Saving Seafood

MAINE: Taking Down Dams and Letting the Fish Flow

October 24, 2016 — BANGOR, Maine — Joseph Zydlewski, a research biologist with the Maine Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit of the United States Geological Survey, drifted in a boat on the Penobscot River, listening to a crackling radio receiver. The staccato clicks told him that one of the shad that his team had outfitted with a transmitter was swimming somewhere below.

Shad, alewives, blueback herring and other migratory fish once were plentiful on the Penobscot. “Seven thousand shad and one hundred barrels of alewives were taken at one haul of the seine,” in May 1827, according to one historian.

Three enormous dams erected in the Penobscot, starting in the 1830s, changed all that, preventing migratory fish from reaching their breeding grounds. The populations all but collapsed.

But two of the dams were razed in 2012 and 2013, and since then, fish have been rushing back into the Penobscot, Maine’s largest river.

“Now all of a sudden you are pulling the cork plug and giving shad access to a truckload of good habitat,” Dr. Zydlewski said. Nearly 8,000 shad have swum upstream this year — and it’s not just shad.

More than 500 Atlantic salmon have made the trip, along with nearly two million alewives, countless baby eels, thousands of mature sea lamprey and dozens of white perch and brook trout. Striped bass are feeding a dozen miles above Bangor in waters closed to them for more than a century.

Nationwide, dam removals are gaining traction. Four dams are slated for removal from the Klamath River alone in California and Oregon by 2020.

Just a few of these removals have occurred on such large rivers, which play an outsize role in coastal ecosystems. But the lessons are the same everywhere: Unplug the rivers, and the fish will return.

Read the full story at the New York Times

Mercury findings prompt Maine to widen lobster fishing ban in Penobscot River estuary

June 22, 2016 — Maine has expanded its ban on lobstering and crabbing in a small section of Penobscot Bay after finding elevated mercury levels in lobsters tested south of the existing no-fishing zone.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources had declared seven square miles of the Penobscot River estuary off limits to lobstermen and crabbers in 2014 after a federal court-ordered study detected elevated mercury levels in lobsters found as far south as Fort Point on the west bank and Wilson Point on the east bank. On Tuesday, based on the results of state-funded tests done after the initial closure, the department announced it would add 5.5 square miles to the no-fishing zone, extending it south to Squaw Point on Cape Jellison and Perkins Point in Castine.

The average amount of mercury found in the tails of legal size lobsters harvested off Cape Jellison in testing done in 2014 was about 292.7 nanograms per gram of tissue, according to state findings. That exceeds the 200-nanogram threshold recommended by the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention – the Department of Marine Resources uses that level to decide if an area is unsafe to fish – but is lower than the 350 nanograms of mercury per gram of tissue found in canned white tuna, officials said.

“We are adding this very small, targeted area to the closure so consumers can continue to be confident in the exceptional quality of Maine lobster,” said Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: Small Area Added to Penobscot Closure in Response to Monitoring Program

June 21, 2016 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) announced today that it will add a small area to the current lobster and crab fishing closure in the mouth of the Penobscot River in response to data gathered during 2014. The area will be added through rulemaking that takes effect Tuesday, June 21, 2016 and will extend the closure’s southern boundary to between Squaw Point on Cape Jellison and Perkins Point in Castine.

In February 2014, the department closed an area in the river that extends from Wilson Point across to Fort Point and north into the river after receiving information from a federal court-ordered study, the Penobscot River Mercury Study (PRMS). The area within the 2014 closure where lobster harvesting had occurred is approximately 7 square miles out of more than 14,000 square miles in the Gulf of Maine where lobsters are harvested. The additional area adds nearly 5.5 square miles to the closure.

To confirm the methodology and results in the PRMS and to determine whether or not to change the closure boundaries, the Department conducted monitoring in 2014 and 2015 of lobster and crab in the closed area and beyond it. Results of 2015 monitoring work are not yet available but will be evaluated as soon as they are.

