Maine’s commercial fisheries are thriving in spite of a pandemic year, tariffs on trade with China and looming issues affecting lobsters and lobstermen. The Maine Department of Marine Resources announced on March 24 an ex-vessel value of $516,796,614 for the state’s 2020 commercial landings.
As team captains for 202021, junior Olivia Mitchell of Bainbridge Island, Wash., and sophomore Natalie Samuels of San Ramon, Calif., led a team of 37 sailors throughout the school year of training.
“I think a lot of people forget [the program] exists,” Edwards said. “It’s been around over 10 years and made a significant impact on the resource and the economics of the region.”
According to preliminary totals at the end of last season, Maine elver dealers reported buying a total of just over 9,650 pounds with a value of $5,067,522. The average price per pound was $525.
At their March 4 meeting, members of the Gouldsboro Board of Selectmen voted 5-0 to grant Moore a three-year contract to harvest alewives from West Bay Stream. They accepted his bid to pay the town $25 per bushel of harvested fish. Moore was the sole bidder.
ELLSWORTH — The Maine brook trout is the focus of the next Downeast Trout Unlimited meeting on Wednesday, March 17. The online meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. and will take place via Zoom. A busines meeting will be followed by two speakers. At 5:45, Merry Gallagher, native fish conservation biologist with the Maine Department …
American Aquafarms CEO Mikael Roenes said the company’s project would result in hundreds of new jobs in the Downeast region. The 100-000-square-foot Maine Fair Trade facility and its wharf would become the base from which the fish farm’s barges and other craft would embark from to tend the Frenchman Bay ocean pens.
“It is on private property that is in the Limited Residential Shoreland zone. Since this would change the use of that property from residential to aquaculture, I believe that would trigger Planning Board review. The Land Use Ordinance specifically prohibits aquaculture in the Limited Residential Shoreland zone, and so I anticipate that ultimately, this project will be denied.”
Zebra mussels, a highly invasive and prolific species, have been found hitchhiking on aquatic moss balls sold in pet stores in Maine and throughout the country. Maine’s natural resource agencies are urging anyone who may have bought these moss balls to destroy them, and for pet stores to remove them from the shelves and destroy them immediately.
ELLSWORTH — The Maine Department of Marine Resources has instituted an emergency scallop fishing closure in the St. Croix River in Zone 3; and expanded existing closures in Frenchman Bay, Swan’s Island and Isle au Haut rotational areas. “The department is concerned that continued harvesting for the remainder of the 2020-21 fishing season in these …
Back in January, Averill began scrambling for a winter fitness routine and found a solution based on his favorite pastime: surfing. “Basically, I thought, why not paddle my surfboard to work?”
The derby is held as a fundraiser for scholarships in memory of Jimmy “Slim” Douglass, who died in a snowmobile accident in Deer Isle in 2008. The volunteer firefighter was 26.
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