State and Local

BOSTON (AP) — December 27, 2013 — A group of state lawmakers led by Senate Republican leader Bruce Tarr is calling for creation of a state program to help promote seafood caught by Massachusetts fishermen.

The bill calls for a seafood marketing program to be set up within the state Division of Marine Fisheries. The lawmakers say the goal is a coordinated approach that will increase demand for seafood and consumer preference for products from the state’s own commercial fishing and seafood industry.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Boston Globe

Read the release from Massachusetts State Senator Bruce Tarr on the Seafood Marketing Program bill

December 26, 2013 — Rhode Island representatives to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission are in the process of identifying key summer flounder challenges and solutions important to the state’s recreational anglers prior to the Jan. 15 public hearing on Draft Addendum XXV.

The addendum is expected to force Rhode Island to engage 2014 summer flounder recreational fishing regulations that are more conservative than the eight fish per angler day 18-inch minimum size regulations that were in effect in 2013. Key components of the addendum are new proposed regional options. One regional option groups Rhode Island with Massachusetts in a separate region, another places Rhode Island with Connecticut, New York and other coastal states. Many feel the regulations are changing to accommodate states such as New York as they have consistently overfished their summer flounder quota. The addendum is designed to allocate more quota to such states.

Jason McNamee, marine biologist for the DEM who serves on a number of commision panels said, “It’s tough to say which option is best for Rhode Island. I guess my personal opinion is that continuing state by state conservation equivalency (what we’ve been doing) is the best for us because all other options, even the one with Massachusetts have some level of either a bag decrease, a season decrease, or both. We do benefit in most cases with a smaller minimum size though.”

The meeting will take place at 6 p.m. in the Coreless Auditorium at URI’s Bay Campus, Narragansett.

Read the full story at the Providence Journal

December 26, 2013 — AUGUSTA, Maine — Demand for Maine oysters is growing, but regulations on the cold-weather storage of the delicacy prevent some aquaculturists from accessing their stock during winter, depressing the supply.

Until the last few years, oyster farmers sold only about nine months out of the year, said Bill Mook, an aquaculturist on the Damariscotta River. But now, with demand rising, Mook and other harvesters want to sell year-round.

Oysters grow best in the warm, upstream locations on Maine’s oceanic rivers such as the Damariscotta or the Bagaduce. In the spring and summer, temperatures there can reach 60 degrees, optimal growing conditions for the American oyster.

But cold winter temperatures often cause ice at the river’s surface, making it difficult for harvesters to access their stocks. In a perfect world, Mook said, farmers could simply move the stock downstream, closer to the open ocean, where temperatures vary far less, for winter storage. It’s still too cold for the oysters to grow, but at least farmers could easily get to their stocks.

Last year, Mook obtained a nonrenewable experimental license to do just that. But if he wants to keep weighing anchor in warmer waters, the state says he will need to get another standard aquaculture lease, just like he did for his growing site upriver.

With two years left on his experimental license, Mook says he will have to start the lease application process now if he doesn’t want to miss a winter. The state says a standard lease application can take up to 14 months to process, but Mook said it’s more like two years.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

SEAFOODNEWS.COM  by John Sackton – Dec 24, 2013 — WASHINGTON — Senator Lisa Murkowski sent a letter last week to the incoming President and CEO of Wal-Mart Doug McMillon, introducing him to Alaska’s world-renowned sustainable fisheries – calling it “the benchmark for fishery management.” Her outreach is aimed at advocating that Wal-Mart make an informed decision to continue to bring Alaskan fish to its consumers nationwide, and at inviting the new CEO to Alaska to “see and taste” it for himself.

After spending much of 2013 fighting against third-party adversaries that questioned Alaska’s sustainable seafood, Murkowski says she is proactively bringing the issue to the new superstore chief as they work with The Sustainability Consortium to certify Alaskan fisheries.  In her letter, she writes:

“Since our inception as a state, sustainable use of our fisheries resources has been a fundamental principle, with the requirement that fisheries be well-managed imbedded in our State Constitution.  Alaska has earned the reputation as the benchmark for fishery management, both at the state and federal level, and Alaskans are rightly proud of the seafood we produce.”

Murkowski also adds, of the new group:

“It is my understanding that Wal-Mart is close to concluding the process to determine whether to broaden its seafood purchasing policy to include additional sustainability certification programs. Specifically, Wal-Mart has engaged The Sustainability Consortium to evaluate seafood certification programs, and that its initial focus is review of the Responsible Fisheries Management (RFM) certification program supported by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute."

"There are no doubts that Alaska 's fisheries are sustainably managed, and I am confident that the RFM certification program will be validated through this process and Alaska seafood will continue to be available to Wal-Mart 's customers.”

In closing, she invites Mr. McMillon to Alaska:

“I have found that one of the best ways to understand an issue in my state is to see it firsthand, and I would like to invite you to visit with me and have a chance to see, and taste, the wild Alaska seafood that your customers hold in such high regard.”

This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

December 25, 2013 — Sharing is often considered a good thing. But ask fishermen to share their catch, especially of Maryland's state fish, and things can get testy — with seafood consumers on the hook for how it plays out.

Maryland is changing the way striped bass are caught for sale, ending decades of regulating the popular Chesapeake Bay fish by limiting the times when it can be harvested. Starting Jan. 1, commercial fishermen will have individual quotas of striped bass they can catch almost any time, not just in the relative handful of days permitted this year.

State officials say the change to catch shares, as the quotas are known, should help fishermen make a better living while improving oversight of harvests of the much-sought-after fish with distinctive black stripes — known popularly as rockfish.

Some of the state's watermen welcome the flexibility of being allowed to fish when it suits them, rather than compete in all kinds of weather in one- or two-day fishing "derbies."

