While the Maine Supreme Judicial Court case over ownership of intertidal rockweed is being decided, the harvest of the seaweed is still stirring up passions for those living around Cobscook Bay. Cheryl Sawtelle, who lives on the North Lubec Road, where she can watch the harvesters in Johnson's Bay, says, "We've lost the battle over taking our seaweed. It's like taking the topsoil from the garden. You have to use common sense."
     Sawtelle claims the shorebirds, the ducks, the kingfishers have now gone because of the cutting of the rockweed, which provides habitat for numerous other species. "The last two years there's hardly been a bird here. The only thing I've seen flying over here is a crow," she says, adding, "I wouldn't be surprised if I wake up in the morning and my hair's been cut."
     Sawtelle, who is now in a wheelchair, used to pack fish and tip brush for wreaths. "We just tipped the very ends; we didn't take the branches." The next year the tips of the branches would double or triple in size. "We were respectful of people's land," she adds. Of the seaweed harvesters, she says, "They're cutting where they can make a dollar."
     "I feel the food chain's been broken and we're out of time," she says. "The lobstermen have noticed it, and the wrinklers will in time. It's downhill from here."
     One day in late May she spoke to the harvesters below her house and asked them not to cut on her shore property. She says they wouldn't stop, although they were nice about it. "They did wish me a happy Memorial Day." She then spoke to the Marine Patrol about the cutting, and a warden asked harvesters to leave and they did. The warden, though, told Sawtelle that they didn't have to leave if they didn't want to. Sawtelle notes that she has not signed on to the Rockweed Coalition's registry of landowners who do not want rockweed harvested on their properties.
     Noting that the workers are getting paid $55 a ton, she says, "I don't begrudge the workers trying to make a living," but she claims that the periwinkles have gone and even the invasive green crabs are not around her section of the shore.
Of the Canadian company, Acadian Seaplants, that is harvesting around her property, Sawtelle says,      "They made it on the backs of those workers and the back of the coast of Maine. They've taken the topsoil, and they took it for free." Sawtelle feels that the current court case "is just keeping us busy. They're pacifying us while they're raping the coast."
     Merritt Carey, director of Maine operations for Acadian Seaplants, says Acadian's policy is to respect the wishes of landowners who request that harvesting not be done on their property. She has given that directive to harvesters, although she doesn't dispute what landowners say has happened.      She notes that it's not always easy for harvesters to take the information from a map that shows where not to cut and to "translate that to what they see from their boat."
     Although there have been reports about harvesting on Roger's Island, which was given to the Town of Lubec as a bird sanctuary, and on Treat's Island, which is owned by Maine Coast Heritage Trust, Carey says that Acadian is not harvesting at either location. Rockweed harvesting is not allowed on conserved lands. Acadian is the only one of the four companies and individuals that have been allocated sectors in Cobscook Bay to have any sectors in the Johnson's Bay area around Roger's Island. As for Treat's Island, Carey says the company has a platform there for mooring boats and bagging the seaweed, but no harvesting is occurring there.
     Acadian has 12 boats harvesting in Cobscook Bay this year, and the company has been allocated 13 of the 36 sectors in the bay. The other companies are North American Kelp, which has three sectors; James Young of Eastport, who has nine sectors; and Sam Glass of Steuben, who has six sectors. In their proposals to the Department of Marine Resources, all of the harvesters state they will harvest no more than 17% of the total harvestable biomass, which is a requirement of the Cobscook Bay rockweed management plan.
     Concerning this year's harvest, Carey says that Acadian is not only harvesting fewer sectors in Cobscook Bay than in the past but also is taking less per sector.

Possible impact on other species
     As for claims about a decline in the populations of other species because of the cutting, Carey notes that Acadian is working collaboratively with the University of Maine on a study of the impact of rockweed harvesting on other species. While she has read claims about loss of fish habitat and fish populations, she asks how accurate that information is.
     "Where is the scientific tie between a limited rockweed harvest and loss of species?" she asks. While those who oppose rockweed harvesting may express their opinions about such a link, she believes that the issue needs to be studied scientifically. "The real question is what is the actual science? Just because you don't like something, to then make assumptions is a dangerous road to go down, particularly with working waterfronts and the economic impacts."
     However, Robin Hadlock Seeley of Pembroke, a Cornell University senior research scientist and a member of the Rockweed Coalition, comments, "When you have something of great importance and don't know all of the impacts of harvesting, the way to manage it is with the precautionary approach." She points out that rockweed is ranked as the fourth most important species in the Gulf of Maine, out of 151 species, in a ranking developed by state, provincial, federal and non-governmental agencies. She notes that other species, including juvenile cod and pollock, rely on rockweed. "That habitat is critically important to them," she says. "With what we know, it leads you in the direction to protect it."
     "Is the federal government of Canada or of the U.S. requiring incontrovertible proof that limiting fisheries will help the right whale population survive? No. They take the evidence they have, and combine that with the risk of harm to right whales and the importance of right whales, and they act in a precautionary manner," Seeley states. "This is the appropriate approach to rockweed management. We don't need to know every impact of harvest on rockweed to know a precautionary approach is warranted, because the risk is great. We know at least that rockweed harvest changes the architecture of the rockweed bed. And the commercial species of fish that depend on rockweed depend on habitat structure."
     Seeley also notes that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has recently included intertidal rockweed beds as a habitat area of particular concern for juvenile cod. "Obviously NOAA didn't require ironclad proof that cod would die if vegetated intertidal habitat is not protected. They take the evidence of the importance of the habitat and the importance of the commercial species that they are trying to support, cod. And they protect it."
     Making a comparison with climate change, she notes that not all of the impacts are known, but because the risks are so great, a precautionary approach should be used. Likewise, because rockweed is so important to the ecosystem and the risks posed by its loss are significant, she believes a similar approach should be used for its management.