Saving Seafood

Shrimp harvested in New England won’t be available for sale this year

November 27, 2018 — Platters filled with shrimp are traditional during the holiday season. Just don’t expect your host to serve shrimp from New England waters.

Schermerhorn’s Fish Market owner Michael Fitzgerald has plenty of shrimp from the Gulf, but federal restrictions have prevented shrimping from off the coast of Maine. If some small supplies of Maine shrimp were available, he believes the price would be astronomical.

Michael Fitzgerald said, “We’ve got some good pricing on it, it’s just unfortunate we just can’t get Maine shrimp. There are people that want Maine shrimp but we can’t get it. We will have shrimp. Our shrimp will be decent, not Maine shrimp, but good shrimp.”

Read the full story at WWLP

Overboard death rate falls for fishermen

November 26, 2018 — So, welcome back. We hope you had a fine Thanksgiving, whether you shared it with friends, family or that prickly tribe that inhabits North Sentinel Island out in the Andaman Sea. Though if it were the latter, it’s hard to imagine you’d be around to read this.

So, let’s open this week with some good news: Overboard deaths of commercial fishermen have declined by almost half to 204 in the period between 2000 and 2016, with credit going to better training, awareness and equipment.

According to studies by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the decline is a product of major safety initiatives by the U.S. Coast Guard in the wake of a series of accidents that killed 10 fishermen off the East Coast in 1999.

The most dangerous fisheries for overboard deaths, however, include the East Coast (particularly the Maine lobster fishery), the Gulf of Mexico shrimp fishery and Northwest salmon gillnetters.

The studies show overboard deaths have declined 47 percent since 2000, but remain the second leading cause of death among fishermen after vessel disasters.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

New England shrimp won’t be available at all this year

November 26, 2018 — A small amount of New England shrimp has been available to the public despite a fishing shutdown in recent years, but that will not be the case this winter.

The next few years of a shutdown of the New England shrimp industry will extend to a limited, research-based fishery that has helped provide a small amount of the shrimp to retailers in the past, interstate fishing regulators have said. The managers recently decided to extend a moratorium on Northern shrimp fishing until 2021.

In some previous years of the moratorium, New England’s shrimp trawlers and trappers have been able to bring some of the popular winter seafood item to market via a program called the “research set aside.” The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has ruled that the population of the shrimp, which is jeopardized by a warming ocean, is so low that even the research program isn’t going to be implemented this time around.

Canadian fishermen harvest the same species, but their product is difficult to find in the United States, rendering the shrimp essentially off the market for U.S. consumers.

The shutdown has been a pain for consumers and fishermen, said Joe Leask, a shrimper out of Portland who previously participated in the research fishery. Many fishermen harvest different species during different times of the year, and the loss of shrimp has hurt them economically, he said.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at ABC News

No research fishery for shrimp this year, either

November 26, 2018 — This winter there will be no Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken and other local northern shrimp lovers trooping down to the dock with buckets to try to buy the cold-water delicacies.

This winter will be no little different from the last four years when local shrimp disappeared from seafood retail shops as the shrimp fishery has been closed.

The shutdown of the New England shrimp industry has been extended to a limited, research-based fishery that helped provide a small amount of shrimp to the public in the past, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission recently decided.

That means Joe Jurek,a Gloucester-based groundfisherman, who held the rarified position as the only Massachusetts fisherman allowed to fish for northern shrimp in the Gulf of Maine, will likely sticking to his specialization in yellow-tail flounder on most fishing days

The regulators have extended the moratorium on northern shrimp fishing until 2021. In some previous years of the moratorium, shrimp trawlers and trappers had been able to bring some of the popular seafood item to market via a program called the “research set aside.”

Besides Jurek, owner and skipper of the 42-foot FV Mystique Lady, last year’s study also included eight trawlers from Maine and one from New Hampshire.

Each participating boat was allowed to shrimp once a week for eight weeks. Each vessel was allowed to catch and sell up to 1,200 pounds of northern shrimp per week at a price to be determined by the market. There was no other compensation.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

October was record low month for US wild-caught shrimp in Gulf of Mexico

November 23, 2018 — It’s no wonder US wild-caught shrimp have been a little harder to find of late.

The 10.4 million pounds of shrimp caught by US commercial harvesters in the Gulf of Mexico during the month of October was the lowest for that month since records have been maintained, going back to 2002, reports the Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA), a trade association that represents the harvesters.

Based on data provided Wednesday by the fishery monitoring branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center, total landings for the month were about 30% below the prior 16-year historical average (14.8m lbs).

In particular, the low volumes were driven by a lack of reporting of any shrimp landings from the west coast of Florida, as well as only 3.6m lbs reported as landed in Louisiana – by far the lowest total for any October going back to 2002 and less than half of the prior 16-year average (7.7m lbs) for the state, according to SSA.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

It’s not SIMP, but new rules are stopping US imports of Mexican shrimp

November 23, 2018 — Importers of Mexican shrimp are seeing their trucks stopped at the US border by what seems like a surprise, early version of the new National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) seafood import monitoring program (SIMP) rules for shrimp, Undercurrent News has learned.

But it’s not SIMP.

