Coronavirus has created unprecedented challenges for Maine’s lobster fishery. Traditional market channels are constrained in ways we could never have imagined, forcing the industry to reinvent itself, practically on a daily basis. Direct to consumers … Continue reading
Category: Management, PeopleCanada announced new regulations to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale. From April to November, the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada will close fishing in areas of the Gulf of St. Lawrence … Continue reading
Category: ManagementA panel of five officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spoke to and answered questions from a largely polite audience of lobstermen and others at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum in March. Chris Oliver, … Continue reading
Category: ManagementMaine DMR announced new gear marking requirements for Maine lobstermen in November 2019. As with anything new, there have been lots of questions from lobstermen about why these changes are needed. Maine’s Marine Patrol provided … Continue reading
Category: ManagementMore than 120 people attended the Lobster Institute’s Canada/U.S. Lobster Town Meeting held in Moncton, New Brunswick on January 24-25. The focus of the 2020 event was “Lobsters without borders: Forging our futures together.” It … Continue reading
Category: ManagementThe Maine lobster marketing program positively influences perceptions of our product and fishery in the face of many threats to success and matters outside our control. It provides a unified voice on key issues and … Continue reading
Category: ManagementTwo passive acoustic data collection efforts are underway in the Gulf of Maine to gather information on North Atlantic right whales. One will deploy fixed archival-acoustic recorders mounted on the ocean bottom for a specific … Continue reading
Category: ManagementWhale entanglement issues in fixed gear fisheries are the topic of most dock talk in the Northeast and Northwest this winter. At the same time, however, on the other side of the roaring storm of … Continue reading
Category: ManagementIn January the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) informed the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) that its proposal to reduce the risk of entanglement by North Atlantic right whales in lobster gear did … Continue reading
Category: Management“I’m sick of it, Maine is not killing these whales,” announced lobsterman Peter Eaton of Cape Porpoise. His words captured the frustration voiced by many of the state’s lobstermen over the latest iteration of the … Continue reading
Category: Management