Saving Seafood

Maine: Lobstermen must report total catch

February 22, 2018 — New regulations passed February 6 by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission requires 100 percent catch reporting by all Maine lobster and Jonah crab fishermen within five years. Developing an electronic reporting method for Maine fishermen is also under way.

“We argued against it heavily for quite a while,” Sen. Brian Langley (R-Ellsworth) said. “Stonington lands more than all of Southern New England.”

Langley, along with Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher and Stephen Train of Long Island, represent Maine on the commission.

“It’s like a game of Survivor down there,” Langley added. With the collapse of the lobster industry in Southern New England, “Maine sometimes is up against other states.”

Currently, only 10 percent of Maine lobstermen, selected randomly within specific categories, are required to file catch reports for each trip. Fishermen in the 14 other ASFMC member states report all their catch.

However, Maine has the largest lobster fishery of all member states, producing about four-fifths of the nation’s lobster harvest.

“It’s unfortunate states with a few hundred fishermen voted for Maine fishermen,” said Rep. Walter Kumiega (D-Deer Isle), House Chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Marine Resources and 2018 candidate for state senator.

Keliher’s motion to maintain current harvester reporting efforts was amended to add that 100 percent harvester reporting be required within five years—better than the immediate adoption of the regulation that had been earlier presented. A further amendment, that if a commercial harvester landed less than 1,000 pounds of lobster or Jonah crab in the previous year a monthly summary could be submitted, was also successful. The amended motion unanimously passed, as did a provision to develop electronic reporting.

Read the full story at Island Ad-Vantages

 

Maine: Bills to address commercial license glitches

January 3, 2018 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — The Legislature’s Joint Committee on Marine Resources will meet next Wednesday for hearings on three bills aimed at fine-tuning the state’s commercial fishing license system.

One bill, LD1652, would allow the Department of Marine Resources to set up a limited entry system for shrimp fishermen in any year when the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission sets the state’s northern shrimp landings allocation at less than 2,000 metric tons. Currently there is a moratorium on shrimp fishing in the Gulf of Maine.

The ASMFC allowed Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts to establish limited entry programs in their individual shrimp fisheries in 2011 but, so far, that hasn’t happened anywhere.

LD1652 “was a department (DMR) bill,” committee Co-chairman Rep. Walter Kumiega (D-Deer Isle) said last week, adding that Commissioner Patrick Keliher was “reluctant” to establish a limited entry program for the fishery because “once you close it, it’s hard to reopen.”

Despite that difficulty, Kumiega said, given the poor status of the shrimp stock, “we may not have a choice. We don’t know when the next season will be, but it doesn’t hurt to have one in place”

The two other bills are more technical.

LD 1720 would extend the maximum duration of a temporary medical allowance for lobster and crab fishing license holders from one year to two. The bill also establishes a temporary terminal illness medical allowance that would allow the spouse or child of the terminally ill holder of a lobster and crab fishing license to fish on behalf of their family member in limited circumstances.

According to Kumiega, use of the medical allowance provisions is required “more often than you’d think,” and he recounted a personal exposure to a situation in which one spouse was able to haul gear for her husband while he was injured.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

 

MAINE: Fishing surveillance bill amended

May 10, 2017 — A bill that would authorize the Department of Marine Resources to conduct surreptitious electronic surveillance of lobster boats drew mixed reviews at a hearing by the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee in April.

But at a work session last Wednesday, the committee voted to recommend passage of an amended version of the bill.

Introduced by Rep. Walter Kumiega (D-Deer Isle) at the request of the Department of Marine Resources, LD 1379 — as initially formulated — would have given the DMR commissioner authority to approve installation of electronic tracking devices on lobster boats without first getting a warrant from a judge. The approval would have been based on an affidavit from the chief of the Marine Patrol that he had “probable cause” to believe that a civil violation of the laws regulating the placement or hauling of lobster gear had occurred.

At its work session last week, the committee scrapped the idea of authorizing the commissioner to approve installation of tracking devices and took a new approach.

According to committee Co-chairman Kumiega, the committee opted to make four kinds of conduct “associated with fishing over the limit” of traps allowed Class D misdemeanors.

As of now, these violations are civil offenses.

The reason for the change, Kumiega said, is that Marine Patrol officers could not obtain sealed warrants from a judge when the offenses were handled as civil violations.

As criminal offenses, that all would change. Marine Patrol officers would be able to obtain warrants without giving notice to the subject of an investigation.

Read the full story at the Ellsworth American

Amid boom in catch, debate rages over lobster license rules

February 10, 2016 — AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Members of the next generation of Maine lobster fishermen say they fear they will never get a license to fish for the valuable critters, but some longstanding lobstermen fear changing the rules could result in overfishing.

A key Maine legislative panel held a public hearing on Wednesday on changes designed to streamline the process of obtaining one of about 5,800 lobstering licenses in the state. The call for changes comes as Maine lobsters have grown in value in recent years, and prices have held steady for consumers as lobstermen’s catches have boomed, resulting in heavy supply.

A vote could come as early as Feb. 17.

