State and Local

CAPE MAY, N.J. — May 6, 2014 — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has completed the first of 31 Hurricane Sandy coastal resilience projects focusing on rebuilding natural areas along the Atlantic Coast.

The $1.65 million beach restoration project restored five beaches on Cape May’s inner shoreline, including Kimbles Beach, Reeds Beach, Moores Beach, Cooks Beach and Pierces Point. Over 800 tons of debris, including chunks of asphalt and bricks, concrete pipes, slabs and pilings were cleared from 1.5 miles of affected beach area since the first phase of the project in 2013. Contractors brought in more than 45,000 tons of locally-mined sand to replace the 2-3 feet of original beach lost to storm surge and erosion after the storm.

Along with the restoration of coastal wildlife habitat, the project provides the added benefit of enhanced storm protection for nearby residents, as well as public recreational opportunities.

Read the full story from the Cape May County Herald

May 5, 2014 — Local fishers have won a hard-fought battle against environmentalists working to ban the use of controversial gill nets, which are notorious for snagging unintended victims in their underwater synthetic webs.

A bill in the state Legislature that would have likely shut down a local swordfish and thresher shark drift gill net fishery failed its first committee hearing despite widespread support from ocean and environmental advocates.

Assembly Bill 2019 was killed last week on a 7-6 vote in the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife. Now, state National Marine Fisheries Service officials are considering transferring the fishery (which is in federal waters) to federal jurisdiction. NMFS’s Pacific Fishery Management Council will meet this week to discuss that as well as alternative fishing methods.

Supporters of AB 2019 were as surprised by its failure as members of the fishery, who have long contended with public criticism. Many gill net fisheries have been constrained or entirely shut down across the country, and those that remain are constantly looking for new technologies to reduce the rate of so-called bycatch.

“There were quite a few of us that were pretty close to having tears running down our face when the judgment came,” said Arthur Lorton, who has fished swordfish off California since gill nets were permitted in the 1980s. “I was very worried about it. If we were shut down, swordfish in restaurants would come from the southern Pacific, where stocks are as healthy and fishing isn’t as scrutinized.”

Read the full story at The Daily Bulletin

May 6, 2014 — At the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council meeting last Thursday, the Council voted to approved a special pilot program that would allow anglers fishing from the sand at Island Beach State Park beach a two-fish limit of of fluke of 16 inches or greater.

The special program will only be in place at I.B.S.P. and still requires some further modifications and the final signature of Bob Martin, commissioner of the New Jersey Dept. of Environmental Protection.

Current regulations allow a for a five-fish limit at 18 inches or greater when the season opens on May 23. The pilot program is not expected to receive final approval by then.

Depending on the results, and the approval of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the program could be expanded to other New Jersey locations in 2015.

The program is expected to provide valuable catch data as the state plans to weigh in all keeper fish. This information will be compared with the data collected as part of the Marine Recreational Information Program, which has been criticized by many stakeholders as inaccurate.

The Council also voted to oppose seismic testing scheduled to begin in June off Barnegat Inlet. The testing is being done to collect data on climate and sea level changes. Groups such as Clean Ocean Action have opposed the study as the sound blasts associated with the testing are considered harmful to marine mammals and fish stocks.

Read the full story at the Asbury Park Press 

 

 

 

GOULDSBORO, Maine — May 5, 2014 — For the past year and a half, two regional seafood distributors have been working together to create the largest lobster processing plant in the state.

And much to the relief of local residents, the two have been doing it quietly, with little fanfare or drama.

Maine Fair Trade Lobster, a partnership between East Coast Seafood and Garbo Lobster, is expanding its operations and finishing up about $3 million worth of renovations at the former Stinson Seafood cannery. In early May, the company plans to resume production at the plant with nearly 200 employees, roughly 50 percent more than the 130 workers it employed last year.

“This is a huge undertaking,” Michael Tourkistas, president and CEO of East Coast Seafood, said recently in one of the few interviews he has given since his company became a co-owner of the plant more than a year and a half ago. “It takes a lot of experience to navigate through the ups and downs.”

It is not clear to what extent the jobs in Gouldsboro are expected to be seasonal. Most Maine lobster processing plants greatly reduce production, or close down altogether, in the winter when the state’s lobster landings slow to a trickle. But Tourkistas said he hopes to coordinate the facility’s operation with its sister Paturel processing plant in Deer Island, New Brunswick, where the Canadian lobster season occurs in the winter.

From 2010 through 2012, Gouldsboro had a steady diet of angst and apprehension as the ownership and continued operation of the longtime seafood processing plant in the local village of Prospect Harbor came into doubt.

In February 2010, Bumble Bee Foods decided to shut down the former Stinson Seafood plant, which was the last sardine cannery operating in the United States, putting nearly 130 people out of work. After moving the canning equipment across the border to its Connors Bros. subsidiary in Blacks Harbour, New Brunswick, and spending months searching for a new buyer, Bumble Bee found one: an upstart lobster distributor from Chelsea, Massachusetts, that was looking to break into the processing business.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

May 6, 2014 — Massachusetts House leaders tucked an amendment into the state budget last week that would block a Mashpee fisherman’s oyster-farm proposal, long opposed by wealthy homeowners, including the Kraft family, owners of the New England Patriots.

The amendment, passed without debate and unbeknownst to Cape Cod lawmakers, would create what environmental officials called an unusual “marine sanctuary” about a quarter-mile off Popponesset Island’s shore. Declaring the area a sanctuary would thwart the proposal of oysterman Richard Cook to turn the same 2-acre stretch of water into an oyster farm.

“I just find the whole thing to be really, at best, odd,” said state Senator Dan Wolf, who represents the district, but was unaware of the amendment before it passed. That, he said, is “not an indication of good process.”

Cook’s attempt to set up an oyster farm has already won considerable local backing, getting the nod from town governing bodies, the relevant state agencies, and a Barnstable Superior Court judge. But since 2011, he has repeatedly run into trouble with property owners on nearby Popponesset Island and Daniels Island. Both Patriots owner Robert Kraft and president Jonathan Kraft are among those who own houses there.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe 

 

 

May 5, 2014 — The following was released by the Maine Department of Marine Resources:

As spawning runs of alewives start in Maine streams and rivers several organizations working to restore the fish in the state’s watersheds are seeking volunteers to help measure the impact of their efforts.

Volunteer-staffed monitoring projects will take place on the Pemaquid River in Bristol Mills, Flanders Stream in Sullivan, and the Nequasset River in Woolwich.
Alewives are anadromous fish that spend the majority of their life at sea and return to freshwater lakes and ponds each spring to spawn. “The benefits of a strong, well-managed alewife run can’t be overstated,” said Maine Department of Marine Resources Specialist Claire Enterline.

“Alewives feed wildlife like eagles, osprey, mink, otter, seals and also other fish species. They are also a source of bait for lobstermen and can provide economic benefit to local communities that promote alewives as an attraction. Alewives also provide cover for upstream migrating adult salmon that may be preyed on by eagles or osprey, and for young salmon in the estuaries and open ocean that might be captured by seals,” said Enterline. “Alewives tie our ocean, rivers and lakes together, providing vital nutrients and forage needed to make healthy watersheds”.

The Bristol Mills Alewife Restoration Project is looking for volunteers to help monitor alewife passage at the Bristol Mills Dam on the Pemaquid River. Volunteers will count alewives passing up through the top of the fish ladder on the Bristol Mills Dam. Each counting period lasts 30-minutes and volunteers and can sign up for as many or as few counting periods as they wish.

The projected survey period is May 5 – June 15. Volunteers do not need to have any experience with fish biology, just a willingness to count fish from the bank of the river.

Interested parties should contact Slade Moore of the Gulf of Maine Council on the Marine Environment by phone at 207-837-3805, or by email at smoore@bioconserve.net, or Claire Enterline at the Maine Department of Marine Resources by phone at 207-350-6124, or by email at claire.enterline@maine.gov.

The Maine Department of Marine Resources is seeking volunteers to monitor alewife passage on Flanders Stream in Sullivan. In 2012, the aging Thorne Road culvert crossing over Flanders Stream was successfully replaced with crossing that has proven to be more resilient to storm flows, less maintenance-prone and capable of boosting the productivity of a commercially harvested alewife run on the stream. Volunteers are needed to perform 30-minute counts three times a day of alewives from May 12 –June 15. Interested parties should contact Claire Enterline by phone at 207-350-6124, or by email at claire.enterline@maine.gov.