Mayan Seafood, a Canadian company that imports Mexican shrimp into the US, has had two refrigerated trucks containing a combined total of 55,000 pounds of both farm-raised and wild-caught shrimp sitting in Nogales, Mexico, since Nov. 15 — a week — Rod MacDonald, the general manager, told Undercurrent Wednesday.

The problem: US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) wouldn’t allow the trucks entry because Mayan, like a number of other exporters of Mexican shrimp to the US, had not filled out “certificates of admissibility”, a newly required form that must identify, along with other information, the exact time and location of each shrimp catch, the weight of each catch, the name of the boat that made each catch and the type of fishing gear used.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

 

Shrimp fishery moratorium extended through 2021

November 20, 2018 — The Northern Shrimp Section of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission extended a moratorium on commercial fishing of Gulf of Maine shrimp through 2021.

According to the commission’s news release, the three-year extension was set in response to low shrimp populations and the fact that, even with increasing juvenile populations, it would still take several years for the shrimp to be commercially harvestable.

A 2018 stock assessment update indicates the Gulf of Maine northern shrimp population remains depleted. “Spawning stock biomass,” referring to the shrimp that are capable of reproducing, has steadily declined to what the commission said was “extremely low levels.” In 2018, it was estimated at 1.3 million pounds, compared with 2017’s 1.5 million pounds.

“Recruitment,” the number of shrimp surviving to reach spawning status, has also been low in recent years.

The commission said that high levels of natural mortality and low levels of recruitment are hindering recovery of the stock. Natural mortality is caused by predation and unfavorable trends in environmental conditions due to increasing ocean temperatures.

“With ocean temperatures predicted to continue to rise, this suggests an increasingly inhospitable environment for northern shrimp in the Gulf of Maine,” the release says.

Fishing for shrimp has been banned for the past five years, and yet the stock has not improved, the release says.

Read the full story at MaineBiz

 

Man overboard cases down by half; still No. 2 killer

November 20, 2018 — Overboard deaths have declined 47 percent in the fishing industry since 2000, possibly as result of better training, awareness and equipment.

But falls overboard are still the second leading cause of death among fishermen, with solitary operators at the most risk, according to studies by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

“By far we see the highest numbers in the Gulf of Mexico shrimp fishery,” followed by the Maine lobster fleet and Northwest salmon gillnetters, said Samantha Case, an epidemiologist with NIOSH who summarized researchers’ findings at Sunday’s opening of the annual Pacific Marine Expo in Seattle.

A session titled “Throw Me a Rope” was the first of several PME safety seminars, where Case and NIOSH colleague Theodore Teske talked about how fishing captains can better protect themselves and their crews.

The good news is overboard falls have declined steadily since the turn of the century. That year marked a major commercial fishing safety push by the Coast Guard, after a series of accidents off the East Coast that killed 10 fishermen in early 1999.

That brought renewed pressure for safety examinations, proper equipment and safety training and drilling for crews. Anecdotally, industry culture has appeared to shift, with better equipment and preparedness evident on the boats, the NIOSH workers said.

Read the full story at National Fisherman   

 

Analysis: Shrimp may have ‘no ability to recover’

November 20, 2018 — Fishery regulators last week continued the moratorium on shrimping in the beleaguered Gulf of Maine northern shrimp fishery that began after the 2013 season because of unrelenting warning signs of a stock in free fall.

No surprise there. Leading up to the decisive meeting, regulators from the shrimp section of the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission had been candid about the bleak prospects of reopening the fishery in 2019.

They conceded that results from the most recent assessment of the imperiled shrimp stock showed no material improvement in abundance, spawning stock biomass, recruitment or any other metric used to gauge the health of a marine stock.

They also spelled out the continuing deleterious impact on the shrimp stock by the continued warming of the Gulf of Maine waters, which researchers have said is warming faster than 99 percent of the world’s other ocean waters.

What was surprising, however, was the ASMFC regulators opted this time to close the fishery for three years, through 2021, rather than revisit it on a year-to-year basis as they’ve done since the initial closure prior to the 2014 season. The closure came over the objection of Maine Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

 

Regional Regulators Vote For 3-Year Closure Of Maine Shrimp Fishery

November 19, 2018 — A panel of regulators from Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts voted Friday to put a three-year moratorium on the commercial fishery for Northern Shrimp, also known as Maine shrimp. Maine’s representatives at the meeting in Portland wanted some type of season preserved, but they were outnumbered.

The decision came after Katie Drew, a scientist with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, told the panel there was virtually no chance the shrimp would bounce back from depleted levels before 2022 and, in fact, might never recover. Above all, she says, the Gulf of Maine, has warmed to the limits of the shrimp’s reproductive capacity.

“The warmer the waters the less baby shrimp you have the next year,” says Drew. “And so we’ve had a lot of warm waters, and we’re just not getting a enough baby shrimp into the population. And in addition a lot of things like to eat northern shrimp.”

Predators such as red hake, spiny dogfish and squid, which are growing more abundant in some parts of the Gulf. The pressure they are putting on shrimp is a growing problem, even though one top predator, humans, haven’t been in the picture since 2014.

Historically, the commercial shrimp fishery, which traditionally started in December, has been dominated by boats from Maine. But it’s been closed for four consecutive years.

Panel member Mike Armstrong, assistant director in the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, says the regulators should bow to reality and proposed the three-year closure.

Read the full story at Maine Public