Tag Archives: Maine Coast
Maine’s having a lobster boom. A bust may be coming.
The waters off Maine’s coast are warming, and no one knows what that’s going to mean for the state’s half-billion-dollar-a-year lobster industry, the largest single-species fishery in North America. Some fear that continued warming could cause the lobster population to collapse. The Gulf of Maine, an ocean body brimming with marine life, is cradled by Cape Cod in the south and the Bay of Fundy in the north, and bounded in the east by two underwater shoals, George’s Bank and Brown’s Bank. In 2015, climate scientist Andy Pershing, formerly of the Portland-based nonprofit Gulf of Maine Research Institute, published a paper in Science concluding that the gulf was warming faster than “99% of the global ocean.” That eye-popping revelation was enough to keep fisheries managers and a whole lot of Mainers awake at night. >click to read< 16:27
Many US lobster companies coping well with tariff impact
As the trade war between the United States and China continues, with indications that it may escalate even further, most U.S.-based lobster companies have seen their exports to China fall dramatically. Despite the decrease, many companies say the market for lobster is still strong enough to keep the impact to their companies at a minimum. Some companies that never invested heavily into Chinese exports said 2018 has been a better-than-average year. >click to read<12:36
Coast Guard rescues 4 Fishermen off Maine coast
The Coast Guard rescued four fishermen Wednesday morning after the fishing vessel Lydia & Maya started taking on water about 40 miles south of Southwest Harbor, Maine. At about midnight, Coast Guard Sector Northern New England watchstanders received a broken transmission from a crew member aboard the 71-foot vessel saying they were taking on water. Shortly after, an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon alert was sounded, notifying watchstanders the crew was in the water. Coast Guard Station Southwest Harbor launched a 47-foot boat crew, and Air Station Cape Cod launched a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew. Using the EPIRB distress signal to locate the fishermen, the helicopter crew arrived on scene at about 2 a.m. to find four people in a life raft shooting off flares and using a signal light. The rescue swimmer was deployed, and all four fishermen were airlifted into the helicopter. The crew was suffering mild hypothermic conditions. They were taken to Bar Harbor airport to awaiting Emergency Medical Services. The condition of the fishing vessel is still under investigation. Link 07:21
How an ex-dockworker turned his passion for lobster into a $40 million business
After getting a taste of life as a dockworker when he was a teenager, Tom Adams was hooked. More than three decades later, 46-year-old Adams has climbed from earning $4.50 an hour to heading Maine Coast, the seafood distributor he founded in 2011 that generated $40 million in sales last year. “I got a little salt in my blood and ended up staying with it,” Adams said of his early education in the business, which included unloading boats, grading lobster and picking their meat. After years working with the same company that first hired him, Adams decided to part ways with the business and sell the considerable stake he’d built in it. While Adams declined to share an exact figure, he said the investors paid more than $1 million. As part of the deal, he signed a two-year non-compete, which prohibited him from working for a lobster company in the meantime. Video, read the rest here 18:04
