Saving Seafood

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission likely to keep Gulf of Maine shrimp fishery closed

November 8, 2016 — Maine shrimpers are all but resigned to another year of being unable to pursue their quarry in the Gulf of Maine, with a regulatory board set to decide this week whether to allow a season this winter.

Maine shrimp are fished in the Gulf of Maine and were a popular winter seafood for years, but regulators shut the fishery down after a collapse during the 2013 fishing season, and it has remained closed since. The shrimp have struggled to rebuild populations as waters have warmed.

A board of the regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is set to decide Thursday whether fishing will be allowed this year. A committee of scientists has advised the board it’s not a good idea, with temperatures off New England inhospitable to the shrimp.

Spencer Fuller, a shrimp and lobster buyer with Cozy Harbor Seafood in Portland, said his company was once the largest processor of Maine shrimp in the country, and it has suffered. He said that he is prepared for another year of closure, but that it will send residual troubles through Maine’s seafood industry.

“All you have to do is look back to the history of shrimp here in the state of Maine and the contributions it has made over the last 60 years,” Fuller said. “It’s a big deal not only for us, but for the wharfs we deal with, markets we deal with.”

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

LOUISIANA: Shrimpers may face new turtle-protection rules

September 14, 2016 — New rules aimed at preventing endangered sea turtles from getting caught and killed in shrimp nets could have an impact on local fishermen.

Federal officials are revising the rules dealing with turtle-excluder devices used in shrimp nets in a court settlement with an international conservation group. In its lawsuit, Oceana alleged that the federal government violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to:

— Determine whether shrimping in the Southeast puts sea turtles at risk of extinction.

— Monitor fishing’s impact on sea turtles.

— Set a limit on how many sea turtles can be caught and killed.

As part of the settlement, the federal government agreed to propose revised regulations by Dec. 15.

“Year after year, the federal government allows tens of thousands of sea turtles to drown in shrimp trawl nets in the Gulf and Atlantic in violation of federal law,” Oceana campaign director Lora Snyder said Monday in a news release. “Oceana is pleased that the Obama administration has finally recognized its responsibility to take action to recover these amazing and vulnerable creatures before it’s too late, and we hope the rule will do just that.”

Read the full story at Houma Today 

BP Drops $1 Billion Seafood Industry Spill Payments Fight

May 3, 2016 — After fighting for more than two years to avoid paying almost $1 billion in oil spill damages to Gulf Coast shrimpers, oystermen and seafood processors it claimed didn’t exist, BP Plc has thrown in the towel.

“We have withdrawn our claims seeking an injunction against payments by the Seafood Program so the program can be concluded,” Geoff Morrell, a BP spokesman, said in an e-mail Tuesday. The company will keep pursuing fraud claims against lawyer Mikal Watts and his firm, Morrell said. Watts was indicted for allegedly making false claims in connection with the BP spill.

A federal judge in New Orleans Monday allowed BP to drop its bid to avoid paying the second half of $2.3 billion in compensation promised to seafood interests harmed by the blown-out well. The subsea gusher pumped more than 4 million barrels of crude into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, closing fisheries and blackening the shores of five states.

Read the full story at Bloomberg