Beals Island lobsterman Jeff Libby speaks out against proposed changes the Maine DMR presented March 9 in Ellsworth. “I just wish people would listen to what we have to say,” he said.
Kathleen Reardon, senior lobster scientist at the Maine Department of Marine Resources, and Megan Ware, director for external affairs, met with local lobstermen March 9 at Ellsworth High School.
Beals Island lobsterman Jeff Libby speaks out against proposed changes the Maine DMR presented March 9 in Ellsworth. “I just wish people would listen to what we have to say,” he said.
Kathleen Reardon, senior lobster scientist at the Maine Department of Marine Resources, and Megan Ware, director for external affairs, met with local lobstermen March 9 at Ellsworth High School.
ELLSWORTH — Lobstermen facing new fishing restrictions proposed by the multi-state Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) met March 9 with Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) staff to hear details, ask questions and provide public comments.
The proposed changes are aimed at increasing the protection of lobster spawning stock, after a 2020 assessment in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank showed low numbers of lobsters in their first year of life, called “young of year.” Recruits, young lobsters 71-80 millimeters, are also in decline, DMR Director of External Affairs Megan Ware said.
But the majority of the 30 lobstermen gathered in the Ellsworth High School cafeteria said don’t change anything. The meeting came the day after an online meeting was held that drew about 50 people.
Winter Harbor lobsterman Herman Faulkingham said that a multi-state commission shouldn’t regulate individual fishermen in Maine. Jim Hanscom, who fishes out of Bar Harbor and is vice chairman of the Zone B Lobster Council, agreed.
“We’ve been the most restricted state in everything we do,” Hanscom said.
The ASMFC was created in 1940 through inter-state agreement and ratified by Congress to coordinate the management of 27 near-shore fish species including lobster for 11 states. Lobstermen asked Ware why other states could vote to pass lobster regulations for Maine, which lands by far the most lobsters in the U.S.
Like all the states in the ASMFC, Maine has three commissioners on the ASMFC board — one is DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher — but only one vote.
The current change proposed is to the Lobster Addendum Draft, created in 2012 to address low numbers of juvenile settlement in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank.
“We’re still seeing the warning signal the board had started to see in 2012,” Ware said.
The proposed amendment would increase the minimum size of legally caught lobsters by 1/16th of an inch, from 3 1/4 inches to 3 3/8 inches, in Lobster Management Area 1, the near-shore fishing region.
Ware presented three options. Two options would use a pre-determined stock level to trigger implementation, either in one step or in two steps over three years. The third option would gradually implement the change without using a trigger level.
Proposed changes for offshore Lobster Management Area 3 and Outer Cape Cod, which have larger minimum gauge sizes in place, would change the maximum size of legally caught lobsters.
But lobstermen who fish in LMA 1 off Hancock and Washington counties said they already use the smallest gauge of the three management areas, and that stock assessment surveys don’t represent what they see on the water every day.
“The last few years I’ve seen more short lobsters egging out than I’ve ever seen,” Hanscom said.
Stonington lobsterman Virginia Olsen said that the DMR should also look at predation as a reason for the year of young decline.
“We’re looking in mackerel and flounder but not in striper,” Olsen said. “I’m seeing images of 10 to 15 baby lobsters in the belly of one striper.”
Olsen also said that sea squirts spreading in nearshore fishing areas are keeping young lobsters from settling on the ocean floor.
The market was another concern since a smaller gauge size would keep 1-pound lobsters off the docks.
“It’s a huge inequity for us lobstermen to not catch those lobsters but let us buy [them] from Canada,” one lobsterman noted.
But not all lobstermen advocated keeping the status quo in their public comments. Stonington lobsterman John Williams likes a gradual change to the minimum gauge size, noting that if they implement it in late spring, they’ll never notice it. “We lived through the last gauge increase, we’ll live through this one,” he said.
Jim Dow of Bass Harbor agreed. “If we could do it in June, we wouldn’t see the harm.”
How the stock assessment data is collected came under fire. Trawl surveys are done in each of the state’s seven lobster zones three days per month, while lobstermen volunteer for a ventless trap survey.
The DMR used data from 2016 to 2018 for the 2020 stock assessment but those were peak years for the fishery, so lobstermen questioned its value.
“The practical day-to-day, historical knowledge of the fishery is on the water, not on this screen,” said Bob Burke of Sedgwick.
Beals Island lobsterman Jeff Libby agreed: “I’ve been doing this 20 years and written down [notes] every day,” he said. “And I just don’t understand the logic behind this.”
“I want my kids to do this and it’s going downhill,” he added. “I just wish people would listen to what we have to say and how we feel.”
But DMR senior lobster biologist Kathleen Reardon kept the DMR’s message clear. “Something’s happening in the environment affecting the viability of small lobsters,” she said. “At what point do you want to take action?”
