Saving Seafood

Study: Maine’s lobster co-management system offers lessons for other fisheries

September 25, 2020 — In the 1990s, Maine’s lobster industry and state regulators developed a co-management system that established seven lobster fishing councils, comprised of local fishermen, to oversee fishing practices in seven zones along the coast.

The system was designed to integrate the knowledge of local fishermen to help manage certain aspects of the fishery, as an alternative to top-down management by government regulators.

That model has lessons for fisheries beyond Maine, according to a new study by University of Maine conservation scientists.

“The Maine lobster fishery is a great example of how individual harbors can have localized control over managing fishing areas and over deciding on fishing practices in their local area,” UMaine researcher Kara Pellowe told Mainebiz. “In the 1990s, that was formalized as Maine’s lobster zones. How Maine manages lobsters has, over time, reflected increasing alignment between formal and informal rules.”

Read the full story at MaineBiz

Potential for fisheries co-management shaped by interplay between formal, informal institutions

September 25, 2020 — The following was released by the National Science Foundation:

Integrating local norms and fishers’ knowledge into regulations helps increase trust in management institutions, and can make it easier for co-management to work.

Those were the findings of U.S. National Science Foundation-funded research by University of Maine researchers Kara Pellowe and Heather Leslie. The scientists looked at the interplay between formal and informal institutions and implications for the co-management potential of a small-scale Mexican fishery.

The journal Marine Policy published their results.

Pellowe and Leslie contend that conflicts between formal institutions, such as government agencies, and informal institutions, such as unwritten agreements among families and friends, can represent a significant barrier to effective fisheries management.

They examined the potential for co-management, where power and decision-making are shared by fisheries managers and fishers, in a fishery that is currently managed through top-down control. They concluded that integrating local norms and knowledge into formal regulations, along with broadened community participation, are necessary precursors to co-management. Doing so would result in more successful fisheries management.

Pellowe regularly traveled to Baja California Sur, Mexico, to work closely with fishers, managers and stakeholders in the Mexican chocolate clam (Megapitaria squalida) fishery in Loreto Bay National Park, on the Baja peninsula.

Like the Maine lobster, the Mexican chocolate clam is a culturally and economically important species, providing food, income and cultural value to many communities in Baja.

Read the full release here

Study aims to find indicators of resilience in American lobster fishery

September 15, 2020 — A new study by the University of Maine, Orono – funded in part by NOAA Fisheries’ Sea Grant American Lobster Initiative – is aiming to find indicators of the industry’s resilience.

The study – lead by UMaine Assistant Professor of Marine Policy Joshua Stoll – aims  to collect data to find indicators of the health of the lobster industry. Currently, several different monitoring programs keep track of the health of the lobster resource itself, but there are no equivalent monitoring programs to determine the health of the industry.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

MAINE: $2 million awarded for lobster research

September 10, 2020 — Maine’s Congressional delegation announced last week that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Sea Grant American Lobster Initiative will again receive $2 million in funding to support Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank American lobster research priorities. This is the second consecutive year that the program has received federal money for the research to address critical gaps in knowledge about how American lobster is being impacted by environmental change in the Gulf of Maine.

“Maine’s fishermen and women have been careful stewards of our natural resources for generations,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said last week in a statement. “This critical federal funding will build on their efforts to support the health of Maine’s lobster fishery and help ensure its continued success.”

Four of the nine research projects being funded will be conducted by Maine researchers and institutions:

1) Fishing in hot water: Defining sentinel indicators of resilience in the American lobster fishery – University of Maine Orono.

The intent of this research is to develop “sentinel indicators” of resilience for the lobster industry that can be used to detect early signs of vulnerability among harvesters. In pursuit of this research, the authors will use peer-reviewed methods to develop and evaluate sentinel indicators and work closely with the lobster industry, managers, and the Lobster Regional Extension Program to solicit input and distribute results. Although the status of the lobster stock is closely monitored in the Gulf of Maine, no indicators currently exist to detect vulnerability among participants in the industry. Understanding vulnerability is vital to informing future management decisions and coastal community resilience.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

Do River Channels Always Change When Dams Are Removed? It Depends

September 8, 2020 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

Dams are constructed for many purposes, including energy generation, water supply, flood control, and recreation. Dams can also impact the environment, both when they’re built and again when they’re removed. Researchers from the University of Maine, U.S. Geological Survey, and NOAA collaborated to determine what happens to the shape of rivers when a dam is removed. They found that the changes can be minimal under specific geologic and site conditions.

