Saving Seafood

MAINE: Maine lobstermen signal opposition to participating in ropeless testing program

November 29, 2023 — Maine lobstermen are signaling their hesitation to participate in a multimillion-dollar program the state is launching to test new ropeless technology that the federal government soon may require to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources has been awarded $5.1 million from the federal government and a national nonprofit to research alternatives to the traditional trap-and-buoy lobster gear that requires vertical lines that can entangle the whales. But amid criticism and cynicism from many in the lobster industry, the department and its partnering organizations may face challenges recruiting lobstermen to play a key role in the evaluations.

“There’s no sense of wasting a lot of time and effort on our part into something that is not going to work,” said Colin Grierson, a longtime lobsterman in Midcoast Maine, “It’s going to take time away from when you’re normally fishing in a more traditional method when the end (conclusion) is not going to be ‘this is going to work great.’ It’s not.”

The $5.1 million award comes from the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the nonprofit National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which are facilitating an $18.3 million grant program across New England. The 18 awards are intended to advance the development of “innovative fishing gear” as an alternative to vertical fishing lines, or ropes dangling in the ocean, that federal regulators contend are severely harming the right whale populations.

Read the full article at the Press Herald

Ropeless Buoy Technology Tested in New England

November 25, 2023 — A federal program testing the viability of “fishing on demand” technology – also known as ropeless buoys – is seeing growing interest and success off the waters of Massachusetts.

But even though the program is experimental, free, and voluntary – and allows fishermen to trap in seasonally closed waters and keep what they catch – many of the state’s lobstermen don’t like it.

The project was started by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2018, in response to federal court rulings and NOAA regulations that seasonally closes thousands of square miles of fishing grounds to protect critically endangered right whales from the risk of entanglement in fishing gear.

Research shows there are fewer than 350 right whales left in the world, a population that has fewer than 70 reproductive females living off the U.S. East Coast and Atlantic Canada. Their biggest threats are entanglements in fishing gear and vessel strikes. The legal and regulatory action to protect the whales through seasonal fishing and speed restrictions in critical areas stems from lawsuits brought by environmental groups and subsequent court rulings to enforce provisions in the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act.

The seasonal closures prohibit lobster and Jonah crab fishing with traps and vertical lines in high-risk areas, covering almost 13,000 square miles in several restricted blocks off Massachusetts, with additional closures off New Hampshire and Maine. Fishermen who agree to participate in NOAA’s program and test the gear can access those areas under a special permit, using various ropeless buoy technologies being developed by NOAA, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, other non-governmental organizations and several marine technology companies.

“We acknowledge the tremendous impact these closures have on fishing communities and are looking for solutions that would allow fishing without increasing entanglement risk” when vertical line restrictions are in effect, said Henry Milliken, head of NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center’s Protected Species Gear Research Program.

“We are just trying to provide opportunities for fishermen who want access to those [restricted] areas. Nobody wants to close down the lobster fishery, especially in Maine and Massachusetts,” said Milliken.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Ropeless gear shows promise in Canadian snow crab fishery, but full adoption faces challenges

November 6, 2023 — Canadian commercial fishermen are hopeful ropeless gear could be a solution to address concerns of right whale entanglements in snow crab fisheries, and recent trials are showing that innovative technology can work along the East Coast of Canada.

New ropeless gear that eliminates the vertical lines that can entangle right whales is one possibility, and fishermen have had positive experiences with it in trials along the East Coast of Canada.

Read the full article at SeafoodSource

Is ropeless fishing gear a whale-safe solution for American Lobster?

August 24, 2023 — The following is an excerpt from an article published by Sustainable Fisheries UW:

Ropeless, also called “on-demand” fishing gear aims to reduce vertical lines in the water column for trap fisheries like lobster. These innovations have become a key component of ongoing fishery management efforts to minimize interactions with whales. We have reported on those interactions before, but we have not covered the gear innovations that may provide hope for critically endangered North Atlantic right whales while allowing fixed-gear fishermen and women to stay on the water. In this post, we will review the problems that ropeless fishing gear may solve, summarize the latest technology, and project what it might mean for the future of fixed gear fisheries.

