Tag Archives: Independent Maine Marine Worm Harvesters Association

Maine fisheries groups support DMR Commissioner Keliher

In what must be a first in modern history, virtually every commercial fishing organization in Maine joined together to urge Governor-elect Janet Mills to keep Patrick Keliher on the job as commissioner of Marine Resources after she takes office in January. First reported in the Maine Lobstermen’s Association’s Landings, shortly after the election, the MLA, Downeast Lobstermen’s Association, Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, Maine Aquaculture Association, Alewife Harvesters of Maine, Maine Elver Fishermen Association and the Independent Maine Marine Worm Harvesters Association signed a letter to Mills voicing the organizations’ unanimous support for the current DMR commissioner. >click to read<18:08

Worm harvesters angered by ANP enforcement actions

20140123_113747.xml-20070327_clam_digger_1As Acadia National Park celebrates its 100th anniversary, a simmering dispute over worm and clam harvesting on the intertidal zone flats bordering park lands is coming to a boil.Last fall, a park ranger allegedly confiscated one digger’s clam harvest and summoned him for taking clams from the flats inside the park boundaries. This spring, another ranger forced a worm harvester to dump his day’s take of bloodworms and leave the flats or face a summons. Ellsworth worm digger Kenny Webber said he had started his day harvesting worms off Frazer Point and “worked around down by the old Navy base on Schoodic Point,” where he encountered the park ranger who made him return his take to the flats. “I lost a day’s pay,” Webber said. “I had a hundred dollars worth.” On Saturday, some two dozen members of the Independent Maine Marine Worm Harvesters Association met at Skeet Seavey’s ER Baits shop in Hancock to discuss what they see as a power grab by the park administration and to map out a response. “It’s a bad situation, the power the government’s trying to grab,” Hampden worm digger Peter Pellerin said. “We have to stand up.” Read the story here 21:30