Lobsters, Whales, and Traps: The Politics of Endangerment in the Gulf of Maine

In 2019, a debate arose among Maine lobster fishers and environmental groups over the role of lobster traps in killing North Atlantic right whales, the world's most endangered whale species. Maine fishers denied that their gear was killing whales. To do so, they leveraged longstanding representations by regional natural and social scientists of lobster fishing as part of a unique and ecologically sustainable “heritage” economy—one that was itself “endangered” by over-regulation. Setting this debate in the context of a global climate crisis that is irrevocably changing Atlantic coastal environments, this article shows how ecological fragility and white working-class fragility become yoked together. Efforts to understand what lobster traps do, and how they might do it differently, perpetuated a key feature of settler colonialism, namely, the tendency to seek harmony between resource extraction and conservation.

A modelling study of temporal and spatial <i>p</i>CO₂ variability on the biologically active and temperature-dominated Scotian Shelf

Continental shelves are thought to be affected disproportionately by climate change and are a large contributor to global air–sea carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes. It is often reported that low-latitude shelves tend to act as net sources of CO2, whereas mid- and high-latitude shelves act as net sinks. Here, we combine a high-resolution regional model with surface water time series and repeat transect observations from the Scotian Shelf, a mid-latitude region in the northwest North Atlantic, to determine what processes are driving the temporal and spatial variability of partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) on a seasonal scale. In contrast to the global trend, the Scotian Shelf acts as a net source. Surface pCO2 undergoes a strong seasonal cycle with an amplitude of ∼ 200–250 µatm. These changes are associated with both a strong biological drawdown of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in spring (corresponding to a decrease in pCO2 of 100–200 µatm) and pronounced effects of temperature, which ranges from 0 ∘C in the winter to near 20 ∘C in the summer, resulting in an increase in pCO2 of ∼ 200–250 µatm. Throughout the summer, events with low surface water pCO2 occur associated with coastal upwelling. This effect of upwelling on pCO2 is also in contrast to the general assumption that upwelling increases surface pCO2 by delivering DIC-enriched water to the surface. Aside from these localized events, pCO2 is relatively uniform across the shelf. Our model agrees with regional observations, reproduces seasonal patterns of pCO2, and simulates annual outgassing of CO2 from the ocean of +1.7±0.2 mol C m−2 yr−1 for the Scotian Shelf, net uptake of CO2 by the ocean of -0.5±0.2 mol C m−2 yr−1 for the Gulf of Maine, and uptake by the ocean of -1.3±0.3 mol C m−2 yr−1 for the Grand Banks.

An Analysis of the 8.85- and 4.42-Year Cycles in the Gulf of Maine

In the background of global warming and climate change, nuisance flooding is only caused by astronomical tides, which could be modulated by the nodal cycle. Therefore, much attention should be paid to the variation in the amplitude of the nodal cycle. In this paper, we utilize the enhanced harmonic analysis method and the independent point scheme to obtain the time-dependent amplitudes of the 8.85-year cycle of N2 tide and the 4.42-year cycle of 2N2 tide based on water level records of four tide gauges in the Gulf of Maine. Results indicate that the long-term trends of N2 and 2N2 tides vary spatially, which may be affected by the sea-level rise, coastal defenses, and other possible climate-related mechanisms. The comparison between Halifax and Eastport reveals that the topography greatly influences the amplitudes of those cycles. Moreover, a quasi 20-year oscillation is obvious in the 8.85-year cycle of N2 tide. This oscillation probably relates to a 20-year mode in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Windjamming on the Warming Gulf of Maine

Living in Geologic Time: A sailing venture reveals economic upheaval along Maine’s enduring coast.

A Preliminary Abundance Estimate of an Atlantic Sturgeon (Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus) Contingent Within an Open Riverine System

Abundance estimates are essential for fisheries management, but estimating the abundance of open populations with low recapture rates has historically been unreliable. However, by using mark-recapture data modulated with survivability parameters obtained from analysis of acoustic telemetry data, more accurate abundance estimates can be made for species that exhibit these characteristics. One such species is the Atlantic sturgeon, for which abundance estimates were designated a research priority following precipitous population declines throughout the 20th century. We addressed this research need in the Saco River Estuary (SRE), a system where the Atlantic sturgeon has been extensively studied using mark-recapture and acoustic telemetry methods since 2009. These data were analyzed using Bayesian analysis of a Lincoln-Peterson estimator, constrained with parameters from a Cormack-Jolly-Seber model, to provide an initial abundance estimate for the system. The resulting estimate indicated that approximately 3 299 (95% Credible Interval: 1 462–6 828) Atlantic sturgeon utilize the SRE yearly, suggesting that the SRE provides critical foraging habitat to a large contingent of the species within the Gulf of Maine. The present study demonstrated the method utilized herein was effective in generating a reasonable estimate of abundance in an open system where recapture events are rare, and therefore may provide a valuable technique for supplying initial estimates of fish abundance in additional systems that display similar characteristics.