Source: No Maine Shrimp This Winter, Maybe Never - Free Press Online Northern shrimp, which thrive in cold water, were already considered to be in the southern extent of their range in the Gulf of Maine when the commercial fishery gained momentum three decades ago. Data collected over the past five years indicate that the warming trend may have made the Gulf permanently unfriendly to the northern shrimp, which seem to be unable to effectively reproduce in large numbers. Under ideal conditions, northern shrimp mature into males at about two and a half years old, switch genders into females at about three and a half years old, and live about five years total. The fishery focus is on the adult egg-bearing females, which move inshore during winter before releasing their eggs in early spring. They have been releasing eggs earlier in recent years. Northern shrimp numbers were the lowest on record in 2017 over the 34 years data has been collected on the species, according to the ASMFC–Northern Shrimp Section. With a couple of cold winters during the past five years, there is a slim hope among fisheries scientists and managers that shrimp stocks could start to recover if colder winters return. Data provided by NASA on the Gulf of Maine indicates colder winters are unlikely, though, since the Gulf is warming faster than any other ocean area on the globe. . . . At last week’s meeting of the ASMFC-Northern Shrimp Section group, fishermen continued to express concern about the economic impacts of the shrimp fishery closure, especially in light of a lack of positive signals in terms of stock rebuilding. Keliher and members of the fishing industry argued that it made little economic sense to keep the fishery closed if it won’t rebound. Who wants to be the last man to die in a war? Other candidate dishes: Rino rump roast Scrambled sea turtle eggs Panda patty burgers I wonder if there is some way to shame the advocates of killing off the fishery. Bob Wilson
Will Maine lobsters be next? Lobstermen already have a rough life as it is. My grandma lived on an island in the Sheepscot river in Maine, near Boothbay Harbor. Her neighbor, Lowell Greenleaf, was a lobsterman. He was reticent, but he always gave us Yankees lobsters when we came to visit. He was a kind soul. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Apparently Northern shrimp have been over harvested. Seem like a critter that could rebound. Unlike large ones with low replacement rates. Rhino and Panda examples above. Sea turtles have always seemed pretty weird to me. Large unguarded egg caches. Almost like they evolved with very few land predators. Now they are stuck with it. American Lobster has lots of interesting trivia. Largest crustacean and arthropod. Were embarrassingly abundant in Euro-colonial times. Later became prison food. Finally the harvest industry caught up with their reproductive capacity. They are scarce now compared to olden days. Became gourmet food, and there you have it. Lobster traps do a whole lot more lobster feeding than trapping, so the story goes. Traps are baited with fish while normal lobster prey are hard-shelled or stuck down. Too much trouble. Just walk into the trap, eat and walk back out.
Lobsta: A Taste of Lobster History - History in the Headlines Really don't have much to say about N. Shrimp. Warm-water shrimp are much better suited to farming, and that is a very large industry.
Wow sort of me neither but I suspect I could at least get used to Maine Lobster if I lived in Beantown. What saddens me is the north atlantic Cod loss, suspect that was over-fishing. Apparently the Cod life cycle is such that it cannot re-populate to former levels due to other species moving in, etc.
Cod are lobster predators so there is some 'release from predation' going on. Same for urchins (that eat very small lobsters) and urchins are harvested for consumption in Japan.
Atlantic cod were really cleaned out by technology-enhanced harvest: Collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery - Wikipedia
Definitely overfishing. We destroyed that population, it won't be back. Human, thy name is Hubris? Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Didn't know uni eat lobsters, but I've never seen lobsters for sale in Japan, even at Tsukiji fish market. Uni are tasty critters, but only when they're very fresh. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
They invented better fish visualizers and 'better' nets and a few other things. Entire notion of fish aggregations usta be a good move in response to piecewise predation.. In response to 'vacuuming' , it is very much not.
Ah the COD A couple years ago, I won a seat at a crab eating contest in Baltimore (by submission of a crab-eating photo). I had to back out because I am actually a little queasy about it. They had not said what the prize in the photo contest was going to be. The woman I was supposed to go up against seemed quite excited about it. Hope they found her better competition. This was for the Baltimore marathon- we do 4-person (slow) team every year
Now, if that had been EU I'd have thought you understood the European Fisheries Policy, which require that fishing boats can only land a certain weight of fish by species per day. This means that all other fish caught have to be separated out manually, (by which time they're usually deceased) and tossed back overboard for the gulls. To land the entire catch would incur huge fines for the skipper. Could they ever design any conservation scheme more wasteful!
