Page 28 - ARUBA TODAY

A28 SCIENCE
Tuesday 14 March 2017

Drop in herring a mystery in Maine as bait price booms

PATRICK WHITTLE documented warming off
Associated Press New England is bad for the
ROCKLAND, Maine (AP) — fish, he said.
Maine’s booming lobster “They are a cold water
industry has a big problem species. Ten, 20, 30, 50
involving a little fish. years, it may no longer
The state’s iconic lobster be hospitable to herring,”
fishery is healthy, having Sherwood said.
set records for volume Federal and interstate reg-
and value in 2016. But the ulators are looking at dif-
fishery for herring, a small ferent strategies for how to
schooling fish that lobsters manage the herring short-
love to eat, is another story. age. No radical changes
Herring is suddenly the sec- are planned imminently.
ond-most valuable fishery It’s all happening at a
in the state, and Maine’s time when demand for
most valuable species of herring is possibly greater
fish, bringing in $19 million than it has ever been. The
at the docks in 2016. It’s U.S. lobster fishery, which
also the most popular bait is also centered in Maine,
used in lobster traps, and has exploded in recent
the climb in value corre- years, growing from 81 mil-
sponds with demand from lion pounds nationwide in
the hungry lobster fishery 2007 to more than 130 mil-
and a drop in catch of her- lion pounds in Maine alone
ring off of New England. last year. Processed lobster
Scientists and fishermen In this July 8, 2015, file photo, herring are unloaded from a fishing boat in Rockland, Maine. products are growing in
are trying to figure out why Associated Press popularity, and the Asian
Maine’s Atlantic herring market for live lobsters has
catch — the largest in the borne by people who buy Kaelin, and others who led to a bait shortage, be- broken wide open.
nation — has fallen from lobsters. work in and study the fish- cause fishermen are only That growth has driven up
103.5 million pounds in 2014 “The whole dynamic of ery, thinks climate and the allowed to catch a certain demand for bait, said Da-
to 77.2 million last year. The the fishery has changed,” way the government man- percentage of their quotas vid Cousens, the president
per-pound price of the said Jeff Kaelin, who works ages herring may have in inshore waters. of the Maine Lobsterman’s
fish at the dock has gone in government relations played a role in the decline It also fueled speculation Association. The price of
up 56 percent since 2014, for Lund’s Fisheries, which of catch. Atlantic herring that warming waters are herring to fishermen grew
and that price is eventually lands herring in Maine. are managed via a quo- preventing herring, which from $30 to $40 per bushel
ta system, and regulators like the cold, from going last year, Cousens said.
CALL FOR OUR LIVE GIRLS SHOW have slashed the quota by farther out to sea, where Fishermen also use other
more than 40 percent since it is warmer. Graham Sher- types of fish, such as red-
the early 2000s. wood, a research scien- fish and menhaden, but
Last year, herring were tist with the Gulf of Maine herring remain the over-
also difficult to catch far Research Institute in Port- whelming favorite, he said.
offshore, where they are land, said it’s tough to say “They’ve cut the quotas in
typically caught in large if warming waters are actu- half and we’re using twice
amounts, but they were ally keeping herring close as much bait as we used
abundant closer to the to shore in the near term. to,” he said. “It’s a huge
New England coast. This But long term, the much- problem.”q