Saving Seafood

Maine: Benchmark study of lobsters begins

February 13, 2018 — In 2015, data collected in a benchmark assessment of New England lobster stocks showed record-high abundance for the combined stocks of the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank and record lows for the lobster stock of southern New England.

Now, about three years later, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is beginning preparations for the next American lobster benchmark assessment that is expected to be completed around March 2020.

“We’re in the very early stages right now,” said Jeff Kipp, senior stock assessment scientist at the Arlington, Virginia-based ASMFC that regulates the Northeast lobster fishery. “The process will be mostly data-driven.”

Nothing is certain in the periodic assessments of various seafood species. But if some recent projections hold, the 2020 assessment could sketch a different picture from the 2015 assessment, possibly reflecting the declining abundance predicted by a recent Gulf of Maine Research Institute study.

The study, compiled with the University of Maine and NOAA Fisheries, forecast a 30-year decline in the Gulf of Maine lobster boom that began around 2010. The culprit? Increasingly warmer temperatures in the Gulf of Maine, which scientists have said is warming faster than 99.9 percent of the rest of the world’s ocean waters.

“In the Gulf of Maine, the lobster fishery is vulnerable to future temperature increases,” the authors of the study wrote. “The researchers’ population projections suggest that lobster productivity will decrease as temperatures continue to warm, but continued conservation efforts can mitigate the impacts of future warming.”

The findings of the GMRI study were strongly disputed by some Maine lobster dealers and the state’s Department of Marine Resources. The Maine DMR criticized the GMRI computer model used to arrive at the study’s conclusions, calling it “an unreliable tool on which to base management decisions.”

The benchmark assessment of the region’s lobster populations — which will include data on lobster landings, lobster growth and prevalent diseases among the population — could go a long way toward determining exactly what is happening to the region’s American lobster stocks.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Portland Press Herald: Time for Maine to look past lobster boom years

February 2, 2018 — There is an economic principle that’s usually attributed to Herbert Stein, who worked for the Nixon administration and The Wall Street Journal.

Stein’s law: If something can’t keep going forever, it won’t.

Maine’s lobster industry is near the peak of a historic boom, making it the state’s most lucrative fishery. In the last 30 years, lobster landings have increased from 20 million pounds a year to 130 million. No one expects the catch to keep growing forever. The question is not whether it will decline, but when.

Scientists from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the University of Maine and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have applied computer modeling to that question and have proposed an answer. In a report issued last month, they identified 2014 as the peak of the lobster population and predicted a long, slow decline of 40 to 62 percent by 2030, with the catch returning to levels in line with what was seen in the 1990s.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources has disputed the study and questioned the value of its computer models. Since no one was able to predict the historic rise in the lobster population, Commissioner Patrick Keliher said, he doubts the ability of scientists to accurately predict their decline.

He’s right, but there is plenty of reason to take this report seriously and use it as a planning tool. There’s a lot we can’t know about the future, but what we know about what’s happening in the present supports the report’s predictions.

Read the full editorial at the Portland Press Herald

 

Maine disputes study that predicts sharp decline in Gulf of Maine lobsters

The Department of Marine Resources won’t be using researchers’ model to make management decisions, saying that forecasting fishery populations 30 years out is extremely difficult.

January 29, 2018 — The state agency that oversees Maine’s marine fisheries is questioning the reliability of a new study that predicts a sharp decline in Gulf of Maine lobsters over the next 30 years.

The Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the University of Maine and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration built a computer model that predicts the population will fall 40 to 62 percent by 2030.

But Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources, won’t be using the model to help him decide how to manage the state’s most valuable fishery, which pumped $533.1 million into the state economy in 2016.

“(He) does not have confidence in a model that simulates what might happen decades in the future,” spokesman Jeff Nichols said. “This is a wild resource, making predictions extremely challenging.”

Thirty years ago, when landings were less than 20 million pounds, no one could have predicted that the Maine lobster fleet would be landing more than 130 million pounds a year in 2016, Nichols said.

“The commissioner and his science staff don’t question the science, but rather see this as an unreliable tool on which to base management decisions,” he said.

The department isn’t alone in having doubts about the study. Maine lobster dealers voiced skepticism, too, recalling previous erroneous lobster forecasts by some of the same scientific organizations.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

New report says future of Maine lobster industry could be worse

January 29, 2018 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — Warming ocean waters will have a big impact on Maine’s $547 million lobster industry in coming years, but the future would look a lot bleaker if not for the conservation efforts of the state’s thousands of lobster fishermen.

According to a study led by scientists at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the University of Maine and NOAA Fisheries, conservation practices long advocated by Maine lobstermen are helping make the lobster fishery more resilient to climate change.

