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In This Edition - October 1997 Vol. 10
No. 2
New Whale Plan Has
Options
The National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS) has developed an Atlantic Large Whale Take
Reduction Plan, partly in response to legal action brought
against it for not having adequate regulations in place to
protect marine mammals.
The first version of the plan went out for public
comment last spring and the response from
fishermen,conservation groups,businesses, towns, and private
individuals was so strong that government officials were
forced to make sweeping changes in the plan. The revised
plan takes into account the wide variations in fishing
conditions and right whale activity throughout the Atlantic,
and lobstermen could choose from a list of possible gear
modifications depending on whether they fish in areas that
are inshore or offshore, have low or high right whale
activity, and are classified as critical habitat.
In areas of low right whale activity, lobstermen
would be required to chose one option from the list, while
those who fish in areas of high right whale activity would
chose two of the options. Cape Cod Bay and Great Southern
Channel, which are classified as critical habitat areas,
would fall under another set of rules during critical
months, but revert to the two-option requirement for
fishermen during the rest of the year. A number of inshore
areas &emdash;including most bays, harbors, rivers and
waters behind barrier islands&emdash;would be exempt from
regulation entirely.
Since the new plan has been significantly changed,
NMFS is again seeking public input until mid-October. The
plan would go into effect in November with gear
modifications required by January.
According to Bill Adler, executive director of the
Massachusetts Lobstermen's Association, a member of the
Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team, and chair of the
Lobster Institute, "This plan is one that the industry can
live with. It will help prevent the rare occurrence of a
whale entanglement, and at the same time let the fisherman
help." However, while approving of the plan in general,
Adler does have concerns about certain aspects of it. As
Adler continues, "My concern is that they made one statement
in the plan that said if a whale is seriously injured or
killed in a critical habitat, the NMFS will close down
fishing in that area. That would be devastating to
fishermen. They need to allow some flexibility and I hope
they change the wording."
Gear modification options available to fishermen are:
- Using buoy lines that are 7/16 inches in diameter or
less.
- Attaching buoys to lines with a weak link that has a
maximum tensile strength (breaking strength) of 1100
pounds.
- For gear set in offshore lobster areas, attaching
buoys to lines with a weak link that has a breaking
strength of 3780 pounds.
- For gear set in offshore lobster areas, attaching
buoys to lines by a section of rope no more than
three-fourths the diameter of the buoy line.
- Using buoy lines that are made of sinking rope.
- Using ground lines made of sinking rope.
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UM Researcher
Studies
Lobster Disease Prevention
Deanna Prince, a post-doctoral research associate in
the Bio-Systems, Science & Engineering Department at the
University of Maine (UM) was recently awarded a grant from
the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to
develop methods of preventing disease in pounded lobsters.
Prince will work closely with Bob Bayer, executive director
of the Lobster Institute.
The 65 tidal lobster pounds operated on the Maine
coast store roughly 10% of annual U.S. lobster landings. By
pounding lobsters for an average of four to six months,
pound operators ensure that there is a continuous supply of
live lobsters available throughout the year.
Prince will assess the feasibility of using a
Beta-glucan treatment to protect pounded American lobsters
from disease. Beta-glucans, derivatives of fungi and algae,
have shown potential in preventing disease in the culture of
some aquatic species by stimulating non-specific internal
defense systems.
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Lobster Summit
Transcript on Internet
Last February, over 100 fishermen, scientists,
fisheries managers, and environmentalists met for a Lobster
Summit held at the annual Maine Fishermen's Forum in
Rockport. At the Summit, participants discussed the status
of the American lobster population and proposed management
measures for its conservation. The summit was co-sponsored
by the Lobster Institute, the Maine Lobstermen's
Association, and the New England Aquarium.
The 354-page transcript of this two-day meeting is
now available to the public on Internet and can be obtained
by following a few simple steps. First, log onto the Lobster
Institute's web site. The address is http://www.
lobster.um.maine.edu/lobster. On the home page, select the
heading "Lobster Library." In the Lobster Library, select
the sub-heading "Lobster Summit." You will need Adobe
Acrobat in order to read this document. If you do not
already have that software, you can easily download it from
this web site. Simply select the Adobe program suitable to
your computer (Macintosh or PC). Once you have Adobe
Acrobat, you will be able to read or print out the Summit
transcript.
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Calling All
Fishermen!
The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and
Management Act has mandated that fishery management plans
include information on essential fish habitat by October
1998. To make certain that the industry has a chance to
participate in the process, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) Sea Grant is looking for fishermen with
traditional knowledge about fisheries habitat and gear
impact who are willing to share their information with
Fishery Management Councils, National Marine Fisheries
Service and the public. Documentation of your knowledge,
such as logs, photographs/videos, plot charts, etc., would
be particularly helpful to this effort.
If you would be willing to participate in a focus
group and/or to respond in writing to questions as part of
an interim study on this topic, please contact the Habitat
Study, MIT Sea Grant College Program, 292 Main Street,
E38-300, Cambridge, MA 02139 or telephone (617) 252-1675.
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Lobster
Co-Management Could Be Model for Other Fisheries
Two years ago, the Maine Department of Marine
Resources (DMR) started to develop a new management system
for the lobster fishery in which decision making and
stewardship responsibility is transferred to users of the
resource at the local level. Now, this co-management
approach could be adapted for other Maine fisheries.
In June 1997, four meetings with industry
representatives were held along the coast to discuss the
basic principles of a successful management system. Those
invited to the meetings serve on one of DMR's formal or
informal advisory committees.