The race to produce ropeless fishing gear has been sparked by the dire circumstances of North Atlantic right whales. With only about 340 left (approximately 80 are spawning females), just one unusual mortality event per year risks the species’ future—and fishing gear has been implicated in at least nine and up to 27 deaths since 2017 (ship strikes have been responsible for at least 11 deaths).

Traditional lobster gear uses metal cages called traps or pots. They are deployed into the water with a buoy attached to a rope, which hangs vertically in the water column until the trap is collected. Whales can entangle themselves if they swim through areas with ropes in the water. The entanglement and extra weight eventually wear them out, and they drown. Maine reported nearly 3 million trap tags in 2018, and Canada estimates 3,000 trap licenses are active each year with each license holder able to deploy up to about 300 traps. While not every single trap is attached to a vertical line, that still puts an incredible amount of hazardous ropes into the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Those lines can be a deadly hazard for marine mammals, especially the North Atlantic right whale.

NOAA estimates that over 85 percent of right whales have been entangled in fishing gear at least once. But Maine has not reported a single right whale entanglement in its lobster fishery since 2004, and recent events suggest right whales are at greater risk farther north in Canada. Conservationists and lobstermen and women have disagreed on the best available right whale science for years.

SFUW first reported on this conflict in 2020 and warned of complicated market reactions if sustainability ratings and certifications changed for American lobster fisheries in the U.S. or Canada based on right whale threats. Sure enough, in September 2022, Seafood Watch downgraded all American lobster fisheries in both countries to red, “Avoid.” In December 2022, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) suspended the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery’s certification because a federal judge ruled that lobster fisheries violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Two recent reports have given some good and bad news to ropeless gear supporters.

The first report came from the Northeast Fishery Science Center and provided one of the first widespread measurements of ropeless gear retention. Ten lobster fishers set ropeless gear with EdgeTech technology in the Massachusetts Restricted Area and nearby federal waters. 527 traps were set, and 89.5% were retrieved on the first attempt without malfunction. Some of the 11.5% traps that did not return on the first attempt were recovered on subsequent attempts, so the study estimated the actual percentage of lost gear to be equal to or lower than the 5-15% average lost gear rate per season associated with traditional buoy lobster gear.

Each trap had an active acoustic modem sending alerts to all GPS devices in range, which successfully signaled to other vessels and mitigated any conflicts during the study. No gear conflicts were reported with traditional lobster harvesters, scallop dredgers, or other overlapping fleets.

But a second, more recent report from the State of Massachusetts found the expected costs of switching to ropeless fishing gear to be unviable. Currently, Massachusetts lobster harvest profits roughly 15 million per year after expenses. Switching to ropeless gear would eliminate any profit—the study estimated the state would lose 24 million in revenue per year, “and that’s with a 15-year loan to buy the on-demand gear with favorable interest rates.”

If all lobstermen were given ropeless gear for free, profits would still drop to 2 million per year due to the extra time required to harvest.

The disadvantage of using ropeless lobster gear would also be felt harder by smaller, more independent operators. Smaller boats usually fish with fewer traps per line, meaning a higher proportion of traps would directly use acoustic buoy deployments. According to the study, this would almost double the time it takes to retrieve all lobster gear for smaller boat operators.

Ropeless fishing gear is simply too expensive for widespread adoption in American lobster fisheries in the near future. Massachusetts has led the way in new gear testing, but only a fraction of the state’s lobster harvesters have handled the gear on the water. These fishers have been more willing than their counterparts in Maine to test gear because their Massachusetts fixed gear fisheries have been canceled or severely limited to avoid right whale interactions.  

Read the full story at Sustainable Fisheries UW

Ropeless Lobster Gear Study Released: Could Cost Industry $40 M in Annual Revenue

August 2, 2023 — The second phase of a multi-year project evaluating the operational, technological, and socioeconomic impacts of ropeless lobster gear was released yesterday by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF). If the gear had been deployed fleet-wide last year, the loss of annual revenue was estimated to be $40 million and the foregone harvest was pegged at 3.5 million pounds less. An overall recommendation was to explore further using more variables.

Alternative or ropeless lobster gear consists of submerged buoyancy devices that are activated using time-release mechanisms or acoustic signals transmitted from the surface. This innovative design would replace traditional vertical buoy lines, which can result in entanglements with marine mammals including North Atlantic right whales.