For generations, lobstermen in Maine have returned large lobsters and egg-bearing female lobsters to the water rather than keeping them. Lobstermen first marked the tails of the egg bearers with a distinctive “V-notch” to give them further protection.

According to the scientists, these conservation practices, developed by custom and now mandated by state law, distinguish the fishery in the Gulf of Maine, where Maine harvesters trap some 83 percent of all lobster landings, from southern New England, where fishermen historically refused to take the same steps to preserve large, reproductive lobsters.

Funded by the National Science Foundation and published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study shows how warming waters and contrasting conservation practices have contributed to significantly different results in the two fisheries.

Over the past decade (at least until this past year), Maine lobster landings have climbed steadily, setting new records nearly every year. During the same time period, the southern New England lobster population, and lobster fishery, has collapsed.

According to figures compiled by regulators, the commercial lobster landings in Connecticut fell from more than 2.5 million pounds in 1995 to about 200,000 pounds in 2015. In Rhode Island, the catch fell from more than 5 million pounds in 1995 to less than 2.4 million pounds in 2015. In New York, the commercial lobster industry has virtually disappeared.

Led by Arnault Le Bris of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the scientists used advanced computer models to simulate the ecosystem under varying conditions. The results show that temperature change was the primary contributor to population changes, but conservation efforts made significant differences in how the lobster population responded.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

 

Study: Warming Gulf of Maine endangering lobster stock

January 24, 2018 — Is the lobster boom on the decline in the Gulf of Maine because of warming waters? A newly released study by a Maine-based marine research group suggests that is the case.

The study, released Monday by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, touched on many of the same climate issues that have left researchers and lobster stakeholders anxious about the future.

“In the Gulf of Maine, the lobster fishery is vulnerable to future temperature increases,” GMRI said in the statement released with the study. “The researchers’ population projections suggest that lobster productivity will decrease as temperatures continue to warm, but continued conservation efforts can mitigate the impacts of future warming.”

The study, compiled with the University of Maine and NOAA Fisheries, said the anticipated decline highlights the need for vigilant conservation within the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery, especially since scientists say the gulf’s waters are warming faster than 99 percent of the rest of the world’s oceans.

Researchers said they expect the lobster population to decline from recent highs — GMRI pegs the peak year at 2010, when it estimated the Gulf of Maine lobster stock contained 518 million lobsters — to levels more in keeping with traditional lobstering years.

It estimates the population could shrink to about 261 million lobsters in 2050.

“The 30-year outlook for the Gulf of Maine fishery looks positive if conservation practices continue,” GMRI said. “In their 30-year projection, the researchers anticipate average populations similar to those in the early 2000s.”

Beth Casoni, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, said lobster stock assessments in the Gulf of Maine have shown the annual settlement of young lobsters — when they transition from floating in open waters as plankton to settling on the bottom to begin the seven- to eight-year stretch it requires to mature — has declined from previous assessments.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Times

 

Gulf of Maine lobster population past its peak, study says, and a big drop is due

January 23, 2018 — The Gulf of Maine lobster population will shrink 40 to 62 percent over the next 30 years because of rising ocean temperatures, according to a study published Monday.

As the water temperature rises – the northwest Atlantic ocean is warming at three times the global average rate – the number of lobster eggs that survive their first year of life will decrease, and the number of small-bodied lobster predators that eat those that remain will increase. Those effects will cause the lobster population to fall through 2050, according to a study by researchers at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, the University of Maine and the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration.

Looking ahead 30 years, the researchers predict a lobster population “rewind” to the harvests documented in the early 2000s. In 2002, 6,800 license holders landed 63 million pounds of lobster valued at $210.9 million. By comparison, 5,660 license holders harvested 131 million pounds valued at $533.1 million in 2016.

“In our model, the Gulf of Maine started to cross over the optimal water temperature for lobster sometime in 2010, and the lobster population peaked three or four years ago,” said Andrew Pershing, GMRI’s chief scientific officer and one of the authors of the study. “We’ve seen this huge increase in landings, a huge economic boom, but we are coming off of that peak now, returning to a more traditional fishery.”

Industry leaders have been girding themselves for a decline in landings ever since the recent boom began. While not everybody believes the decline will happen that fast or fall so much, most lobstermen admit the impact that warming water has had on their fishery, said Dave Cousens, the president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. It drove up landings by pushing lobsters into the Gulf of Maine, and over time it will drive lobsters out to colder offshore waters or the Canadian Maritimes, he said.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

 

New study: Industry conservation ethic proves critical to Gulf of Maine lobster fishery

January 22, 2018 — A new study, led by scientists at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute and colleagues at the University of Maine and NOAA, demonstrates how conservation practices championed by Maine lobstermen help make the lobster fishery resilient to climate change.

