April 1, 2013 — Democratic Senate candidate and U.S. Rep Stephen Lynch met with The Editorial Board of The Standard-Times to discuss a wide range of issues, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations regulation of the fishing industry.
Watch the video at the New Bedford Standard-Times
ELLSWORTH, Maine — March 29, 2013 — A year after catching state officials off guard by issuing 236 elver fishing licenses in the middle of elver season, the Passamaquoddy Tribe has issued more than twice that amount for 2013.
And in so doing, the tribe has exceeded the limit set by state law, according to Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher. For that reason, Keliher said Friday, the department is invalidating all but 150 of the 575 licenses issued by the tribe.
“Each of those licenses are numbered, so we are going in order,” Keliher said. Any tribal license numbered 151 or higher will be considered void by Maine Marine Patrol, he said.
As a result, starting at noon Sunday, anyone caught using a Passamaquoddy license numbered 151 or higher will be summoned on a civil charge and have their gear confiscated by marine patrol, he said.
During the 10-week season, which runs from March 22 through May 31, fishing is not allowed from noon Saturday to noon Sunday or from noon Tuesday to noon Wednesday.
On Friday, DMR received from the Passamaquoddys a list of tribal licensees with 575 names on it — several hundred more than the limit set for the tribe by state law, according to department officials.
Keliher said that by issuing 575, the tribe has put Maine out of compliance with elver fishing restrictions imposed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.
“The Passamaquoddys have jeopardized this entire fishery for the entire state,” Keliher said.
Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News
March 11, 2013 — Louisiana seafood ranked 10th in the U.S. in terms of total economic impact generated from seafood sales in 2011, according to a National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service report released on Thursday (March 7).
Economic impact includes variables such as employment, labor income and sales – including imported seafood sales – not only for commercial fishers but also for processors, suppliers, grocers and restaurants.
While Louisiana seafood's economic impact wasn't near the top of the national, Louisiana came in second behind Alaska in terms local seafood poundage landed per state. Louisiana fisheries came in second by catching nearly 1.3 billion pounds of seafood in 2011; Alaska's fisheries produced about 5.3 billion.
ELLSWORTH, Maine — March 29, 2013 — With their newly lucrative industry coming under closer scrutiny from fishing regulators, elver fishermen have decided it is time to join together to make their concerns known in Augusta and out of state.
To that end, a group of about 50 met this week at the local Elks Club and formed the Maine Elver Fishermen’s Association.
Darrell Young of Waltham organized the meeting and is one of four licensed elver fishermen who were picked to serve on the fledgling group’s board of directors. He said Friday that there is a lot more organizational work the group has to do, such as drafting bylaws and registering as a nonprofit, but that it hopes to be fully functional within the next week or so.
“Hopefully, we’ll get more people on board,” he said, noting that there are several hundred licensed elver fishermen in Maine. “The more people we get, the more power we’ll have.”
He said the group plans to attend three upcoming meetings the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission has scheduled next month in Maine so it can weigh in on new fishery management measures the multistate agency is considering for American eels. Elvers, or glass eels, are young American eels. Other eel fisheries in Maine and elsewhere along the East Coast, for yellow and silver eels, target later life stages of the same species.
Young said that though the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission has said the American eel population is depleted in U.S. waters, their population in Maine seems to be healthy. Aside from increased protections being considered by the fisheries commission, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service also is considering listing the species under the federal Endangered Species Act, which could result in a ban on all American eel fisheries.
The fact that Maine licensed fishermen caught nearly $38 million worth of elvers in 2012 — which broke the previous record value by more than $30 million — shows how important the fishery has become in the past few years, Young said.
“It’s not depleted, by no means,” he said. “It definitely helps the economy.”
The average price Maine elver fishermen have earned for their catch soared from $185 per pound in 2010 to nearly $900 a year later after demand spiked in Asia following the Japanese tsunami in March 2011. Last year, the average price continued to skyrocket to nearly $2,000 per pound.
Prices dealers are offering fishermen this season, which began a week ago, range from $1,700 to $2,000 per pound, fishermen and state officials have said. Maine’s annual elver season runs from March 22 through May 31.
Gloucester, Mass., — April 1, 2013 — Hampton Bays, New York filmmaker Tom Garber’s new documentary, Salt of the Sea, which recently won an award at Indie Fest, and the Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival will be screened at the Cape Ann Community Cinema, Monday April 8 @ 6:30PM.
Salt of the Sea, tells the compelling story of a vanishing breed of independent commercial fishermen in New England. The film shows how contradictory fish catch limits coupled with flawed enforcement efforts are contributing to the loss of a waterfront culture that has existed for centuries.
Filmed on several independently owned/operated boats in Long Island, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts over 18 months, Salt of the Sea shows stunning onboard footage of the men and their boats at work, and includes interviews with working fishermen, government regulators, and Federal politicians. The film outlines the flawed data that creates catch limits, exposes overzealous law enforcement practices, and reveals the $48 million missing from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s enforcement fund.
Ultimately Salt of the Sea is a story of survival, how the desire to make a living from New England waters, in spite of all the obstacles, drives men to their limits, and beyond. This is Mr. Garber’s 10th documentary film on a maritime subject. His prior films which have aired on PBS and the Discovery Channel cover ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. First Light, Mr. Garber’s film on Montauk Point Lighthouse was nominated for an Emmy, and he recently completed two films on the tugboats of New York Harbor.