The Kennebec Estuary Land Trust is also seeking volunteers to count alewives at the Nequasset Dam in Woolwich. Despite a fish ladder due for repair in the summer of 2014, the Nequasset River is considered one of the top alewife runs in the State. Interested volunteers should visit the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust’s website at http://kennebecestuary.org/2014-fish-count.

For each opportunity, volunteers can sign up at any time in May, and can sign up for as many or as few counting times as they wish.

“Less than 5% of spawning ground for anadromous fish remains accessible in the State of Maine due to barriers such as dams and culverts. Counting the alewives will help researchers understand what the current run size is and how to work towards improving the run in future years,” said Enterline. “Alewives are a keystone species here in Maine and the support of volunteers to help gather this vital data is critical if we want to build on the success of statewide restoration efforts.”

 

ELLSWORTH, Maine — May 2, 2014 — The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is conducting a criminal investigation into the American eel fishery along the East Coast, including in Maine, federal officials confirmed Friday.

Law enforcement officials with the federal agency, along with others from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Maine Marine Patrol, were in Ellsworth early Thursday morning as part of the investigation, according to fishermen and local officials.

Details about the investigation have not been made public.

Catherine J. Hibbard, spokesperson for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, said Friday that the agency is conducting an investigation into alleged “illegal trade” of American eels. Elvers are baby American eels that are caught live in Maine’s coastal waterways each spring. Maine and South Carolina are the only two states on the East Coast where elver fishing is allowed, and Maine’s fishery is much larger than South Carolina’s.

Fishing for adult eels is permitted in Maine and other states along the East Coast.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state wildlife enforcement agencies conducted searches at several locations along the East Coast Wednesday and Thursday from South Carolina to Maine as part of an ongoing investigation,” she said Friday in an email.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. — May 5, 2014 — North Carolina internal coastal waters will close Monday to large-mesh gill net fishing to avoid discards of red drum.

The closure will continue until at least June 1, after the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission discusses several issues related to this year's overages in the commercial red drum fishery.

The division announced in April that the spring/summer commercial fishing season for red drum will not open this year because the annual harvest limit was exceeded in the fall/winter season. Final calculations from 2013 show that commercial fishermen landed 263,072 pounds of red drum between Sept. 1 and Nov. 23, exceeding the annual harvest limit by 13,072 pounds.

In North Carolina, commercial fishermen are not allowed to target red drum, but when the season is open, they are allowed to retain a certain number of red drum caught incidentally when targeting flounder or other species. Fishery management plans adopted by both the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission set an annual cap on this harvest at 250,000 pounds for a Sept. 1 to Aug. 31 season.

Read the full story from The Fishing Wire

MOBILE, Ala., — May 2, 2014 — The broker between fishermen, their illegal catches and undercover federal agents posing as buyers has pleaded guilty in federal court.

Natalie McArdle, of Foley, is the last of eight individuals to admit her guilt, stemming from an 18-month operation into the illegal harvest and transport reef fish, including red snapper and grouper, across state lines.

Some of the individuals are also accused of “falsifying documents in order to circumvent the Gulf of Mexico Individual Fishing Quota management plan,” according to indictment documents.

Read the full story at Al.com 

 

May 3, 2014 — From a global perspective, Alaska, with $3.28 billion in seafood exports to 125 countries, ranked first in 2012 among all of the United States, and sixth internationally, behind Norway, Russia, Vietnam, Chile and Canada.

In value alone, these exports compared with $9.5 billion from Norway, $4.5 billion from Russia, $4.2 billion from Vietnam, $3.9 billion from Chile, and $3.7 billion from Canada, said seafood economist Andy Wink of Juneau's McDowell group.

The total 5.5 billion pounds of seafood harvested in Alaska in 2012 accounted for 56 percent of all domestic commercial fisheries production, Wink told participants at the ComFish 2014 meeting in Kodiak. The bulk of that harvest, 53 percent, was Alaska pollock, with another 30 percent being Pacific cod and other groundfish.

Salmon comprised 12 percent, followed by crab (2 percent), herring (2 percent), and halibut and black cod (1 percent), Wink said, in his presentation on Alaska seafood economics and market trends.

Based on ex-vessel value alone, McDowell Group estimated the breakdown was salmon, 29 percent; Alaska pollock, 25 percent; Pacific cod and other groundfish, 16 percent; crab, 16 percent; halibut and black cod, 13 percent, and herring, 1 percent, based on data provided by federal and state fisheries agencies.

Read the full story from the Alaska Dispatch