For generations, lobstermen in Maine have returned large lobsters to the sea and have designed a special way of marking egg-bearing lobsters to give them further protection. This conservation culture distinguishes the Gulf of Maine fishery from southern New England, where fishermen have not historically taken the same steps to preserve large, reproductive lobsters.

The study, funded by the National Science Foundation and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), shows how warming waters and contrasting conservation practices contributed to simultaneous record landings in the Gulf of Maine fishery and  collapse in southern New England.

Led by Dr. Arnault Le Bris, the research team used advanced computer models to simulate the ecosystem under varying conditions, allowing them to understand the relative impacts of warming waters, conservation efforts, and other variables. Their results show that, while temperature change was the primary contributor to population changes, conservation efforts made a key difference in population resiliency.

Impacts of warming

Over 30 years (1984-2014), ocean temperatures increased rapidly in both regions. Warming in both regions shifted optimal summer ocean temperatures northeast, causing the southern New England  population to decline and the Gulf of Maine population boom. The researchers estimate that, during this 30-year period, the Gulf of Maine population increased by 515%, while the southern New England population declined by 78%. Challenges associated with warmer temperatures include decreased survival of larval lobsters, increased incidence of shell disease, and increased predation.

Read the full story at PHYS.org

 

Odds are tiny for a winter shrimp fishing season

November 28, 2017 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — With fisheries regulators slated to gather in Portland on Wednesday, a shrimp fishing season in the Gulf of Maine this winter seemed as likely as bipartisan tax legislation in Congress.

The schedule called for members of the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission’s Northern Shrimp Section to meet in the afternoon to establish dates and landings limits for the 2018 season. All evidence suggested that, except for a tiny “research” fishery, the limit, or total allowable catch, will be zero and there will be no season at all.

According to the commission’s recently released “2017 Stock Status Report for Gulf of Maine, Northern Shrimp,” the resource is in terrible shape. For the past five years (2012 through 2017) the shrimp stock has been at its lowest, both in terms of number and total biomass, over the 34 years that the shrimp population has been surveyed.

Prospects for the shrimp resource to rebound in the Gulf of Maine are grim.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American 

 

Reading the genetic signature of the sea scallop

October 12, 2017 — Scallops are one of the most profitable fisheries in Maine, with a statewide value of nearly $7 million in 2016. The scallop fishery is also one of the most local, with small “day boats” staying close to shore.

Landings (and populations) have fluctuated over the years, with the latest peaks in the mid-1980s and 1990s. After severe declines in the early 2000s, the state instituted adaptive management, closing some areas and closely monitoring others. The approach seems to be successful, as landings have increased significantly, although the exact reasons are unclear and there are many questions left unanswered. Does closing a scallop bed protect spawning? How long does population recovery take? If a scallop bed is large, does that mean it’s healthy? Are all scallop beds equally productive?

Skylar Bayer, who graduated this spring from the University of Maine with a Ph.D. in marine biology, has been studying scallops for six years in Richard Wahle’s lab at the Darling Marine Center. Her research addresses questions about scallop reproduction. Scallops are broadcast spawners, releasing their eggs and sperm separately into the water. Fertilization happens by random encounters.

Bayer has learned what she knows about scallop spawning events from both laboratory and field experiments, manipulating the temperature to induce spawning, and weighing reproductive organs from scallops (the subject of her infamous Colbert Report appearance). Even under a microscope, however, it is difficult to distinguish the eggs, sperm, embryos and larvae of scallops from those of other bivalves. So, how can scientists understand how what happens in the open ocean?

Read the full story at Phys.org

Maine fishermen: adapting in a sea of change

September 21, 2017 — ORONO, Maine — Increasing environmental uncertainty coupled with rapidly changing market conditions in the Gulf of Maine raise important questions about the ability of Maine’s commercial fishermen to adapt. How resilient is the industry to these shifting waters? Who is best positioned to adapt and who is most vulnerable?

“We have started to explore these questions by studying the relationships fishermen have to marine resources in Maine,” says Joshua Stoll, assistant research professor at the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences and lead author of the paper “Uneven adaptive capacity among fishers in a sea of change” published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE.

“Most assessments of adaptability are conducted at the community scale, but our focus is on individual-level adaptive capacity because we think community-level analyses often obscure critical differences among fishermen and make the most at-risk groups invisible,” says Stoll, whose research was funded in part by a grant from the UMaine Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, where he is a Faculty Fellow.

In their analysis, Stoll and co-authors Beatrice Crona and Emma Fuller identified over 600 types of fishing strategies in Maine based on the combinations of marine resources that fishermen target to support their livelihoods.

Read the full story at the Penobscot Bay Pilot