October 2, 2018 — Maine’s 21st century saltwater farmers are using new techniques and technology to produce scallops, oysters, salmon and eels — to name just a few. All this week Maine Public Radio is profiling innovators who want to take Maine’s aquaculture industry to the next level.
Maine Public reporter Fred Bever has spent some time with these entrepreneurs, reporting for our series, “Aquaculture’s Next Wave.” He joined Nora Flaherty on Maine Things Considered to discuss the project.
Flaherty: Fred, you’ve been doing a lot of reporting on this. What’s the bottom line?
Bever: The bottom line is that Maine fishermen are increasingly turning to farming fish and shellfish as a hedge against uncertainty about the wild fisheries.
Now, is that because the Gulf of Maine is warming so fast? Is it overfishing?
It’s both, and there are other factors, but the Gulf is warming faster than most saltwater bodies on the planet, which is disrupting ecosystems and wild-caught harvests. The herring fishery is recently in trouble — we’ve seen a lot about that in the news lately — but cod, urchin, Maine shrimp, they’re all restricted now or completely off-limits.
But the warmer waters have been good for lobster populations here and for the lobster industry, right?
Incredibly good, we’ve seen record hauls this decade. But an appreciable number of lobstermen are not taking that for granted. Lobster populations are slowly moving north and east, herring for bait are an issue now, and the plight of the North Atlantic right whale threatens to force expensive, and maybe prohibitive, gear changes by fishermen.