Category: Fisheries

Red Tide at Record Levels

| Posted in General News, Fisheries

Red tide blooms in Maine are at record high levels. They are at 50-60 times the limit at which the state closes clam flats, according to an article in today’s Press Herald.

“With this (red tide), even a small number of clams would get people very sick and might actually be fatal if harvested from certain locations,” Anderson [a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts] said.

Tomalley, the green substance in lobsters, also is considered unsafe to eat because of red tide. Lobster meat and meat from scallops and from fish are not affected by the toxin.

CSAs on an Upswing

| Posted in Farming, Fisheries

There’s a front page story in today’s Press Herald on the increasing popularity of CSAs in Maine.

The number of CSAs in Maine has roughly doubled to 140 in the past three years, said Melissa White Pillsbury, organic marketing coordinator for the Maine Organic Gardeners and Farmers Association. The public’s increased familiarity with CSAs and the growing number of farms in Maine are some of the reasons cited for the trend.

The CSA approach is also being applied to business beyond the farm.

Others involved in food production are also adopting the concept and tailoring it to meet their needs. In Maine, apple orchards, sheep farms, fishermen and bakeries are among those using the CSA model.

LobsterBIZ

| Posted in Fisheries

The Forecaster has a report on the LobsterBIZ program that occurred Monday at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. LobsterBIZ is a day long seminar being held in Portland, Rockland and Ellsworth to provide lobstermen with the business knowledge they need to succeed in the current market.

LobsterBIZ coordinator Meredith Mandelson, GMRI’s community project manager, said the seminars are being funded through a $50,000 grant from the Lobster Research, Education and Development Board, which oversees the revenue generated from lobster license plate sales. Now that the ground work has been laid, Mandelson said she hopes the seminars will become an annual event.

Lobster 2009

| Posted in Fisheries

After a very rough year in 2008, lobstermen are hoping for a better market price this year. According to a front page story in today’s Press Herald,

The price paid to lobstermen last week ranged from $4 per pound in Portland to $3.25 per pound Down East. Retail prices started at about $5.50 per pound for the smallest lobsters.

The lobsters on the market now are usually the most valuable of the season, both because they are in tight supply and because their hard shells mean they can be shipped live around the world as well as sold locally. When the peak summer season starts around July 4, the market is typically flooded with soft-shell lobsters that can only be sold locally, bringing the price down by as much as $2 a pound.

Pandalus borealis

| Posted in Fisheries

An article in today’s Press Herald explains the reproductive cycle of Maine shrimp (Pandalus borealis) and how the temperature sensitive process might be impacted by global warming.

Shrimp spend their brief adult lives on the dark ocean bottom and never come near blooming plankton. So, to synchronize the egg hatching and plankton blooming, it seems, the shrimp key in to the temperature at the ocean bottom.

Price Fixing?

| Posted in Fisheries

An article in the latest issue of Working Waterfront reports on the belief by some that the recent fluctuations in lobster price are the result of price fixing.

Some fishermen think dealers and poundkeepers cheat them and have “since time immemorial,” to quote one, as a matter of course, and nothing will disabuse them of this notion. But fishermen and dealers from both sides of the border, this time, were sure someone-and by that they meant one of the big dealers or perhaps one of the big Canadian processors-must have been manipulating the price. There could be no other reason for the price to jump so high so fast.

Maine Street Marketplace

| Posted in Events, Farming, Fisheries

There’s an article in today’s Press Herald about the goals of Maine Street Marketplace initiative that’s meeting this week at USM.

Maine farmers, fishermen and others are working to create a new delivery system to connect customers with locally produced food and agricultural products.

The idea is to set up an online grocery store that would take customer orders for the wide range of produce, fish, meat, poultry, dairy and other agricultural products produced around the state. A warehousing and distribution system would be part of the venture, which may also include a retail store and commercial kitchen for food processing.