Saving Seafood

2nd North Atlantic right whale calf spotted off Florida

January 17, 2019 — Another North Atlantic right whale calf and its mother have been spotted off Florida, the critically endangered species’ second confirmed newborn of the winter birthing season, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The mother, tentatively identified as #3317, is an important example of the ideal calving rate for a reproductively mature right whale female, said Philip Hamilton, a research scientist with the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life.

“She actually gave birth three years ago,” Hamilton said about a previous birth, compared to the nine years between documented births for the season’s other right whale mother, #2791, spotted with a calf Dec. 28 off Jacksonville Beach, Florida. “That’s very heartening that at least some right whales are able to reproduce as quickly as they can.”

Right whale #3317 is about 16 years old, and has been spotted by government surveys since 2002 from Florida to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, according to the aquarium’s right whale database. She was spotted in Cape Cod Bay several times in 2016 by researchers for the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown.

Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times

Maine lobster landings up slightly in 2018; Canadian catch remains even

January 17, 2019 — Maine’s lobster harvest was up slightly in 2018, but didn’t match the total of the record-setting 2016 season.

Fishermen in Maine landed a little over 110.8 million pounds (50,258 metric tons – MT) of lobster in 2017, after landing an all-time high of nearly 131 million pounds in 2016. Data shared at the 2019 Global Seafood Market Conference revealed that the 2018 catch total finished at around 119 million pounds.

“It was a very, very healthy harvest rate from Maine this year,” Keith Moores, president of seafood supplier F.W. Bryce, said in sharing the data during his presentation.

Moores reported unofficial figures show the Canadian harvest was stable in 2018 at around 90,000 metric tons. In 2017, Canada caught 92,682 metric tons of lobster, or approximately 200 million pounds and In 2016, the catch was nearly identical, at 92,601 metric tons.

“As far as harvesting, there’s a very stable supply of lobster,” Moores said of the 2018 projections.

After a delayed start due to bad weather, the Canada’s current season has been steady, according to Owen Kenney, the sales and business development manager of Downeast Specialty Products, which has lobster operations in both Canada and Maine.

Because of several factors – most notably the trade war between the U.S. and China – live exports from Canada increased significantly in 2018, and even more so in the current season. That created what Kenney called a “different dynamic” for the sector, in which the processing sector had little to no access to raw material compared to the previous January.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Fears Grow of New ‘Cod Wars’ Under No-Deal Brexit

January 14, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Fishermen worry that without terms of exit, European boats will test UK’s resolve to take back its territorial waters.

Newlyn, Cornwall – James Hellewell, a picture-book image of a bearded fisherman, contemplates what could happen in the high seas off the English peninsula Cornwall on the first day after a “hard Brexit”.

“Someone’s going to die,” Hellewell warns. “If a trawler has got its beams out and a Frenchman goes and hits it under the beam, he can turn that boat turtle.”

Hellewell, like many others in the fishing community of Newlyn in southwest Cornwall, fears European boats will test Britain’s resolve to take back control of its territorial waters if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union without an exit agreement on March 29.

The waters are currently shared by European fishermen under the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, but once outside the EU, Britain will regain full control of fishing stocks unless its government reaches a deal with Brussels over the terms of its withdrawal.

Although many fishermen in Cornwall support Brexit, they want conditions put in place that will protect their livelihood and interests.

This story was originally published by SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission. 

Coastal Congress members move to ban offshore drilling

January 9, 2019 —  Seven members of the House of Representatives, including New Jersey’s Frank Pallone, D-6th, said Tuesday they will introduce legislation to block the Trump administration from expanding offshore drilling for gas and oil.

U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, D-2nd, said he has signed on as a co-sponsor to Pallone’s bill, which would permanently ban offshore oil and gas development in the Mid-Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Atlantic, Straits of Florida and Eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Van Drew expects the legislation to be introduced Wednesday.

“The bottom line is offshore drilling isn’t worth the risk,” said Van Drew, adding he still believes we need to rely on fossil fuels for a time.

