Maine Senators Susan Collins (R) and Angus King (I) have called for continued engagement with seafood industry stakeholders regarding concerns over ropeless gear, also known as “on-demand” gear.
In a letter to Assistant Administrator for Fisheries at the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Eugenio Piñero Soler, the senators urged consideration of alternatives such as Dynamic Area Management.
Sens. Collins and King explain in their letter that while Maine has made “meaningful progress” toward the eventual adoption of innovative fishing technologies, there are still “substantial issues” that must be resolved before it is “suitable for broad implementation in Maine’s fisheries.”
“Cost and increased trip time are among the most significant barriers,” they said. “Interoperability is another unresolved and critical challenge.”
“We believe a patchwork of flexible, dynamic, adaptive approaches that reflect real-world conditions, ongoing technology development, and meaningful stakeholder input offers the best opportunity to maintain a successful fishery, protect right whales, and preserve the working waterfronts and coastal communities that depend on it,” the senators said.
“A single, uniform solution, particularly one that mandates technology that is not yet proven at scale, is not the right path forward for this fishery or for the conservation goals we share,” they concluded.
Click Here to Read the Senators’ Full Letter
The Maine Lobstermen’s Association has indicated that adopting ropeless gear would cost at least $45 million in total due to the expense of trawling up, acquiring and adding weak points, purchasing specialized rope, lengthening groundlines, marking gear, and hiring additional crew to complete this work.
Conservationists often advocate for the use of ropeless gear on the grounds that it helps to minimize harmful interactions with the North Atlantic right whale, which has been considered endangered since 1970 with a population of roughly 380.
Aside from the people running a few whale watching boats, who would be harmed if we hired up the Japanese to send over a couple of their whaling boats and harvested the Right Whales and sold the meat for dog food?
Oh! Now you want to step up. Float rope, sink rope, purple rope, smokin’ dope.. Break aways….please. Talk about no kings. Aye Vay…
In addition:
Want a clue folks? Mapping the ocean floor. Look it up. AND you pay for it. Yeah, yeah I know, we got a Navy Thank God. Nonetheless.
What’s crushing the lobster Industry?
Regulation
Price fixing
taxation
You don’t just have to follow the money, ask yourself who benefits? Is it getting hot in here?
Oh, and before you lobsterman start beating your gaffs into swords and pitchforks,
There was the “behind the scenes” marketing/investing that did a lot of heavy lifting for the industry. So much so….behold….. Red Lobster! This deserves a hand salute and a BIG Thank You from the “bottom” of our DownEast hearts.
There,
Talk among yourselves
A solution for a problem, that doesn’t exist,…..
Making it tougher for both Lobster men and Oyster men with unproven gear regulation added to Mill Maine Mafia allowing non U.S. companies to use our ports and harbors to run their lobstering and oyster farm from
MaineMadMan, there are no such regulations for Oyster Beds, there are no foreign companies using our ports etc. Now we do sell to Canada, who usually send trucks down to pick the lobsters up.
The only issue with oysters it that they are filter feeders, same as clams, they do harm the clam flats if the oyster beds get to big and starve the clams since the oysters are suspended instead of being on the bottom. Platner would not do very well if he had to actually had to dredge the oysters, way to much work, instead of picking them out of a basket
@Lowell, you are spot on, strangulation by regulation.
Government has been predicting the demise of the lobster farming industry for decades, and by God they’re gonna make it happen.