But others complain that the quotas rob them of initiative by limiting the amount they can catch, in some cases well below what they've been landing lately. They warn that the cutback could drive them into oystering or other pursuits, making the tasty fish — a holiday staple for some — pricier and harder to come by in local restaurants and at seafood counters.

"Back in the old days — which wasn't really more than five or six years ago — we could fish five days a week and catch 1,200 pounds a day," said Don Marani, a commercial fisherman and proprietor of Don's Seafood in Fells Point. "Now we can catch in a year what we used to be able to catch in a day. … I mean, rockfish is a great fish, but you can buy red snapper cheaper."

Read the full story at the Baltimore Sun

EASTPORT, Maine — December 22, 2013 — About 50-60 feet below the surface, the men stretch out just above the bottom and scoop scallops into a basket attached to the top of a long, cylindrical net.

The sun is rising above Campobello Island as the Shelby Lee and Drusilla L. and a skiff motor their way to the other side of the breakwater from their mooring.

The top half of the yellow sun is partly obscured by a cloud bank, and the bottom is not quite above the trees. The sun’s light creates a sliver of pink between the bluish clouds above and the tree line below.

It is a little after 7 a.m. Friday, and Paul Cox and the crew of the Shelby Lee and Jason Leighton and the crew of the Drusilla L. are getting ready to dive for scallops. It is chilly, although it is quite a bit warmer than the single digits and temperatures in the teens of earlier in the week.

With Cox, who lives in Edmunds, are his nephew, Brandon Cox of Edmunds, Charles Sinclair of Charlotte, and Ryan Priest of Dennysville.

Leighton is joined by his brother, Chris, co-owners of the boat and also nephews of Cox, and Matthew Seeley, all of Edmunds.

In a few minutes the boats are tied up side-by-side along the breakwater, and the two divers quickly finish putting on their scuba diving gear and are soon under water. Cox plunges in right next to the breakwater.

Read the full story and watch the video from The Bangor Daily News

December 23, 2013 — Barbara A. Foster always dreaded the possibility the ocean could one day claim her son, and Friday she got the call she feared — 47-year-old Martin Gorham had been lost in the rough winter seas off Cape Ann.

“All my life I always worried, I worried I would get that call that I hoped would never come. And yesterday it came,” Foster said from her South Portland, Maine, home.

Gorham, who lived in Westbrook, Maine, but often captained the Boston-based 71-foot fishing boat Lydia & Maya, was working the deck Thursday and the boat’s owner, Christopher Odlin of Scarborough, Maine, a close friend, was on board when he fell into the sea around noon without a life jacket.

Read the full story from The Bangor Daily News

December 21, 2013 — Peter Ferrante arrived at the O’Maley Innovation Middle School on Friday expecting to give one talk to 250 students and ended up giving a different one, giving rise to at least the notion that more communication between fishermen and regulators might create more common ground than anyone thought possible.

Ferrante, a retired fisherman who fished out of Gloucester for more than 30 years, was invited to speak to the students about his fishing experiences and how they related to marine conservation — subjects that many of the kids have been studying this quarter.

The agenda called for him to be followed by Colleen Coogan, a fishery biologist from the federal National Marine Fisheries Service, who would lend the regulators’ perspective on the way and means of marine conservation.

“When I came here today, I actually was going to criticize NOAA for taking too stiff of a stand on these issues,” Ferrante said after the program.

But that’s not what happened. Before the kids even trooped into the auditorium, Ferrante and Coogan took a few moments to chat and something she said made the longtime fisherman soften his views on the divide that exists between the regulators and the regulated.

Coogan, according to Ferrante, explained that NOAA, in its mission to manage the nation’s fisheries, is beholden to higher powers and the mandates that spring from the letter of the laws that govern the nation’s fishermen and fisheries. They are not, she told him, in business to hurt fishermen, that there is no solution to the current crisis without them.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times 

 

December 19, 2013 — The strike by crab fishermen ended last Thursday, Dec. 12, after an 11-day standoff. Fishermen wanted $3 per pound while processors wanted to pay $2.50 per pound. They ended up at a price of $2.65 per pound. Some crab fishermen say they wish they had stayed in Noyo Harbor, with several reporting poor catches.

Dungeness crab was among the three most valuable commercial fisheries in California in seven of the last 10 years. The fishery is undergoing changes, following several studies that found that crab fishing could be much more sustainable if managed differently. In fact, scientists believe crab populations are among the most resilient of seafoods at a time when key food fishes like tuna and salmon face peril.

The current system of crab fishing on the Pacific Coast features a big rush into the water by too many pots, studies have found. A longer, smaller, slower take, such as that small boat fishermen have always done, might be much better for the crab in the long run.

The recreational and commercial crab seasons run until July.

Read the full story at the Fort Bragg Advocate-News 

 

ORONO, Maine — December 18, 2013 — Fishermen, regulators and scientists are trying to determine if the booming population of invasive green crabs along Maine’s coast might turn out to be green in more ways than one.

The “explosion” of green crabs in Maine is the latest example of shifting territory for marine species in the Gulf of Maine, which scientists have said can be linked to recently warming ocean temperatures. The crabs have been blamed for the decimation of eelgrass beds, damage to mud banks in salt marshes and plummeting numbers of softshell clams along the shore in the past two years.

Several hundred people gathered Monday for a conference at the University of Maine — some in person and some online — to talk to each other about green crabs, to see what might be done to reduce their numbers. If a way can be found to create a market for the menace, it could do a lot to provide incentives for people to go out and catch every last green crab they can find, before the softshell clams disappear and the marsh banks collapse into the sea. But finding a way to make money by selling the crabs has been elusive.

Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, said he has seen firsthand the damage the crabs can cause to the shoreline.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News