Estimating the Cost of Using On-Demand Gear in Massachusetts Lobster Fisheries  authors Noah Oppenheim of Homarus Strategies LLC, Dr. Robert Griffin of SMAST, and Dr. Andrew Goode of the University of Maine, took a deep dive into the financial impacts of using the gear onboard lobster fishing vessels. They present a new model that can be used to estimate these operational costs, providing important information that will assist in the consideration of fishery management scenarios involving entanglement risk-reducing fishing gear.

Read the full article at Seafoodnews.com

Costs of using ropeless fishing gear could sink MA lobster fishery: new report

August 1, 2023 — PATRICK FLANARY: Experts often say the lobster fishery will have to move to innovative “ropeless” fishing gear to protect North Atlantic right whales from entanglement. There fewer than 340 of the critically endangered whales left. But a new report says Massachusetts lobstermen may be headed for troubled economic waters if they make the switch.  Eve Zuckoff has the details and she joins us now. Hi Eve. 

EVE ZUCKOFF: Hi Patrick!

PATRICK FLANARY: Eve, remind us how “ropeless” or “on-demand” fishing gear is different from traditional trap/pots.

EVE ZUCKOFF: Well, let’s start with the way traditional gear works. At its most basic, lobstermen connect 5, 10, even 50 traps and toss them onto the sea floor. And then then at the surface they’ve got their buoy, which is connected with a long rope down to those traps. The problem is that those static lines will sit in the ocean as whales swim by and they’ve been connected to entanglements. These critically endangered right whales are really struggling with this: some 80% appear to have been wrapped in rope at least once in their lives.

Now, the idea is that “on-demand” or “ropeless” gear gets rid of the rope that runs from sea surface to seafloor. Instead, fishermen put their line of traps on the sea floor, and then when they head out to collect the lobsters some days later and haul up the traps, they push a button and a balloon gets inflated or a buoy in coiled rope gets released, and these pop up at the surface. So that’s why it’s called “on-demand” gear, which is a more accurate term than “ropeless,” so I’ll keep calling it that from here out.

PATRICK FLANARY: These balloons really intrigue me. I’m trying to envision how this will actually look. The gear, Eve, is undergoing testing but it has been controversial. Lobstermen have raised concerns about cost, how safe it’s going to be. So the state wanted to understand: what would it take to fully convert roughly 800  Massachusetts lobstermen to fully on-demand gear. What did they just find? 

EVE ZUCKOFF: Well the state did a really interesting thing, which was to basically operate from this place that says time is money for a lobsterman. Because the modern lobster fishing business is about hauling up gear quickly to bring in large volumes of lobster. So the question becomes: how long would take to do everything you need to with on-demand gear to catch lobsters versus traditional gear?

Read the full article at NHPR

The Case for Ropeless

June 27, 2023 — Allow me to touch a “third rail” of fisheries politics: Lobstermen, crabbers, and other fishermen currently in the crosshairs of environmental groups over whale entanglements need to get behind ropeless fishing technology. On-demand gear can keep you on the water when the presence of whales would otherwise trigger a closure, it’s not about admitting defeat but find opportunities to keep fishing.

Coming is the time when trap fisheries will face two options: start using ropeless gear, or lose significant chunks – if not all ­– of the fishing season. Resistance now will likely put many in a world of pain later.

Over the years I have participated in numerous fixed gear fisheries in the North Pacific. I have also written extensively on whale entanglements in West Coast Dungeness crab and in other fisheries here for National Fisherman and in other outlets. I often find myself as not only a bridge builder but also an antagonist.

I’m willing to call out the bad actors and misdeeds within the commercial fishing industry while also critical of the bad faith engagement and the reckless hyperbole some of the environmental organizations using both the courts and media to attack working-class fishermen. In this position I found myself resistant to ropeless fishing gear, seeing it as an unfounded and expensive proposition.

But over the past few years I have changed my mind. I now see ropeless as the best forward to save fisheries, whales, and the reputation of an industry currently facing a public relations crisis.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

‘Ropeless’ Fishing Gear Aims to Protect Whales, But Adds Complications, Costs

April 13, 2023 — A handful of Rhode Island lobster fishermen are working this season with federal regulators to use and study some complex and early stage equipment that is intended, eventually, to greatly reduce entanglements and deaths of whales.

