Applying ecosystem approaches to advance co-management and protect owner-operator fisheries in Maine; enable stewardship of sustainable fisheries and support diversified fishing opportunities in Downeast Maine.
Explore our work
Sustainable
Fisheries
Sea Scallops
MCCF has engaged Maine’s sea scallop fleet in identifying fishery and community goals for scallop resource management. These discussions included identification of research priorities and management strategies. Through this process, the current spatial management approaches were proposed, modified, and implemented since 2012. During which average annual scallop landings rebounded by 300% and 20% more boats (e.g., captains and crew) are making a ‘day’s pay’ compared to the 2005 historical low. However, fishermen are observing nearshore scallop beds to be increasingly less resilient and are now doubling down on prioritizing research on scallop larval supply, population connectivity, and environmental change to explain scallop catch variability over space and time.
Richard Lebel, fisherman and stern-man with MCCF Board Member David Tarr, holds out a shucked scallop.
Shellfish
Maine shellfish are one of two fisheries (along with alewives) that are locally managed in Maine. Municipalities in Maine have the opportunity to form local shellfish committees and manage their flats using local knowledge to sustain a local resource. Clams provide a fishery with a low bar for entry where all you need is ambition, a license from your town, and a clam hoe to participate.
MCCF works with towns in Downeast Maine and partners throughout the state to provide resources to towns and create policies that support this system of collaborative management.
Herbert Carter Jr., commercial shellfish harvester, washes off a basket of soft-shell clams.
River Herring
River herring is a term used to describe two sea-run fish – alewives and blueback herring – that spend most of their lives at sea but return to streams and ponds to spawn. River herring are a keystone species in freshwater and marine systems, connecting communities and ecosystems upriver with ecosystems and food webs in the ocean.
The River Herring Network, est. 2021, is a network of over 50 researchers, fishermen, managers (state/federal/tribal), and other stakeholders and is designed around the principal that we can all get farther, faster if we talk to each other, work with each other, and trust each other. The network has big goals around restoration, research, and sustainable management as well as the harvest of river herring and is a great example of MCCF’s collaborative work.
Alewife returning to their natal spawning grounds at Walker Pond, Brooksville, ME.
Groundfish
The Eastern Gulf of Maine Sentinel Survey began in 2010 with an objective to better understand populations of groundfish that have been locally depleted since the mid 1990’s. The program is a partnership between MCCF, the University of Maine, and The Nature Conservancy of Maine, and has involved dozens of commercial fishermen and various scientific and government organizations. The Survey uses primarily hook gear to sample over 5,000 square miles of coastal shelf from Port Clyde, Maine to Canada.
A primary component of the analysis is to develop a relative stock abundance index for cod and other species in the groundfish complex for this part of the Gulf of Maine. In addition, biological samples taken from cod, haddock, pollock, and other groundfish are studied by partners to investigate stock structure, diet, spawning conditions, and environmental factors that might be playing a role in the recovery of a once iconic fishery in eastern Maine.
Robyn Linner, graduate candidate at the University of Maine documenting sample measurements while on a fishing survey.