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Q:
What is "bycatch?"
A:
"Bycatch" is species of fish or shellfish which are incidentally
caught in the normal course of fishing operations. For instance,
lobsters are commonly caught in the normal course of groundfishing.
In the directed lobster fishery, it is common to harvest crabs in lobster traps.
Virtually all fisheries have some element of bycatch.
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Q:
Are fuel
prices higher in Maine than in Massachusetts?
A: There is no
information available to compare wholesale vessel diesel fuel prices
between Maine and Massachusetts. Auto club AAA compares the
average price of diesel fuel for road use among all states
here.
However, Maine state tax policy does favor
Massachusetts ports. Along with its unusual lobster bycatch law, Maine is the only state in New England which
charges a fuel sales tax to commercial fishing vessels. This 5%
tax can be enough to push Maine's fuel price above Massachusetts'.
As a result, the Portland Fish Exchange has also
launched an initiative to level the playing field with other New England
states by removing this barrier to competitiveness.
Learn more...
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Q:
What is "highgrading?"
A:
"Highgrading" is a form of sorting in which more marketable fish are
retained and lower value fish are discarded. Most fisheries have
rules which attempt to minimize discarding. An exception is the
lobster industry. Lobster conservation rules are largely based on
requirements to discard undersized, v-notched, and egg-bearing lobsters
(Maine law also requires lobsters over a maximum size to be discarded).
A study of commercial lobster catches in Long Island Sound found that
over 20 years, 60%-80% of the catch had to be discarded for regulatory
reasons. See the
study results.
More recently, managers have also capped the number of traps which can
be used in the fishery, after a period of rapidly increasing fishing
effort.
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Q:
How is "fishing effort"
measured?
A:
In the lobster industry, fishing effort is
commonly measured by the total number of traps set out by fishermen. In the groundfish fishery, effort is measured by the total number of days spent
fishing. Over the last decade, fishing effort has increased by
about 25% in Maine's
lobster fishery, and decreased by 30% in New England's groundfishery.
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Q:
How will LD170 help Maine's coastal fishermen who don't fish in Area 3?
A:
LD170 will bring
vessels and their groundfish back to Maine. In turn, those vessels
will buy supplies from Maine firms, sell their catch to Maine processors,
and help sustain Maine's shoreside infrastructure. This helps all of
Maine's coastal fishermen.
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Q:
Nothing happens when I click on some of the buttons or hyperlinks.
A:
Your browser is probably configured to block pop-up boxes. Many of
the buttons open new browser windows containing graphs or tables.
Try temporarily allowing pop-ups, or otherwise decreasing your browser's
security settings while on this site.
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Q:
I'm not sure my letter of support went through after I clicked "Submit."
A:
Depending on your browser settings, connection speed, and ISP traffic,
it can take up to 15 seconds for the Confirmation screen to display.
If you never see that page, it's possible the letter did not go through
- please wait a few moments, then try again. We check all letters
for duplicate submissions.
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Q:
Where do all
these facts and figures come from?
A: Most of the
information shown here is available from publicly available government
sources such as the
National Marine
Fisheries Service, the
Atlantic States Marine
Fisheries Commission, and the
Maine
Department of Marine Resources. Data is compiled from resource
surveys, fishery management plans, market information summaries, and
other documents.
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