In This Edition - Winter 2003

• Predation Of Juvenile Lobsters By The Asian Shore Crab
  

• Lobster College Moves to Northeast Harbor’s Asticou Inn
  
  
• MLA 2002 V-Notch Survey Results
  
  

• 2002 Friends of the Lobster Institute Honor Roll
  
  
• Research Report
  
  
• POINT – COUNTERPOINT:  Opposing Editorials on the Use of Quotas as a Management Tool in the Lobster Fishery
  
  
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Predation Of Juvenile Lobsters By The Asian Shore Crab 

Excerpts from a preliminary report by Anna Demeo, University of Maine graduate student, and Dr. John Riley, University of Maine Professor of Marine Sciences and Lobster Institute Cooperating Research Professor.

      The Asian shore crab (Hemigrapsus sanguineus) was first discovered on the east coast of the U.S. in New Jersey in 1988. It is assumed that like many invasive species it was carried here in ballast water from an ocean-going vessel. Since 1988, this crab has become abundant along a large part of the mid-Atlantic and southern New England coast.

Asian shore crabs have been shown to eat red and green algae, small herbivores, mussels, clams, snails, barnacles and polychaete worms. One study found that they consume an average of 6.8 juvenile mussels (9-20 mm in length) per day.  This is fewer than the number consumed by Green crabs.  However, Asian shore crabs have become a more devastating predator because of their sheer numbers.  Average densities in southern New England are 60 to 90 crabs per square meter…60 times the density of Green crabs in many locations.

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Lobster College Moves to Northeast Harbor’s Asticou Inn

     Plans are underway for the Lobster Institute’s third annual Lobster College to be held September 4-7, 2003.  This year’s event will be hosted at the Asticou Inn in Northeast Harbor.  The Asticou is a classic country inn, built in 1883, overlooking the spectacular Great Harbor.  As always, “students” at Lobster College will enjoy a learning vacation filled with information on all things lobster.  Reservations are limited. Information, including a tentative curriculum, is posted on the Institute’s Web site at www.lobsterinstitute.org or call 207-581-2751 for information and registration materials.                                             z

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MLA 2002 V-Notch Survey Results

    The Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA) recently reported the results of its 2002 V-Notch Survey.  This year’s survey was expanded to include input from New Hampshire and Massachusetts fishermen, with data collected from 120 lobstermen.  Out of more than 49,500 traps hauled and sampled, close to 17,346 females were caught.  Eighty-five percent of these had a v-notch and 15% were eggers with no notch. z

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2003 Friends of the Lobster Institute Roll Call of Donors

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 ResearchReport

Readers may contact the Lobster Institute for more detailed information on any of the projects reported.  

Herb Hodgkins of Lobster Products, Inc. in Hancock Maine looks over wooden traps still being used in the lobster fishery in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.

v      Exploring Use of Soybean-Based Bait in Newfoundland’s Fisheries – Dr. Bob Bayer, Executive Director of the Lobster Institute, and Herb Hodgkins of Lobster  Products, Inc. recently traveled to St. John’s, Newfoundland to explore using soybean-based alternative bait in both the lobster and snow crab fisheries in Canada. The bait is being developed jointly by the Institute and Lobster Products, Inc.   Philip Walsh of the Fisheries and Marine Institute at Memorial University hosted the two. Funding for the trip was provided in part through a seed grant from the Maine Technology Institute.

v      Asian Shore Crab Research – cont. from page 1

these young lobsters from their shelter making them vulnerable to predators.  A more favorable scenario is that the juvenile lobsters would migrate further down the tidal zone until they are beyond the vertical range of the shore crab.

   There is also the potential for the shore crab to prey on juvenile lobsters.  It may be that this would be an arduous task for the crab and therefore not profitable.  However this and other hypotheses on this subject have yet to be studied.  A research project has recently been designed to address this.

    Field studies were conducted on 3 beaches on Mt. Desert Island to determine the presence or absence of the Asian shore crab.  These field surveys will be expanded this spring.  While there was an abundance of other species of crab there were no Asian shore crabs.  A preliminary study of the effect of these crabs on juvenile lobsters proved inconclusive.  A larger competition including space competition is currently underway. The goal of this study is to look at the Asian Shore crab’s ability and desire to prey on juvenile lobsters.                                             z

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The Pro View of Quota Management for the American Lobster Fishery

Editorial comment by Dick Allen, Lobster Fisherman, Rhode Island

      An old Chinese proverb says that today’s wild ideas are tomorrow’s common sense.  So it may be useful on occasion to consider a few wild ideas, perhaps getting a jump on the next generation of common sense.  On that premise, I will raise the question of whether the lobster fishery would be smart to move to quota management before we make too much of an investment in the control and management of lobster fishing effort.

What’s the best way to control the rate at which legal-sized lobsters are removed from the population?  V-notching slows the rate at which females are taken after they first bear eggs, but why do we want to expend all the effort to catch a lobster, and then throw it back?  Why not save the cost of catching it?  And what about males?  Would it make more sense to allow the average male to grow a little larger? (I’m not talking about a larger gauge, I mean leave a lobster in the water to grow even though he is of legal size.)

There are two primary methods of controlling the rate at which a fishery removes animals from the water.  Input controls govern the amount of fishing effort that can be applied to the fishery.  In the U.S. lobster fishery we have just started to control the number of licenses and the number of traps that each license holder can fish.  Some states regulate fishing days.  Canada has a long history of effort control, with limited licenses, short seasons, and low trap numbers compared to the U.S.  And some would say that the Canadians are still not adequately controlling the fishing mortality rate. 

     Keep in mind that fishing effort controls must limit the catch in the same way that quotas do if they are going to achieve their objective – that an animal that could have been caught this year with high effort will escape capture until next year with lower effort.  If fishermen find ways to catch more even though their effort is regulated, the regulations must be made tighter.  The Canadian example gives U.S. fishermen an idea of what to expect for future trap limits and fishing seasons if we continue with effort controls.  

Input controls generally make a fisherman inefficient, because they don’t allow him to run his business in the way that he knows he can catch the most at the least cost.  In Australia, which is known for progressive lobster management, the states are switching from effort controls to quota management, one by one.   Output controls, or quotas, provide much better control over the number of animals that are taken from the stock, so they are much better at achieving conservation objectives.  If quotas are allocated to individuals, they can control the total catch without interfering with the way a fisherman runs his business.  Individual quotas give fishermen much more flexibility because fishery managers don’t have to worry about how and when a fisherman catches his quota.  And fishermen don’t have to worry that their quota will be caught by someone else if they don’t get it first.  The “race for fish” that has caused poor economic and biological performance of many fisheries is eliminated by individual quotas.

The time to switch from effort controls to quota management is before fishing effort units (licenses, trap certificates) acquire significant value, as they have in Canada.  (Effort management and quota management both raise concerns about the cost of entry and potential concentration of the industry.)  There is no “right” way to switch from effort units to quota units after effort becomes valuable. 

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