“Maine’s lobster industry needs alewives for bait, but there are so few alewives now we import expensive bait from away,” says David Cousens, President, Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “The Maine Legislature can fix that at no cost and I say €˜just do it.’”

Lobstermen, fishermen, tribes, guides, scientists, urge legislators to listen to science, and let native fish return to St. Croix River 

€“ Today, lobstermen, tribal representatives, Maine guides, fishermen, and scientists converged on the State House to urge passage of a bill that would finally allow St. Croix alewives to return to spawn in upstream lakes (LD 72, An Act to Open the St. Croix River to River Herring). Because fishways are already in place at dams on the St. Croix, LD 72 would restore alewives without costing any money. Unfortunately, the LePage Administration has introduced a competing bill, LD 584, that would severely limit the number of alewives allowed to return and would likely cost the State of Maine $50,000 per year.

Alewives are a native Maine fish essential to Gulf of Maine groundfisheries and the lobster industry. They are part of healthy rivers and watersheds.

“My father, like many others in his generation used to be able to catch cod, haddock and hake in the spring and summertime, and then haul traps for lobster in the summer and fall,” says Jason Joyce, a commercial fisherman. “Now, those fish have been gone for over 20 years. They’ll start to come back if there’s some feed around – that includes alewives. The juvenile alewives from rivers like the St. Croix along the Downeast coast will help rebuild our inshore groundfish stocks. If we bring back the fish, they could support communities up and down the coast as they had before for roughly four hundred years.”

Fight for Maine Fisheries Comes to Augusta

March 25, 2013 by NRCM

Augusta, Maine