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In This Edition
U.S./Irish Exchange Gains Momentum
During the week of April 18-22, a team of researchers from the U.S. and Canada traveled to
Galway, Ireland to take part in an international conference on Lobster Biology, Fisheries, Management, Cultivation,
and Stock Enhancement. The group included Dave Dow and Bob Bayer, University of Maine (UM); Brian Beal,
UM Machias; Diane Cowan, Bates College, Maine; Mike Fogarty, National Marine Fisheries Service, Woods Hole Laboratory,
Massachusetts; Rick Wahle, University of Rhode Island; and Canadian representatives Susan Waddy, Department of
fisheries and Oceans (DFO), New Brunswick and John Castell, DFO, Nova Scotia.
Researchers gave presentations on the status of the U.S. and Canadian lobster fishery and management strategies,
current stock enhancement programs, and an overview of scientific research that is being conducted in the region.
They also served on a panel for a lobster training course designed for lobster businesses and research/development
personnel involed in lobster cultivation and enhancement.
During the conference, Dow met with Irish lobstermen from around the coast to help form a steering committee to
establish an Irish lobstermen's organization. He explained how the Maine and Massachusetts Lobstermen's Associations
and the Lobster Institute were organized and offered them support in forming their own industry association.
Due in part to the strong conservation ethic the Maine industry has practiced over the years, resource currently
appears to be healthy. The Irish lobster industry, on the other hand, is suffering from greatly depleted stocks and
increasing pressure on them. Dow is proposing that six to eight key Irish lobstermen come to Maine in late October as
guests of the lobster Institute and the Maine Lobstermen's Association. Irish lobstermen would be hosted by Maine
lobstering families and spend eight to ten days fishing, visiting pounds, touring processing plants, and video
recording their observations. When they return to Ireland, they would share their experiences in Maine with their
local industries.
University of PEI/UM Exchange Benefits Both Sides
"I'm hoping we can really internationalize lobster research. There's no need for research to stop just
because there's a line across the Bay of Fundy," says Rick Cawthorn, a parisitologist at the Atlantic Veterinary
College of the Univeristy of Prince Edward Island (UPEI). In Canada, he studies parasitic protozoans of economically
important fish, shellfish, and larger crustaceans.
Cawthorn spent three weeks in March at the University of Maine (UM) working with Mike Loughlin, a graduate student in
the Animal, Veterinary, and Aquatic Sciences Department, to identify the organism that causes bumper car disease in
lobsters. The PEI professor brings to Maine his expertise in using molecular techiniques and is helping researchers
in Maine solve problems they have had with staining disease organisms and blood cells. He will soon be an associate
graduate faculty member at UM.
In return, Loughlin has been invited to UPEI next January as a post doctoral fellow to share his expertise in lobster
biology. While in Canada, Loughlin will learn the necessary molecular techniques to further his own research on
infectious disease in lobsters.
According to Cawthorn, one of the probable causes of disease in lobsters is improper handling. When a lobster is
handled poorly, it is more highly stressed and therefore more susceptible to certain diseases.
As Cawthorn explains, "From what I understand, the lobster in the trap is a healthy lobster. It's what happens to it
before it gets to your plate or mine that determines its quality. One way we're trying to reduce lobster disease in
Canada is to educate fishermen to handle lobsters carefully. If a fisherman takes his time, he'll have a better
product. The buyer will get a better product and the market will get an even better product. Markets are being
turned off by lobsters with tremendous shrinkage problems at the retail level."
At UPEI, researchers are proposing studies to examine how different handling procedures affect lobsters, how stress
can be measured, when infectious disease develops in a pound, and how diseases kill lobsters. In Maine, Bob Bayer and
his graduate students are looking at ways to control infectious disease in lobsters by using nutrition to modify their
immune response and by using medicated feed. As Cawthorn states, "With our compimentary expertise about lobsters, our
two universities can put together a nice research package." And the entire North Atlantic lobster industry stands to
gain.
Following a seminar on bad debt at the First International Lobster Congress held in Portland, Maine last
October, several participants asked Jim Wilson of the University's Resource Economics & Policy Department to look into
methods developed by other industries to deal with this problem. Wilson enlisted the help of Rich Roesing, a
graduate student in business administration, to conduct an investigation to find models in other industries.