AP Reports on National Grants Awarded to UMaine Professors for Fisheries Research

The Associated Press reported three University of Maine research scientists will receive funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Saltonstall-Kennedy (S-K) Grant Program to pursue studies that will benefit the U.S. fishing industry. Aquaculture professor Heather Hamlin will receive $249,516 for a project that seeks to determine if rising ocean temperature is a cause of the lobster population decline in southern New England. Fisheries population professor Yong Chen will get $229,326 for a project that aims to improve the survivability of cusk and Atlantic cod bycatch discarded in the Gulf of Maine lobster trap fishery. Marine science professor Paul Rawson and collaborators at the University of Maine at Machias and Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., will receive $373,088 to develop technology to cost-effectively produce mussel seed. The Washington Times, SFGate, WLBZ (Channel 2) and the Maine Public Broadcasting Network carried the AP report.