Tag Archives: David Tarr
Scallop season winds down
As the state’s commercial scallop season winds to a close, federal regulators on April 1 decreased the amount that draggers can land in 2023 in the Northern Gulf of Maine by 25,000 pounds. Total landings for the NGOM for 2023 are 434,311 pounds, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced March 31 as part of its overall NGOM Management Plan for 2023. Vessels are limited to possessing 1,666 pounds of in-shell scallops. NOAA had closed the NGOM scallop fishery on May 26, 2022, when its quota had been landed, effective through March 31 of this year, with Maine and Massachusetts vessels exempted if they were exclusively fishing in state waters. >click to read< 16:28
Maine: Whale rules, pending lawsuits focus of gloomy Lobster Advisory Council meeting
A complicated and potentially grim future is predicted for the commercial lobster industry, with environmental groups, gear changes, the closure of offshore waters to lobster fishing and judicial rulings painting a “doom and gloom” picture, in the words of Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher. “I think there’s going to be a lot of moving pieces,” Some of those pieces could spell the end of the commercial lobster fishery in Maine, DMR Deputy Commissioner Meredith Mendelson said, as she ran through the current lawsuits aimed at preserving the North Atlantic right whale. If any or all prevail, the lobster fishery will bear the brunt of the results. >click to read< 08:12
Whale protection, trawl limits entangle Zone C lobstermen
October is a peak month, according to the state Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, for feistiness in Maine’s population of hornets and wasps. Lobstermen too, judging by last week’s meeting of the Zone C Lobster Management Council at Deer Isle-Stonington High School.,, While the trawl rule was at the forefront of last week’s debate, lurking just below the surface was a technical memorandum issued late last month by the NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center. >click to read<11:49
Trawl limit in Blue Hill Bay not an end to cross-zone fishing issue
A possible compromise with Zone B lobstermen over the boundary lines of a new five-trap trawl limit occupied a Zone C lobster council meeting October 1, the day the rule went into effect. The trawl limit covers a Zone B that is also fished by Zone C license holders, about six miles off Frenchboro around Mt. Desert Rock. A Zone B-proposed boundary line change would move the trawl-limit area from the west side to the east side of the rock. Zone B council initiated the trawl limit rule change because they “were getting boxed out by trawls,” Maine Department of Resources Lobster Council Liaison Sarah Cotnoir said,,, >click to read<14:42
Planned license lottery draws fire at scallop hearing
One look at the audience at a Department of Marine Resources hearing on new scallop fishing rules last week made it clear that the fishery is getting older. By a good margin, most of the three dozen or so scallop harvesters at Ellsworth City Hall last Wednesday evening had faces lined by years on the water and beards long gone gray.,, In 2009, the Legislature passed a moratorium on new scallop licenses. It also ordered DMR to come up with a lottery system to allow new entrants into a fishery that Brooklin scallop dragger David Tarr describes as a “club. click here to read the story 12:12