The experimental equipment for this so-called “ropeless” fishing would eliminate the vertical ropes — or “lines” — running down the water column from buoys on the surface to lines connecting a series of traps on the seafloor. The existing function of buoys and vertical lines — to find and retrieve traps — would be replaced under a new system by computerized acoustic signals from boats to the seafloor and geopositioning via cell signals or satellites.

Using federal experimental fishing permits, three Port Judith-based lobstermen are struggling to use the new gear, borrowed from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), a branch of NOAA Fisheries.

On a recent sunny April morning, Richard Lodge and his sea dogs Rudder and Dory were preparing to embark from his dock at Point Judith on his boat Select for a day of lobster fishing using the experimental gear. The gear is informally called “on demand” because the fisherman uses an acoustic signal, like a dog whistle, to release floats on the seafloor and to raise one end of the trawl line to the surface.

His experimental fishing permit allows Lodge to use and test the gear in a portion of the ocean called the South Island restricted area, to the south and east of the Rhode Island coast. The restricted area was designated two years ago, and lobster fishing — using buoys and vertical lines — is banned there from February through April, when the endangered North Atlantic right whale is moving through the area.

Lodge uses a mild tone in talking about using the gear, which is a little surprising, considering the years of previous regulations on the fishery and the hassles of managing the computer-driven gear.

“Ropeless technology is excessive; I honestly don’t think it is necessary,” Lodge said. “This is a solution to a problem that isn’t there.” He and other Point Judith-based lobstermen said that in decades of time at sea, they don’t know of one instance in which whales were entangled in their lines.

“I’ve fished here for 40 years and we haven’t had a problem with whales,” said Galilee-based fisherman Eric Marcus, who also has an experimental fishing permit to use and test the ropeless gear in the restricted zone. “Where we are isn’t a breeding ground for whales.”

Daniel McKiernan, director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, said there are 6,000 commercial lobstermen and 350 right whales, “so naturally the vast majority of lobstermen are not entangling whales.”

Read the full article at ecoRI News

Northeast ropeless gear experiments start off Massachusetts, Rhode Island

February 10, 2023 — In the coming weeks, up to 30 New England commercial trap and pot fishing vessels will be involved in testing experimental on-demand gear systems – so-called ropeless gear that the National Marine Fisheries Service hopes could be one long-term solution to reduce the danger of whale entanglement in vertical trap lines.

The cooperative program with NMFS and its Northeast Fisheries Science Center began on Feb. 1 and continues through April 30, in areas closed to vertical lines and buoys to reduce entanglement risk.

The federally permitted trap vessels will fish up to 10 trawls each, using different designs of on-demand gear, activated by acoustic signals for retrieval, in federal waters of the South Island Restricted Area and the Massachusetts Restricted Area while those areas are otherwise closed to lobster and Jonah crab gear that use vertical lines.

“During this time, on-demand trap/pot gear set on the bottom will not be marked at the water’s surface because on-demand gear does not have surface buoys,” according to a fisheries science center summary of the experiment plan.

Read the full article at the National Fisherman

Lobster industry and lawmakers await court decision to determine legality of new restrictions

June 8, 2022 — Maine and Massachusetts harvest more than 90% of the American lobsters sold in the U.S. and most lobstermen and New England lawmakers want to keep it that way.

Over the past year, a dispute over new federal regulations on Maine’s lobster industry, intended to protect the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, have become heated as Maine’s lobster industry fights to protect the livelihoods of its workforce.

Mike Sargent, who became the captain of his own boat at 15, told Spectrum News Maine that things haven’t been too bad since the restrictions went into effect in May.

“Yes, it’s an added expense and something I’ll look into as I rewrite my business model for this year and for years in the future. But, it’s not a deal breaker yet,” said Sargent, who grew up in Milbridge and is now part of an advocacy campaign called Lobster from Maine.

The 29-year-old is worried, however, that if regulations adopted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2021 are ruled lawful by the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia, that more expensive and stricter regulations could follow.

Read the full story at Spectrum News 1