Read the full story at The Press of Atlantic City

‘Lobster War’ Tackles Global Issues From a Tiny Island in Maine

January 8, 2019 — Machias Seal Island is an unlikely location for an international border dispute, a heated and increasingly dangerous conflict and an illuminating flashpoint for the worldwide crisis that is global warming, and yet here we are. The island off of Cutler is about 20 acres’ worth of bare rock, protected puffins and seals, and the only manned lighthouse left on the coast. (More on that later.) It’s just another speckled rock in the Gulf of Maine, weathering the warring tides between the United States and Canada in unassuming silence.

Machias Seal Island – and the miles of fishing grounds around it – is also the subject of the new film “Lobster War.” Hardly hyperbole, the title refers to the fact that the changing environment in the gulf has turned the largely ignored waters surrounding the island into one of the most contentiously contested fishing grounds in the world, and how its newfound value is emblematic of the coming conflicts caused by manmade global warming in miniature. Co-directed by Boston Globe reporter David Abel and filmmaker Andy Laub, the film, which screens at The Strand Theatre in Rockland on Sunday and the Lincoln County Community Theater in Damariscotta on Jan. 17, is the duo’s third collaboration. Like their previous films, “Sacred Cod” and “The Gladesmen,” “Lobster War” was inspired by Abel’s position as environmental reporter at the Globe, a job that necessarily brings him to Maine quite frequently.

Read the full story at Maine Today

Film Notes: ‘Lobster War,’ Screening in Woodstock, Documents a Changing Fishery

January 4, 2019 — Before deciding whether to see Lobster War: The Fight Over the World’s Richest Fishing Grounds at Woodstock Town Hall Theatre next week, Upper Valley cinephiles need to distinguish David Abel’s new documentary from Lobster Wars, plural.

While Lobster Wars, a six-part reality TV series that ran on the Discovery Channel in 2007, followed fishermen from the United Kingdom pursuing crustaceans over Georges Bank, the feature Lobster War (singular) focuses on American and Canadian lobstermen pursuing the creatures around an island off Maine’s Down East that both countries claim.

Abel is screening Lobster War, which does not yet have a distributor, at venues around New England. The veteran print journalist’s current tour, which follows a round of film-festival appearances, is scheduled to begin in the fishing town of Gloucester, Mass., tonight and to make its Vermont premiere in Woodstock on Wednesday.

“My first two docs were on cable, on network distribution deals that hemmed us in except for the odd festival,” Abel, who writes about environmental issues for the Boston Globe, said during a telephone interview on Wednesday. “This is the first time I’ve decided to go the theater route.

“It’s really gratifying to show your work, to meet folks who are really interested in these issues.”

Climate change is the issue at the center of Lobster War, which documents a dispute between fishermen from Maine and Atlantic Canada. Over the last decade, with ocean waters warming off the New England coast, lobsters have been migrating north and east in search of colder waters for breeding, many of them are now clustering in a 277-square-mile patch of ocean described in the movie as a “Gray Zone” around Machias Seal Island.

Read the full story at Valley News

No Dead North Atlantic Right Whales Were Found in the Gulf of St. Lawrence This Year

January 3, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Rules put in place by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to protect marine wildlife seem to have paid off, as no North Atlantic right whales were found dead in the Gulf of St. Lawrence this year.

There were 12 whales found dead in the area in 2017.

But those regulations also resulted in financial hits for the fishing and cruise ship industries.

Last March, the DFO announced the closure of certain fishing areas due to the presence of the whales, which are an endangered species.

Those measures forced half of the Gaspé lobster fishermen to shorten their three-week season. Some fishermen found the new rules excessive.

The prefect of the regional municipal county of Rocher-Percé, Nadia Minassian, called the measures “draconian and uncompromising.”

“They did not listen to fishermen in our industry,” she said earlier this year.

The Quebec government then committed to paying for training for factory workers and fishermen so they can qualify for employment insurance.

Up to $500K in fines

The new rules also require boaters to maintain a 100-metre buffer zone from a whale, although that distance can vary. Orcas, for example, require a 200-metre buffer zone.

Under the Fisheries Act, those who break the rules could face penalties of $100,000 to $500,000. Repeat offenders may be subject to higher fines or even imprisonment, according to DFO.