Data from DMR monitoring work done in 2014 are from areas inside the original closure, including Odom Ledge, South Verona, and Fort Point, and three areas outside the closure, including Cape Jellison, Turner Point, and Sears Island. All areas had been previously sampled except Cape Jellison. Results from the PRMS and 2014 DMR sampling were similar in that mercury concentrations in lobster tail and claw tissue decreased geographically from north to south.

Levels in lobsters sampled from the Cape Jellison shore, an area immediately adjacent to the closure, and the shore adjacent to Turner Point, were lower than most of the other areas sampled in 2014, yet elevated enough to warrant including in the closure.

On average, tails in 40 legal size lobsters harvested for testing during 2014 along the south eastern shore of Cape Jellison contained 292.7 nanograms (a billionth of a gram) of mercury per gram of tissue (ng/g) while claws contained much less, at 139.2 ng/g. According to the FDA, canned white tuna contains 350 ng/g of mercury.

In addition to lobsters, crabs were also included in the original closure and evaluated in the on-going monitoring work. “Despite insufficient data on crabs in the PRMS study, we wanted to include them in the initial closure as a precaution,” said Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher. “While the 2014 study does not show levels of concern for crabs, the closure will continue to include crabs because of enforcement challenges and to provide time to continue to analyze the data.

“We are adding this very small, targeted area to the closure so consumers can continue to be confident in the exceptional quality of Maine lobster,” said Commissioner Keliher.

The department will host a public meeting to discuss the closure at the Bucksport Area Performing Arts Center at the Bucksport Middle School at 100 Miles Lane in Bucksport on Tuesday, June 28 at 5:30 p.m.

A Frequently Asked Question document, a chart of the closure area, and a copy of the report titled “Penobscot River Estuary Lobster and Rock Crab Mercury Study” can be found here.

Feds: Habitat, dams, hatcheries keys to saving Maine salmon

April 4, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — The Gulf of Maine’s endangered salmon will need restored habitats, removal of dams, aggressive hatchery programs and other conservations actions if its population is to rebound, according to a federal government plan to save the fading and iconic fish.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a recovery plan for the Gulf of Maine salmon, listed as endangered in 2000, that is intended as a roadmap to sustainability for a fish whose populations have plummeted since the 1800s.

Recovery will take time and patience — the plan estimates 75 years and $350 million, which would have to come from some combination of federal, state and private money. The wildlife service estimates 100,000 adult salmon returned to the Penobscot River each year in the 19th century, and less than 750 of the fish returned to spawn in Maine rivers last year.

Maine’s salmon face numerous threats, and one of the biggest is the continued presence of dams that prevent them from spawning, said Dan Kircheis, a fisheries biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service. He said there are 400 dams in the state in areas that affect salmon.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Gloucester Times

Atlantic Salmon: A Species in Need of a Spotlight

January 22, 2016 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries: 

Atlantic salmon are an iconic New England species. In addition to the ecosystem role these fish play, they have been an important indicator of economic health in our region. Atlantic salmon once supported lucrative commercial and recreational fisheries, as well as the small bait shops, gear stores, and amenities for fishermen that contributed to the economy. Before this, Atlantic salmon were important to Native American tribes for historical and cultural reasons. Tribes relied on watersheds and their natural abundance of sea-run fish, including Atlantic salmon, for physical and spiritual sustenance.

In the 1900s Atlantic salmon from Maine were so highly valued that for more than 80 years, the first one caught in the Penobscot River each spring was presented to the U.S. President. The last Presidential salmon was caught in May 1992 by Claude Westfall, who presented a 9.5 pound Atlantic salmon to President George H.W. Bush. Westfall’s was the last presidential salmon. Now there too few adult salmon to sacrifice just one, even for the President.

Read the rest of the story about the iconic Atlantic salmon.

After a Century, Shortnose Sturgeon Return to Historic Habitat

November 17, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

ORONO, Maine – Endangered shortnose sturgeon have rediscovered habitat in the Penobscot River that had been inaccessible to the species for more than 100 years prior to the removal of the Veazie Dam in 2013. University of Maine researchers confirmed evidence that three female shortnose sturgeon were in the area between Veazie (upriver of the dam remnants) and Orono (Basin Mills Rips), Maine in mid-October. Researchers had previously implanted these sturgeon with small sound-emitting devices known as acoustic tags to see if they would use the newly accessible parts of the river.