For more information about this study read our web story or the online journal article.

Pollution Has Slowed Around The World. Scientists Wonder How That Will Affect Maine

April 2, 2020 — Atmospheric and oceanographic scientists are just as concerned as anyone about helping their friends and family, the nation and the world make it through the trials of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it is also their job to pay attention to a kind of grand experiment that’s underway — an unprecedented hiatus in human pressure on global ecosystems and what that hiatus could mean on the ground, and on the water, for Maine.

Paul Mayewski is the director of the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute. He says that the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed the pause button on pollution worldwide.

“Unfortunately, like 9/11, this is a situation in which there is a tremendous shutdown in activity, even more dramatically than 9/11 because it is happening all over the world,” he says.

For scientists such as Mayewski, it’s a chance to study phenomena that hearken back to the pre-industrial era and, some believe, could provide a snapshot of what a post-fossil future could look like.

Read the full story at Maine Public

MAINE: State officials get an earful about proposed Belfast fish farm

February 13, 2020 — Dozens implored the Maine Board of Environmental Protection this week to put the brakes on plans for a $500 million land-based salmon farm here.

At a hearing Tuesday night, many who came to the University of Maine’s Hutchinson Center wore red to signify their opposition to Nordic Aquafarms’ project. It was the only chance for the public to address the BEP officials during their three-to-four-day visit to the midcoast city, where they will review environmental permit applications required for the project.

“I beg you to deny Nordic this opportunity to destroy our environment, our home, to line their pockets with gold,” Aimee Moffit of Belfast told state environmental officials.

The Norwegian-owned company is angling to build a flagship facility near the Little River in Belfast, with a goal of producing 33,000 metric tons of Atlantic salmon every year. It would construct 10 buildings — including several grow-out modules that company officials have described as “the largest aquaculture tanks in the world” — on a 54-acre site that’s currently mostly woods and fields.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Fishermen adapt to environmental change in varied ways, UMaine study finds

January 7, 2020 — A study published in Ecology and Society by University of Maine researchers Kara Pellowe and Heather Leslie found that regulations and financial resources that influence how people fish have as great an effect on how they deal with change as where and how they fish.

The ecologists, based at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole, took a deep look at how fishermen adapt to environmental and economic change in Baja California Sur, Mexico.

The study includes research that Pellowe conducted as part of her UMaine Ph.D. dissertation in ecology and environmental science, which she completed in August.

Over the last six years, Pellowe has traveled from New England to Baja regularly, working closely with fishermen who harvest chocolate clams (Megapitaria squalida) near Loreto Bay National Park, on the gulf coast of the Baja peninsula.

“Alternatives matter,” says Pellowe. “Having different ways to respond to environmental and economic change is vital for individuals and communities to be able to thrive in changing conditions.”

Read the full story at the Boothbay Register

Forecast calls for warmer oceans, fewer lobsters in Maine

January 2, 2020 — Maine lobster landings, which have been over 100 million pounds every year since 2011 seem to be in for a period of decline, and probably won’t get back to that 132.6 million in 2016 or 2018’s 119.6 million pounds, according to scientists, many of whom blame rising ocean temperatures.

The Gulf of Maine lobster fishery is in one of the more rapidly warming regions of the world’s oceans. Recently two scientific journal articles, both written by University of Maine scientists, look at the role of warming temperatures and differences in local bottom and oceanography conditions and their role in affecting lobster populations.

Read the full story from National Fisherman at Seafood Source

Studies: Warming waters, local conditions contribute to Maine’s lobster stock changes

December 3, 2019 — Two new studies published by University of Maine scientists point to the role of a warming ocean and local oceanographic differences in the rise and fall of lobster populations along the coast from southern New England to Atlantic Canada.

Maine’s lobster catch was valued at $484.5 million last year, according to the state Department of Marine Resources. It is the state’s largest fishery by far, accounting for 76% of the $637 million fishing industry — making the findings that much more significant.

One study suggests the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery may be entering a period of decline, as a  “cresting wave” of lobster abundance heads northward in response to the region’s changing climate.

Published in the scientific journal “Ecological Applications,” the study was led by Noah Oppenheim, who completed his research as a UMaine graduate student in 2016, with co-authors Richard Wahle, Damian Brady and Andrew Goode from UMaine’s School of Marine Sciences, and Andrew Pershing from the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

Read the full story at MaineBiz