How One Coastal Current Could Change the Way Maine Looks at Fisheries

by Sarah Craighead Dedmon

A powerful current of cold water flows unseen down the coast of Maine, southwestward from Nova Scotia all the way to Cape Cod. The eastern branch of that current, all of the rivers that flow into it, all of the creatures affected by it, and all of the humans who rely on it are the focus of a grassroots effort that could change the way Maine manages its fisheries.

The Eastern Maine Coastal Current Collaborative, or EM3C for short, is a project between Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, the Maine Department of Marine Resources, and NOAA Fisheries. Together with input from dozens of scientists, fishermen, nonprofits, and policy makers, the EM3C hopes to broaden the lens used to inform Maine’s fishery management practices.

The Eastern Maine Coastal Current, seen here descending southwest from cold Canadian waters, is the eastern half of the Gulf of Maine current which rotates counterclockwise and contributes to the gulf's diverse and abundant ecosystem. Now a group of state, federal and private agencies are partnering to study everything that connects to that current to learn how to manage not just individual species, but an entire ecosystem. Map used with permission of Dr. Yong Chen, University of Maine.

It’s an ambitious proposition, and the first step will be conversations in the form of a conference called “State of the Science,” set for June 16-18 in Machias. Discussions there will examine life in and along the Eastern Maine Coastal Current, from the St. Croix River watershed down to the Penobscot Bay, and all the rivers in between.

“As we manage fisheries today, we tend to manage them one species at a time,” said Paul Anderson, Executive Director of the Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries. “There’s a recognition that we can’t ignore the interaction between species, and also with the wider ecosystem.”

As an example, Anderson points to the varied aspects of our ecosystem which intersect with the lobster.

“We need bait for our lobster fishery, and that involves herring and other kinds of fish, so we really can’t manage the lobster fishery effectively, at least in the long term, just thinking about lobster as lobster,” said Anderson. “We have to think about it and its bait needs. Then you start thinking about that other bait fishery, and its challenges. And then you throw the right whale into the mix. All of a sudden you’ve got all these trophic cascades, all the animals trying to coexist in the Gulf of Maine.”

“We have to understand how we as fishermen interact with all of these species,” he said.

When most people think of an ecosystem, they tend to think of the natural world almost exclusively, but EM3C’s approach differs from that definition because it’s not looking at the natural world alone.

“One of the central concepts here is that factors other than the natural ecosystems are supposed to be taken into consideration,” said Dr. Tora Johnson, director of GIS Laboratory and Service Center at the University of Maine at Machias, right in the heart of the EM3C study area.

“It’s meant to regard humans as part of the ecosystem, and that’s a really crucial concept,” she said.

Dwayne Shaw said the term “ecosystem” is becoming more commonly used in terms of economics, and that studying this broader ecosystem in Downeast Maine could be uniquely advantageous.

“For us, what’s interesting and unusual about Downeast Maine is that we have a lot of resource-based industries, and we have, for instance, more commercial licenses per capita in this region than in any other place on the eastern seaboard,” said Shaw, who is the Executive Director of the Downeast Salmon Federation.

The coast of Downeast Maine is dotted with fishing communities built along the Eastern Maine Coastal Current, places like Jonesport and Cutler harbor, said Shaw, or towns like Grand Lake Stream, built along adjacent inland waterways. That makes it an ideal place to study the broader ecosystem.

“Those people who are out there every day making their living on the water, they’re making tons and tons and tons of real-time observations, so they become kind of the eyes and ears on the ground and on the water,” said Shaw. “If you can keep working with people, they will invest of their own time and treasure, as we say. We’ve seen that over and over.”

The conference will open with an address from Anderson and also Pat Keliher, Commissioner of the Department of Marine Resources. Dr. Heather Leslie, Director of the Darling Marine Center will deliver a keynote address, “Ecosystem-based Fisheries Management: From Mexico to Maine.”

Then, to break a large subject into manageable pieces, the conference is organized around four elements of the current’s ecosystem: watersheds, intertidal, nearshore and offshore.

Each segment will be the focus of a presentation, followed by smaller discussion breakout groups. Creating that cross-stakeholder communication is absolutely vital, according to NOAA scientist John Kocik.

“Better science really begins with better communication, and this meeting is going to provide conversations between scientists of all types, not just fisheries scientists but economists, anthropologists, modelers, all types of scientists together,” said Kocik, “and we’re going to be able to talk to the people who are closest to the resource and who interact with it, touching it every day.” Kocik is the Maine Task Chief at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center field station in Orono.

It’s too soon to know what deliverables will come from the event, but Maine could look to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s work as one possible conclusion to its efforts. In August 2016, that council approved a framework in their “Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management Guidance Document.”

“Ecosystem-based management and the science that supports that management is definitely a hot topic,” said Kocik. “The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council is really embracing it and they are bringing it on a regional level to the mid-Atlantic, and there are case studies on the west coast that are operational and working.”

As a place to begin, the dialogue in Machias will focus on the science, not regulation.

“We don’t expect the outcome to be [fisheries] management advice,” said Kocik. “It’s about advancing the science so that fishery managers can tap into the science, to answers questions they have.”

“This effort is trying to bring together the local community to enable the science,” said Kocik.

Both Kocik and Anderson see this as a timely discussion given the changes in the Gulf of Maine.

“The climate seems to be changing around us, the habitat is changing, the food web is changing, the temperature is changing, now you’ve got this really complicated diagram,” said Anderson. “The reason Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries is really enthused about this approach is the communities’ dependence on that, and the prosperity of those communities where fishing is really important.”

“If it works, it will be a long game,” said Anderson. “It’s how we can manage these things collaboratively, forever.”

To learn more about the State of the Science event, visit stateofthescienceconference.org.