Saving Seafood

Lobstermen seek help in protecting right whales

August 22, 2019 — Commercial lobstermen urged federal regulators Wednesday to take Canada to task for its failure to protect North Atlantic right whales and to remember that local lobstermen carry a heavier burden of regulation than others in U.S. waters.

“We as lobstermen do not want to see harm come to the right whale,” Plymouth lobsterman Tom O’Reilly said at a public forum at Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School, the eighth in a series of meetings held this month on revisions to the plan to reduce the risk to whales posed by fishing gear. “We have done so much as an industry to try to prevent this.”

The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association believes Canada can do more, as can other coastal areas in the Northeast. “We’re still at the table today,” said Beth Casoni, the association’s executive director, despite what the fishermen see as a heavier regulatory burden.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

NOAA Fisheries Seeks Comments on a Control Date for the American Lobster Fishery

August 22, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

NOAA Fisheries is seeking comments on a control date (a date that may be used to establish eligibility) of April 29, 2019 for the American lobster fishery, as we consider ways to reduce threats of entanglement by fixed-gear fisheries to North Atlantic right whales.

In April 2019, NOAA Fisheries convened the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team (TRT) to discuss management measures to reduce the risk of serious injury and entanglement of endangered whales in fishing gear. At the meeting, the New England states and the offshore lobster industry committed to reducing the risk of serious injury and mortality from lobster gear to the North Atlantic right whale by 60 percent in all lobster management areas. The specific measures to achieve this goal are not yet finalized, but will focus on reducing the number, and lowering the breaking strength of, vertical lines used in the lobster trap fishery.

Following the TRT meeting the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s  Lobster Management Board established a control date of April 29, 2019, and recommended that NOAA Fisheries do the same for federal waters.

Read the full release here

Lobstermen invited to weigh in on whale protection plan

August 19, 2019 — The eight-community traveling road show to gather public comment on new protections for the imperiled North Atlantic right whales hits Gloucester on Tuesday evening and is expected to draw a big crowd at NOAA’s Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office in the Blackburn Industrial Park.

The Gloucester session, set to run from 6 to 9 p.m. at the GARFO headquarters at 55 Great Republic Drive, is the seventh of the eight scoping meetings and the first of two in Massachusetts. The other is scheduled for the next night in Bourne.

The sessions organized by NOAA Fisheries are in advance of a draft environmental impact statement for modifications to the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan. They will provide a forum for stakeholders and others to comment on new protections proposed by the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team. Those include lobster gear modifications and a reduction of the number of vertical endlines to reduce whale casualties and mortalities.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

MASSACHUSETTS: Whale Take Reduction Plan Meeting Set for Bourne

August 19, 2019 — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will be hosting a scoping meeting at the Upper Cape Regional Technical School in Bourne Wednesday, August 21 from 6 to 9 p.m.

The meeting will focus on NOAA’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement to amend the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan.

They are looking for comments on the management options for the plan from the public, both at the meeting and in written or emailed submission.

Read the full story at CapeCod.com

MAINE: Environmentalists weigh in on right whale rules for lobster industry

August 16, 2019 — Environmentalists showed up in large numbers Thursday night to urge federal fishing regulators to defend the endangered right whale against what they claim is the looming extinction threat posed by the Maine lobster industry.

Some of the largest and most powerful animal and environmental groups – including Oceana, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the U.S. Humane Society and the Conservation Law Foundation – sent representatives to the National Marine Fisheries Service meeting in South Portland.

They urged the fisheries service to take immediate action to protect the species, which now numbers about 400, calling for actions such as offshore fishing closures and ropeless lobster fishing that even a team tasked with protecting the whale had dismissed as too drastic as recently as April.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Lobstermen: More data needed to determine if Maine gear is entangling right whales

August 15, 2019 — Lobster fishing gear needs to be made identifiable by location in order to indicate whether Maine-based gear is harming North Atlantic right whales.

That was the consensus of a crowd of over 100 fishermen and government officials who appeared at a federally convened meeting in Ellsworth last night.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is in the midst of holding eight meetings from Maine to Rhode Island to get input on proposed changes to the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan. Based on the endangered whale’s current population, the agency’s overall goal is to reduce serious injuries and deaths from entanglements in lobster trap gear by 60% to 80%.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

MAINE: Lobstermen say whale rules threaten way of life

August 15, 2019 — Maine has more than 6,000 licensed lobstermen. If the 100 or so who gathered at Ellsworth High School Tuesday evening to discuss proposed whale protection rules are a representative sample, most of those lobstermen are angry.

The fishermen gathered for a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) scoping session on proposed measures to protected endangered right whales. The rules would require a 50 percent cut in the number of vertical buoy lines in the water.

“You’re dealing not just with our livelihoods but with the life blood of our communities,” Stonington lobsterman Julie Eaton told the National Marine Fisheries Service representatives. With earlier whale protection efforts, Eaton said, “We’ve done everything you’ve asked us to do, but this ask is way too big. People will die.”

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

DAN MORRIS: Maine Voices: Lobstermen threatened with the extinction of their way of life

August 15, 2019 — The word “extinction” has been thrown around a lot lately by environmental groups that believe that Northern right whales are on the verge of just that. Though right whales number more than 8,000 in the Southern Hemisphere, only 400 to 500 are believed to be in the Northern Hemisphere.

Fishermen, whose only master is Mother Nature, and who have been admired over the years for their tenacity and independence, now have been cast as the villain in the whale story. Large, well-funded, out-of-state environmental groups would have you believe that these whales are going extinct and that Maine fishing gear entanglement is a major reason why.

These groups have proposed things like ropeless fishing and refuse to believe that ideas like this are not practical in Maine. Can you imagine how a fisherman could set his 20- to 30-trap trawl into water 300 to 400 feet deep, not knowing where any of his competitors’ trawls might have been set days before? As if hauling long trawls in deep water isn’t dangerous enough, hauling up one’s trawl with another one or two draped over it can be life-threatening.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

Maine Lobstermen To Feds: Our Industry Isn’t What’s Killing Endangered Right Whale

August 14, 2019 — Angry Maine lobstermen are telling federal fisheries managers they want definitive proof that their gear is entangling endangered North Atlantic right whales. Until then, they say, the feds should back off from proposed rules that could force them to modify their gear and remove half their rope from the water.

More than 60 lobstermen turned out in Machias on Monday night for the first of four federal “scoping” meetings in Maine to discuss the proposed gear changes. Federal officials had hoped to hear specifics about how the new rules might change the way they harvest lobster, and what it might cost them.

But what they met was a chorus of criticism.

Read the full story at Maine Public

Meetings About New Whale Protections Come to Maine This Week

August 14, 2019 — Representatives of the federal government are in Maine this week to gather feedback about the possibility of new protections for endangered whales.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is conducting meetings with the public this month about potential new protections for the whales. The effort is focused on North Atlantic right whales, which number only about 400.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at U.S. News