Crisis o’ the day

The National Marine Fisheries Service, a federal agency, rejects a lobster management plan developed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, a confederation of state resource managers, fishermen and legislators, calling it inadequate to protect the valuable species from overfishing and collapse.

At first glance, it might seem like tough-minded feds, utterly devoted to science and conservation, at last are laying down the law to a wavering commission, fatally tainted by commerce and politics. Get serious or get out of our way, NMFS says. Cut and dried, black and white, right?

Rather gray, actually. For decades, Maine lobstermen, who account for half of the nation’s $242 million harvest and who set the pace in self-imposed conservation measures, have said the single greatest threat to the industry’s future is off-shore dragging in federal waters, from three to 200 miles out, a practice that preys particularly hard on large, egg-bearing female lobsters.

For decades, NMFS has failed to address the issue of dragging in its jurisdiction. So guess what the agency says is the fundamental flaw in the commission plan? It’s failure to protect large, egg-bearing female lobsters.

Maine lobstermen have long recognized the importance of preserving its brood stock and have taken action in state waters, with such measures as a maximum, as well as minimum, legal size, a ban on harvesting egged females and a prohibition on dragging for lobsters or even landing dragged lobsters on Maine docks. Massachusetts recently saw the light and placed severe restrictions on dragged landings.

Everyone agrees lobsters are extraordinarily plentiful at the moment, with years of record or near-record harvests as proof. NMFS’s concern, a valid one, is that the egg-bearing capacity of the lobsters left behind is declining. Maine lobstermen know where this missing egg capacity can be found — on wharves from New Hampshire south, dredged up from deep federal waters.

The commission and NMFS agree that fishing effort — the number of traps in the water — must be reduced. The commission says gradually, NMFS immediately. Gradually is the better choice, the only realistic choice.

The commission was created by Congress and given authority to devise a lobster management plan for this reason: to allow the states a voice in managing their resources and fishermen a voice in running their lives. Logic dictates that any plan developed with such input would include a strong component of economics. A cap on effort, a reduction over time, allowing attrition to work, is something fishermen could deal with and plan for. The sudden, drastic reduction NMFS wants, unless accompanied by federal subsidies for mortgages, boat payments, college tuition and all the other nagging necessities of life in a fishing family, would cause unreasonable hardship.

This episode sounds remarkably like NMFS’s recent attempt to save the right whale by recommending harsh, unworkable fishing rules to eliminate statistically insignificant gear entaglements while ignoring the real problem of ship strikes. Once again, NMFS is crying “crisis.” NMFS knows a thing or two about crises — it’s awfully good at creating them.