In July, Gaspé fishermen recorded a 25 per cent decline in catches, and continued to criticize Ottawa’s decisions.

Alain Rebaud, a lobster fisherman from Percé, Que., said the area targeted by the DFO’s measures was too large.

“The quadrilaterals were too big, then they closed the fishing, and the day they closed it, there were no more right whales in the quadrilateral,” Renaud said.

The cruise ship industry also suffered cuts as a result of the speed reduction rules imposed by Ottawa.

Nine stopovers were cancelled in the Gaspé region, and the industry wasn’t able to get the financial assistance it requested from Quebec or Ottawa.

Stéphane Ste-Croix, head of Escale Gaspésie, a cruise ship company, said it appears their concerns fell on deaf ears.

Whale camera?

Some fishermen are now hoping a thermal camera that spots whales, currently being developed by the Merinov marine research centre, will solve their problems.

“We could detect right whales on the coasts to try to prevent entanglements,” said Chloé Martineau, a researcher for Merinov, which is funded by the Quebec government.

“We could put this technology on boats to avoid collisions.”

Fishermen say the device could help strike a balance between protecting right whales and preserving their livelihood.

This story was originally published by SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission. 

UK fishing industry faces ‘grave’ threat from new EU policy

January 2, 2019 — The United Kingdom’s fishing industry faces a “grave” threat from a new European Union policy due to be introduced on Tuesday, a House of Lords committee warned after hearing evidence on how fishing quotas will be enforced.

The new rules alter how discarded fish affect the quotas for each species. In the past, fish that were discarded would not count towards the total haul by crews. The new regulations mean that fishers must bring back their total haul, in a measure designed to reduce waste caused by dumping dead but unwanted fish.

Barrie Deas, the chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, described the rules, which will be phased in over a four year period, as “badly designed.”

According to evidence presented to the House of Lords EU Energy and Environment sub-committee, crews could reach their quotas for each year much earlier than before. That would mean they would have to stop their fishing until quotas were renewed.

Read the full story at Yahoo

Why the battle to fix Europe’s fisheries policy isn’t over yet

December 20, 2018 — Overfishing in EU waters, and the wasteful practice of discarding edible fish at sea, should come to an end from next year, as reforms to the common fisheries policy (CFP) are implemented after seven years of wrangling.

But disputes among member states over rights to dwindling fish stocks mean that key aspects of the plans to improve management of European fisheries are floundering.

From January, the landing obligation should mean that all fish netted are brought to shore instead of thrown away if they exceed a vessel’s quota. By 2020, all stocks should be subject to quotas based on scientific judgments of the maximum sustainable yield, not annual horse-trading among politicians.

However, as fisheries ministers met in Brussels for quota negotiations on Wednesday, it was clear these long-promised reforms would not be implemented in the way campaigners had hoped. Also, there were signs that the UK would face more difficult negotiations after Brexit, as shared waters make up most of the productive seas fished by UK fleets.

The European commission is struggling to insist on the discard ban, against the wishes of some member states. A spokesman said: “The commission has put forward concrete solutions to advance on sustainable fishing and to ease the implementation of the landing obligation, but we cannot do it without the support of the member states.”

Read the full story at The Guardian

NGO finds EU countries could catch 56% more fish if ministers stop Atlantic overfishing

December 19, 2018 — Research undertaken by the NGO Oceana shows Denmark, France and the UK would ultimately register the highest increases in catch volume if EU ministers follow scientific advice when they meet to set the new 2019 quotas on Dec. 18.

The EU could increase the volume of fish landings from the North-Eastern Atlantic and the North Sea by 56%, up to more than 5 million metric tons, according to a study by Oceana.

The organization found that the recovery would take less than ten years, and that Denmark, France, the UK, Netherlands and Spain would benefit the most if scientific advice was followed. Ministers are under pressure in the approach to 2020, whereby under the common fisheries policy, all total allowable catches must be set sustainably.

Lasse Gustavsson, executive director of Oceana Europe, implored EU ministers to think of the longer-term benefits over short-term gains.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News