There are nearly 300 people on the waiting list for a license, and some have been on the list for more than a decade. Ethan DeBery, a Phippsburg lobsterman who completed an apprenticeship and has been on the list for seven years, said the current system isn’t fair.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald

Some dislike proposal to ease long waits for Maine lobstering licenses

January 24, 2016 — It can take years for someone to move off a waiting list to become a commercial lobsterman in Maine, and for years fishermen have been trying to figure out a way to make the licensing process work while protecting the health of the lobster population.

Now a bill that aims to accomplish both goals appears to be headed for a fight when it goes before the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee on Feb. 10.

The bill, if enacted, probably wouldn’t have an impact on lobster prices or consumers, especially in the short term. But it could affect who gets some of the roughly 5,800 commercial lobster licenses available statewide. It also could make a difference in areas where lobstering is the major industry or where the population of lobstermen is older.

“People who live in struggling coastal communities care about this,” said Rep. Walter Kumiega, D-Deer Isle, sponsor of the bill and House chairman of the Marine Resources Committee.

The core issue is how to protect the state’s lucrative lobster fishery, which is in the midst of a boom even as the fishery has drastically declined in southern New England. In Maine the lobster haul reached 123.6 million pounds – worth a record $456.9 million – in 2014, the latest year for which statistics are available.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald

MAINE: Lobster license bill hearing is scheduled

AUGUSTA, Maine — January 9, 2016 — A bill that would tweak the state’s commercial lobster license system is scheduled for a public hearing with the legislature’s Marine Resources Committee Feb. 3.

LD 1503, “An Act to Create a Class II Limited Lobster and Crab Fishing License and Improve the Limited-entry System,” was sponsored by Rep. Walter Kumiega (D-Deer Isle) and drafted in consultation with Department of Marine Resources staff. The bill makes some changes to entry into the lobster fishery and other changes to address latent effort (traps and licenses not being actively fished).

Between 2012 and 2014, only two fishermen were issued new licenses off the apprentice program waiting list in Zone B, which includes waters off Mount Desert Island. In that same period, 31 young people received Zone B commercial licenses when they upgraded their student licenses to commercial ones, bypassing the waiting list.

Zone B has a waiting list with 54 names, with the top seven having joined the list in 2005.

“Nobody expected the apprentice waiting lists to get this long,” Southwest Harbor fisherman Andy Mays said. “Once you make it so you can’t get a license, nobody’s gonna get rid of them. That’s why there’s so much latency.”

Read the full story opinion piece from the Mount Desert Islander

MAINE: Marine Resources Committee schedules hearing on elver legislation

January 6, 2016 — ELLSWORTH, Maine — The Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee has scheduled a public hearing on a bill introduced by Rep. Walter Kumiega (D-Deer Isle) that would give the Department of Marine Resources more flexibility in managing the elver fishery.

The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 13, in Room 206 of the Cross Building in Augusta.

Sen. Brian Langley (R-Hancock County) is among the bill’s co-sponsors.

Kumiega, House chairman of the Marine Resources Committee, has proposed a bill that would, he said last month, “provide increased flexibility and promote maximum utilization of the elver quota by Maine’s elver harvesters.”

The law as it now stands calls for a 48-hour fishing closure each week to give the juvenile eels, commonly known as elvers, a chance to pass upstream on their spring journey from the sea to their spawning grounds in Maine’s streams, lakes and ponds. The closed period is now set by statute and runs from Friday at noon to Sunday at noon each week. Kumiega’s bill would let DMR set the 48-hour closed periods by rule prior to the start of the season, based on the timing of the weekly tidal cycle. The department would consult with industry members to determine which weekly 48-hour period would have the least impact on the fishery opportunity by setting the closed periods when the tides are the least advantageous to harvesting.

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

 

MAINE: Legislature to consider fisheries bills on “emergency” basis

December 9, 2015 — The Legislature will take up bills dealing with the lobster and elver fisheries when it returns to work next month, but new licensing rules for the scallop industry will likely have to wait.

Last month, the Legislative Council approved two bills proposed by Rep. Walter Kumiega (D-Deer Isle) for consideration by the full Legislature when it returns to work in January. The council has to green-light any new bills that lawmakers want to introduce during the Legislature’s second session.

Kumiega, House chairman of the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee, will offer a bill that would, he said, “provide increased flexibility and promote maximum utilization of the elver quota by Maine’s elver harvesters,” if enacted.

Current law calls for a 48-hour fishing closure each week to provide an opportunity for juvenile eels to pass upstream on their seasonal journey from the sea to their spawning areas in Maine’s streams, lakes and ponds. The closed period is now set by statute and runs from Friday at noon to Sunday at noon. Kumiega’s bill would give DMR flexibility to set the 48-hour weekly closed period by rule prior to the start of the season based on the timing of the tidal cycle.

DMR would consult with industry members to determine which weekly 48-hour period would have the least impact on harvesting opportunity by setting the closed period when the tides are the least advantageous to harvesting.

The high price of elvers in recent years has made the fishery second only to lobster in terms of the value of the fishery in Maine.

Read the full story from The Ellsworth American