us wound up fishing, at least for a while. And some of us still do.

But times have changed. And as fishing’s fortunes have declined, so, too has the number of aspiring fishermen.

“It has become painfully evident that our area is suffering from the ‘graying of the fleet,’” says Andrea Tomlinson, founder and executive director of the nascent, New Hampshire-based New England Young Fishermen’s Alliance. The Alliance’s mission is to provide aspiring fishermen with a pathway into the fleet. “This is a project I have been trying to develop for over four years.”

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Commercial fishermen in four northeastern states sharing $11M in federal assistance

May 10, 2022 — Commercial fishermen in four northeastern states will share $11million of federal government assistance.

Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo announced Thursday that the herring industry in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island will get financial assistance to recoup losses in the Atlantic herring industry which was declared a “fishery disaster” by the federal government last year.

Herring are a crucial part of the region’s commercial fishing industry because they are used for bait, which has been in short supply in recent years, according to federal regulators.

Maine will be getting the largest chunk of the funding, or nearly $7.2 million, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which says it will work with the Maine Department of Marine Resources to administer these funds.

“The drastic reduction in Atlantic herring quotas has caused significant losses in primary income and threatened job security for many in the herring industry,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who pushed for the federal relief funds. “This financial assistance provided through the designation is crucial to the survival of Maine’s Atlantic herring fishery.”

New Hampshire is getting $600,000 from the allocation, according to the federal agency, which was welcomed by members of the state’s congressional delegation.

Read the full story at The Center Square

New Hampshire to receive $600K in funding for Atlantic herring fishery disaster

May 9, 2022 — More than $600,000 will come to New Hampshire to help those impacted by the 2019 Atlantic herring fishery disaster.

A scientific assessment in 2020 found herring were overfished, leading to a disaster declaration by the federal government.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, said the funding will help combat economic issues caused by the disaster.

Read the full story and watch the video at WMUR 9

 

Gulf of Maine wind task force to meet May 19

April 13, 2022 — The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) will hold a Gulf of Maine Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force meeting on May 19 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern.

The meeting will take place virtually via Zoom. To register for the meeting, please click here.

This task force is an intergovernmental group composed of federal officials and elected tribal, state and local officials from Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The upcoming task force meeting will focus on the following topics:

Read the full story at National Fisherman

 

ASMFC Atlantic Herring Area 1A Days Out Meeting Scheduled for April 26

April 6, 2022 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission:

Atlantic Herring Management Board members from the states of Maine, New Hampshire and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will meet via webinar on April 26, 2022 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. to discuss days out measures for the 2022 Area 1A (inshore Gulf of Maine) fishing season. Days out measures can include specification of the number of consecutive landings days, weekly landings limits, and restrictions on at-sea transfers. The webinar and call information is included below:

Atlantic Herring Days Out Meeting

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

You can join the meeting from your computer, tablet or smartphone at the following link:https://meet.goto.com/763162445. If you are new to GoToMeeting, you can download the app ahead of time (click here) and be ready before the meeting starts. For audio, the meeting will be using the computer voice over internet protocol (VoIP), but if you are joining the webinar from your phone only, you can dial in at +1 (571) 317-3129 and enter access code 763-162-445 when prompted. The webinar will start at 9:45 a.m., 15 minutes early, to troubleshoot audio as necessary.

Federally-permitted Herring Category A vessels must declare into the Area 1A fishery at least 45 days prior to the start of the fishing season. Small-mesh bottom trawl vessels with a federal Herring Category C or D permit must declare into the Area 1A fishery by June 1, 2022. Vessels should check with each state of landing regarding their notification procedures.

The 2022 Area 1A sub-annual catch limit (sub-ACL) is 1,075 metric tons (mt). The initial specification for the 2022 Area 1A sub-ACL of 1,184 mt decreased by 109 mt due to the catch overage in Area 1A in 2020. After adjusting for the 30 mt fixed gear set-aside and the 8% buffer (Area 1A closes at 92% of the sub-ACL), the Area 1A sub-ACL is 961 mt. There is no research-set-aside for 2022.

In October 2021, the Board established the following seasonal allocations for the 2022 Area 1A sub-ACL: 72.8% available from June 1 – September 30 and 27.2% available from October 1 – December 31. Fishermen are prohibited from landing more than 2,000 pounds of Atlantic herring per day harvested from Area 1A until June 1, 2022.

For more information, please contact Emilie Franke, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at 703.842.0716 orefranke@asmfc.org.

A copy of the meeting announcement can be found at http://www.asmfc.org/files/AtlHerring/AtlHerringDaysOutMeetingNotice_April2022.pdf.

 

Fishermen indicted in federal court for alleged fraud, violation of herring laws

February 3, 2022 — Five Maine fishermen  and one fisherman from New Hampshire, along with a corporation, were charged with conspiracy, mail fraud, and obstruction of justice in connection with a multi-year scheme to sell unreported Atlantic herring and falsify fishing records, U.S. Attorney Darcie N. McElwee announced in a news release. An indictment was filed January 27 in U.S. District Court.

Glenn Robbins, 75, of Eliot; Ethan Chase, 44, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Neil Herrick, 46, of Rockland; Andrew Banow, 35, of Rockport; Stephen Little, 56, of Warren; Jason Parent, 49, of Owls Head; and Western Sea, Inc., were named in a 35-count indictment returned Jan. 28.

Robbins is the owner and one of the captains of the Western Sea, a 99-foot purse seiner, and a federally permitted Atlantic fishing herring vessel moored in Rockland, according to the indictment.

Atlantic herring is defined as a small schooling fish that serves as a primary bait for Maine’s lobster industry.

Read the full story at the Penobscot Bay Pilot