Among the most primitive fish to inhabit the Penobscot, sturgeon are often called “living fossils” because they remain very similar to their earliest fossil forms. Their long lives (more than 50 years) and bony-plated bodies also make them unique. Historically, shortnose sturgeon and Atlantic sturgeon (a related species also present in the watershed) had spawning populations in the Penobscot River as far upstream as the site of the current Milford dam, and provided an important food and trade source to native peoples and early European settlers. Overharvest and loss of suitable habitat due to dams and pollution led to declines in shortnose sturgeon populations and a listing as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1967. In 2012, Gulf of Maine populations of Atlantic sturgeon were listed as threatened under the ESA.  

Today, a network of sound receivers, which sit on the river bottom along the lower river from Penobscot Bay up to the Milford Dam, detect movement and location of tagged fish. According to Gayle Zydlewski, an associate professor in the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences, the three individual fish observed were females. These fish have since been tracked joining other individuals in an area identified as wintering habitat near Brewer, Maine. Wintering habitat in other rivers is known to be staging habitat for spawning the following spring.

“We know that shortnose sturgeon use the Penobscot River throughout the year, and habitat models indicate suitable habitat for spawning in the area of recent detection upriver of Veazie, although actual spawning has not yet been observed,” Zydlewski said.

Since 2006, Zydlewski has been working with Michael Kinnison, a professor in UMaine’s School of Biology and Ecology, and multiple graduate students, including Catherine Johnston, to better understand the sturgeon populations of the Penobscot River and Gulf of Maine. Johnston, who has been tagging and tracking sturgeon in the Penobscot for two years to study the implications of newly available habitat to shortnose sturgeon, discovered the detections of sturgeon upstream of the Veazie dam remnants. Each new bit of information adds to the current understanding of behavior and habitat preferences of these incredible fish. 

“We’re very excited to see sturgeon moving upstream of where the Veazie Dam once stood, and into their former habitats,” said Kim Damon-Randall, assistant regional administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries’ Protected Resources Division. “We need to do more research to see how they’re using it, but it’s a tremendous step in the right direction.”

Habitat access is essential for the recovery of these species. The removal of the Veazie Dam is only a portion of the Penobscot River Restoration Project, which, when combined with the removal of Great Works Dam in 2012, restores 100 percent of historic sturgeon habitat in the Penobscot. In addition to dam removals, construction of a nature-like fish bypass at the Howland Dam in 2015 significantly improves habitat access for the remaining nine species of sea-run fish native to the Penobscot, including Atlantic salmon and river herring.   

“Scientific research and monitoring of this monumental restoration effort has been ongoing for the past decade,” said Molly Payne Wynne, Monitoring Coordinator for the Penobscot River Restoration Trust. “The collaborative body of research on this project is among the most comprehensive when compared to other river restoration projects across the country,” Wynne said.

NOAA Fisheries is an active partner and provides funding for this long-term monitoring collaboration that includes The Penobscot River Restoration Trust, The Nature Conservancy and others. These efforts are beginning to shed light on the response of the river to the restoration project. Restoration of the full assemblage of sea-run fish to the Penobscot River will revive not only native fisheries but social, cultural and economic traditions of Maine’s largest river.

After measurement and implantation of a small tagging device, graduate student L. Izzo releases a shortnose sturgeon back into the Penobscot (ESA Permit #16036 compliant, photo courtesy G. Zydlewski).

 

MAINE: DMR approves reduction to scallop fishing days

October 21, 2015 — Scallop fishers in parts of Maine will have fewer days to do their job this season compared to last year.

The Department of Marine Resources has voted in favor of a 10-day reduction for the upcoming season. Scallop season runs from early December to mid-April, at a time when lobster fishing is not as lucrative.

The area that will see a change this year, called Zone 1, runs from New Hampshire to the Penobscot River. Last season, scallop fishing in that zone was allowed on 70 days. This season, it’ll only be allowed on 60.

Read the full story at WCSH6 Portland