Jim Acheson, professor in the University of Maine's
School of Marine Sciences, attended the meetings and
compiled summaries that outline areas in which there was
consensus among participants and where there was
disagreement. The discussions in the four groups centered
around a draft of a paper on "Guiding Principles of Fishery
Management" which, as Acheson notes, "attempts to specify
the priniciples on which an ideal fisheries governence
structure should be based while attempting to manage access
to the resource."
According to DMR Commissioner Robin Alden, "These
meetings were the beginning of a long process to evaluate
how to manage access into Maine's fisheries while
maintaining the core elements of successful fishing such as
stewardship and adaptability. As we face this issue, we will
also be discussing the overall structure of fisheries
management and the lessons we learn from the new
co-management approach as seen in the lobster zone
management councils."
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Sea Fisheries Bill
Encourages Stock Management in Britain
Although current lobster landings in Britain are
worth over $18 million annually, catches in nearly all of
Britain's traditional lobstering areas have dropped in
recent years. Responding to this, researchers and industry
members in the British Isles are looking to hatchery-raised
lobsters and new ranching techniques to augment and sustain
lobster stocks. With the recent passage of the Sea Fisheries
Bill, the British lobster industry has taken an important
step towards these goals.
The Sea Fisheries Bill gives ownership or management
rights to fishermen who release hatchery-raised lobsters at
selected sites. Similar ownership rights have been assigned
to oyster and mussel farmers in Britain for the last thirty
years, encouraging the development and management of those
resources.
Baroness Wilcox of Plymouth, the original sponsor of
the Sea Fisheries Bill, hopes that her legislation will have
similar beneficial effects on Britain's lobster industry.
"My Bill aims to encourage fishermen to play a bigger part
in lobster conservation, possibly involving new lobster
hatchery methods to farm young lobsters," says Lady Wilcox.
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Newfoundland
Lobstermen Begin V-Notching
John Boland, staff representative at Fishermen, Food,
and Allied Workers in St. John's, Newfoundland and member of
the Lobster Institute board of advisors, reports that many
fishermen on the east and west coasts of his province have
started to V-notch berried lobsters. Boland says the idea
took off after fishermen attended seminars discussing
lobster conservation measures at the 1994 International
Lobster Congress held in Portland, Maine. Since then,
lobstermen in Newfoundland have begun to V-notch the same
flipper as harvesters do in Maine. According to Boland,
V-notching has been listed as a condition on lobster
licenses which states that harvesters can't trap notched
lobsters or sell them commercially. However, there is still
no law against a dealer possessing them which, Boland
suggests, is needed to make the measure more effective.
To collect data on V-notched lobsters, Boland will
use survey cards developed by the Maine Lobstermen's
Association and sent to their members each year. Responses
from this survey should provide information on how the
V-notch program is working in Newfoundland.
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Scientists Use
Submarine to Find Lobster Broodstock
In Maine, lobster landings gross well over $100
million annually, and the industry employs over 10,000
people. Unlike other commercially important marine species,
lobster stocks have not only weathered aggressive
harvesting, but have also increased in recent years.
Scientists theorize that flourishing lobster populations may
partly be the result of stable egg-bearing, or broodstock
lobsters, which may persist in relatively safe refuges.
Because of their long reproductive life, this broodstock may
act to buffer short-term fluctuations in the lobster
population.
Bob Steneck, professor in the University of Maine's
School of Marine Sciences, believes that understanding where
and how this broodstock survives is the key to ensuring the
continued success of lobster stock management. Steneck
points out, "Right now, we know neither the location nor the
abundance of the broodstock. More importantly, we don't know
if broodstock numbers are growing or shrinking. If we can
find them, we can protect them."
Steneck, with co-researchers Doug Pezzack and Peter
Lawton of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans in
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, respectively, is currently
using a submarine to locate lobster broodstock. The research
submersible Johnson Sea Link II is owned by the Harbor
Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Funding for the vessel use was provided by the National
Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA)
National Undersea Research Program.
Working closely with Maine lobster industry members,
Steneck used the submersible earlier this fall for a
research cruise to determine possible broodstock sites along
the Maine coast. Industry members participating in the
research included Jack Merrill, Islesford; Doug Boynton,
Monhegan Island; Herman Backman Jr., Beals Island; Joe
Chalmers, Northeast Harbor; David Cousens, S. Thomaston;
Arnie Gamage, S. Bristol; Daniel Lunt, Frenchboro; Brian
McClain, Pemaquid; Dan Murdock, Monhegan Island; Walter
Rich, Bernard; Daniel Rogers, Corea; and Sherm Stanley,
Monhegan Island. Oceanographic models suggest that the
broodstock responsible for lobster abundance and the high
volume of lobster landings west of Penobscot Bay is located
in the northern Gulf of Maine. Steneck's research cruise
included sites from Mt. Desert Island to Jonesport, areas
that lobstermen believe contain these broodstock lobsters.
During the cruise, Steneck used the submarine's specially
equipped video cameras to count and measure broodstock
lobsters in their natural habitat.
Steneck hopes that by comparing the information
obtained from his submarine research with data on
trap-caught lobsters in the same areas, scientists will be
able to chart population trends in broodstock over time.
Currently, information on trap-caught lobsters is obtained
by student sea samplers. In the future, data will be
gathered with the help of lobstermen using calibrated traps.
As Steneck says, "By working closely with lobstermen, we'll
be able to census broodstock abundance in the future. That
means if a crisis in the population were to occur, we'd
recognize its symptoms more clearly than we can today."
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