Maine Fishermens Forum 2017 Audio mp3s Herring, Coral & NOAA leaders

Fishermens Forum 2017 
Recordings include Seminars on Herring, NOAA leaders Q&A, Coral Zones in the GOM

Friday.
HERRING  54 minutes
Herring update & bait Part 1. 42minutes, 36 seconds 
Herring update & bait Pt2. 12min

NOAA LEADERS FORUM      Full 55min
NOAA leaders Forum Introduction 11 min
NOAA Leaders Forum qa1 9min55sec
NOAA Leaders Forum qa2_11min11sec   
NOAA Leaders Forum qa3_8min 26sec
NOAA Leaders Forum qa4_8min 40sec.
NOAA Leaders forum qa5 to end. 4min37sec

Saturday
CORAL CONSERVATION ZONES IN THE GULF OF MAINE  56 MIN
Part 1. 16 minutes  
Part 2. 40 minutes

Coral conservation zones & lobster revenue [slide]
Coral Conservation zones evaluating impacts [Slide]

Mainers are farming their lobsters. Confirmed.

In his 2010 report "Use of Herring Bait to Farm Lobsters in the Gulf of Maine"  Gulf of Maine research institute researcher Jonathan H. Grabowski, says it is "human augmentation" of wild lobsters' natural diets with herring bait that keeps the population of lobsters high and steady.

Is that really "farming"?  Well, yes. Not exactly "herding" the lobsters, but establishing diffused underwater CAFO concentrated animal feedlot operations, only in the case of lobsters, DAFOs Dynamic Animal Feedlot Operations that travel with the migrating lobsters. A sort of crustacean welfare.

 

Of course these feedlots require the hunter/gatherer herring fleets that ply the Gulf of Maine, zone by seasonal zone, seeking out and tapping into the great schools that also feed other fishes, the marine mammals and seabirds.

 

Last year these boats made  60,000 metric tons of herring  (about 132 million individual fishes)  directly available to the bristly palates of  Maine's lobsters via the lobster traps. (Herring average about a pound each, and  about three pounds of bait are used per  pound of lobster captured).

There are myriad other elements to this watery agribusiness from boatbuilders to regulators and tax gatherers, but the care we take in these two fisheries are key to the success of the whole enterprise as it value-adds its way into the greater economy.

(photo courtesy Lobster Adventure)

Maine lobsters are fat & happy; but lobstermen not so much.

It was the best of times, the worst of times...

The cold economic equations continue to keep Maine lobster price low at the docks and lobstermen's wallets thin  As Maine Lobstermen's Association president Dave Cousens recently was quoted, his industry's  "financial business plan is based on a $4 [per pound] boat price. If we get below $4, it doesn't work...." 

 

Dave also noted that Maine's wild lobster community was thriving, though he would not say the same for Atlantic herring.

 

So let's consider this little animal we call "herring" is doing: Like all planktivores, stresses to the plankton , something we 'sapients' witlessly do all the time, there are less plankton eaters like herring. 

 

And this small fish is the primary food daily set before Maine lobsters in lobster "traps".  Traps? Think of the traps as soup kitchens, and millions of hungry lobsters - All you can eat!! -  filing in and out of millions of traps every day all day for much of the year.   

 

A  very fattening diet for lobsters to stay on, far divorced from their natural food of worms, plankton, mussels, clams. seaweed, other crustaceans  Herring in traps, regularly replaced, is manna from lobster heaven, raining down  .

But now the servings are about to stop being supersized, because the allowable  2010/2011 herring kill in the Gulf of Maine is being cut down to around 58 million individual herrings,  a way down from the 150 million or so herrings lawfully slain in the Gulf of Maine, in '06. The drop in herring feed will force millions of lobsters to tighten their carapaces and return to the hunting and gathering life.

(Photo courtesy National Geographic)

Inshore GOM herring fishery closed till January 1, '08

From the Federal Register: October 25, 2007

Fisheries of the Northeastern United States:

ACTION: Closure of Atlantic herring fishery for Management Area 1A.

SUMMARY: NMFS announces that effective 0001 hours, October 25, 2007, federally permitted vessels may not fish for, catch, possess, transferor land more than 2,000 lb (907.2 kg) of Atlantic herring in or from Management Area 1A (Area 1A) per trip or calendar day until January 1,2008, when the 2008 TAC becomes available, except for transiting purposes as described in this notice.

This action is based on the determination that 95 percent of the Atlantic herring total allowable catch (TAC) allocated to Area 1A for 2007 is projected to be harvestedby October 25, 2007.

Regulations governing the Atlantic herring fishery require publication of this notification to advise vessel and dealer permit holders that no TAC is available for the directed fishery for Atlantic herring harvested from Area 1A.

DATES: Effective 0001 hrs local time, October 25, 2007, through 2400hrs local time, December 31, 2007.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Don Frei, Fishery ManagementSpecialist, at (978) 281-9221.