For more information:
March 27, 2013 — There was no dissenting voice on the merits of naming calamari Rhode Island's official appetizer at a State House hearing, but there were lots of remarkable numbers on the importance of squid to the local economy.
Some 17.5 million pounds of annual squid landings valued at about $18 million makes squid the state's most valuable commercial fishery, said R.I. Department of Environmental Management assistant director Robert Ballou. There are currently about 125 vessels in commercial squid fishery.
He testified in support of the bill from Rep. Joseph McNamara, D-Cranston, Warwick, at a hearing before the House Committee on Health, Education and Welfare, which McNamara chairs.
Read the full story at the Providence Journal
EUREKA, Ca. — March 27, 2013 — During a visit to Eureka Tuesday, Congressman Jared Huffman announced plans to introduce legislation aimed at alleviating the financial hardship of a federal loan that has been weighing on Pacific Coast groundfish fishermen for just under a decade.
During a visit to Eureka Tuesday, Congressman Jared Huffman announced plans to introduce legislation aimed at alleviating the financial hardship of a federal loan that has been weighing on Pacific Coast groundfish fishermen for just under a decade.
Huffman's “Revitalizing the Economy of Fisheries in the Pacific Act” picks up where a bipartisan bill introduced in Sept. 2012 by former North Coast Congressmen Mike Thompson left off and would allow for the refinancing of a $35.7 million buyback loan authorized by Congress in 2003.
The opportunity to refinance the loan at a lower interest rate would give local groundfish fishermen the same opportunities as any homeowner or business, Huffman said during a news conference to announce the bill held outside the Humboldt Bay Aquatic Center Tuesday afternoon. The bipartisan bill would not require the federal government to spend any new money.
”It is becoming increasingly difficult for them (fishermen) — especially small businesses — to repay that debt, plus new fees — higher fuel costs, higher health care costs — and to remain in business,” he said. “Like any of us, they would like to refinance. They would like to take advantage of these historically low interest rates that we have today, but they need an act of Congress to do that.”
Read the full story at the Times-Standard
GLOUCESTER, Va. — March 26, 2013 — Rob Latour of the College of William and Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science will explore long-simmering issues surrounding Atlantic menhaden, their commercial harvest and the recreational fisheries that target their predators at an After Hours lecture this Thursday evening.
Latour’s lecture follows the General Assembly’s recent vote to reduce the commercial catch of Atlantic menhaden in Virginia waters by 20 percent, bringing Virginia in line with other states along the Eastern seaboard in a coast-wide management plan adopted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission in December.
Latour is a member and past chair of the menhaden technical committee for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the body charged with management of menhaden populations along the East Coast. He has worked with colleagues to determine menhaden abundance in the Bay, to quantify the role that menhaden play in filtering water and sustaining predators, and to better understand the process by which young menhaden are "recruited" into the adult population.
Read the full article at the Virginia Gazette
PORTLAND, Maine — March 26, 2013 — A boom that saw Maine fishermen harvest millions of pounds of sea urchins for the lucrative Japanese market depleted the spiny sea creatures, turning the ecosystem upside-down and creating an ideal habitat for an urchin predator that has flourished, according to a new scientific study.
The urchin bonanza of the 1990s triggered an ecological chain reaction that ‘‘flipped’’ the ecosystem from one with a stable amount of kelp and Jonah crabs to one with an overabundance of kelp and crabs and a lack of urchins, the study said.
The urchin population might not recover unless fishery managers find ways to increase the number of fish that prey on Jonah crabs, whose strong numbers have been preventing the urchin population from rebounding, researchers said.
What has happened with urchins underscores the need for ecosystem-based ocean management, where regulators recognize that the rise or fall of one species can affect the rise or fall of another, said Robert Steneck, a professor at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center who led the study.
‘‘This kind of ecological interaction was the impetus for President Obama’s initiative in 2010 to move the country toward ecosystem management,’’ Steneck said. ‘‘We have been ignoring strong interactions among species for decades. This is a great example of how it’s more complicated than just assuming that by reducing fishing mortality rates on a managed species, it’s going to recover.’’
Read the full story from The Boston Globe
March 25, 2013 — Though reduced in numbers, the St. Croix River's alewives have a lot of friends.
At a legislative hearing Monday, speaker after speaker rose to support a bill that would open most of the fishways at most of the river's dams immediately to the small schooling fish, which have been blocked from most of the sprawling watershed since 1995.
Fishermen who catch lobsters, alewives and groundfish spoke in support of a full opening. They were joined by environmentalists, anglers and representatives of the Passamaquoddy tribal government, federal agencies and the Canadian government, which has sovereignty over half of the St. Croix watershed and controls a key border-spanning dam on the international river.
"It's long since time to make the change," said George Smith, retired longtime head of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, who previously supported the closure. "I respectfully and regretfully have concluded that we were wrong in 1995. I think full restoration as soon as possible is the right way to go."
Fishing guides from interior Washington County appeared isolated in opposing the restoration, fearing that alewives will harm smallmouth bass. None of the legislators on the Marine Resources Committee appeared to back their cause in the questions they asked during the six-hour hearing.
Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald