Tag Archives: Carla Guenther
Maine researchers, students are sorting through muck and slugs to study baby scallops
People from each of these groups are collaborating with the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership and Colby College in the second year of a study meant to help identify how many young scallops there are off Maine’s coast, and where they’re living. The tiny, two-shelled juveniles, or spat, are uniquely important to fishermen who scoop wild scallops from the ocean floor and aquaculture farmers who raise them in contained areas. Unlike most aquaculture farmers who work with other species, scallop farmers can only grow their bounty from wild spat – the same spat that wild scallop fishermen need to feed the general population. Photos, more, >>click to read<< 12:50
Maine Fishermen, scientists find flaws in potential wind energy lease areas
BOEM officials called the meeting to review newly released draft maps of where federal leases could be offered in the Gulf of Maine, known as the “call” area. They wanted fishermen’s feedback to see where the maps fell short based on what fishermen know from working on the water. “This is very difficult for our industry to face,” said Dustin Delano, New England Fishermen Stewardship’s chief operating officer, former vice president of the Maine Lobster Association and a fourth-generation lobsterman out of Friendship. “A lot of us feel this is going to wipe us off the map.” The fishermen present were unconvinced but resigned. >click to read< 07:55
Lobstermen plagued by low catch, low prices
As the shedder, or soft shell, season winds down with higher value hard shell lobsters on the horizon, local lobstermen are hoping to turn what has so far been a dismal season around. Lobsters are in hiding, or so it seems to lobstermen. “I’d say we’ve caught about half the lobsters [than in recent years],” Stonington lobsterman Tony Bray said of the 2017 season. The Stonington Lobster Co-op, which buys a large proportion of the local catch, reported a 25 to 30 percent drop in volume over last year. “The lobsters are out there, so this is not likely reflective of a resource decline,” said Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries scientist Carla Guenther, who follows Department of Marine Resources data monitoring. “It may be reflective of a habitat shift as to where the lobsters are, and a behavior shift as a reaction to the colder water.” click here to read the story 15:16
