Tag Archives: Pat Keliher
LePage talks to White House about controversy over lobstermen restrictions
Former Gov. Paul LePage continues to be involved with the debate over proposed new regulations on Maine lobstermen, designed to protect right whales. Several weeks ago, Gov. LePage sent a letter to President Donald Trump, opposing those new restrictions and saying they are an “overreach” by the government because Maine fishermen aren’t harming the whales. Now the former governor’s political organization says LePage had a phone conversation on the issue today with what it calls “senior White House officials.” >click to read< 18:27
Lobstermen tell regulators: Give us fewer buoy lines, but let us fish them how we want
Brian Tripp, a Sedgwick lobsterman, urged Maine to adopt a buoy line tagging system to help reduce the number of lines that link a fisherman’s buoys to his traps by 50 percent, which is what federal regulators say it will take to protect the endangered right whale from deadly entanglements. Under current state law, most Maine fishermen have a right to fish up to 800 of these surface-to-seabed lines. To meet the federal risk reduction goal, Maine can issue each fisherman 400 buoy line tags, Tripp said – half the number they are allowed to have now. Fishermen could live with that if they had the freedom to fish those 400 buoy lines how they want, he said. >click to read<11:21
This year, a welcome switch on bait supply for Maine lobstermen
Bait freezers along the coast are full of herring and pogies, and even alewives, which means that bait is not only available, it is also much less expensive than last year when herring cost as much as 60 cents a pound, said Pat Keliher, commissioner of the state Department of Marine Resources. This year the lobstermen’s go-to bait costs about half as much. That’s still not a great price, Keliher said. Herring fetched about 18 cents a pound at the start of the 2015 lobstering season. “I won’t say we’re in great shape, but we are in a heck of a lot better shape than we were last year,” Keliher said. He attributed the strong start to basic supply-and-demand economics. click here to read the story 08:18
