Down East lobstermen get N.B. ally Off-season fishing rule divides Canadians

CUTLER – Lobster fishermen in Washington County have an unexpected ally in their opposition to Canada’s decision to allow 20 Grand Manan lobstermen to fish out of season in a disputed U.S.-Canadian fishing ground.

Mark Green, vice president of the Grand Manan Fishermen’s Association, said Friday that 50 of the 132 licensed Canadian lobstermen on Grand Manan have signed a petition opposing the out-of-season Canadian fishing off Grand Manan Island.

“We don’t want a summer fishery here,” Green said. “No one’s catch is going down and we want to keep peace with the Americans.”

At issue is the so-called “gray zone,” a 110-square-mile area off Grand Manan, New Brunswick, that is claimed by both the United States and Canada.

Traditionally, Maine lobstermen have had the area to themselves during the summer months because the Canadian lobster season runs from the second Tuesday in November through June 29.

But this summer, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans gave 20 Grand Manan lobstermen special permission to fish the zone from Aug. 15 through Oct. 31. The decision came at the request of the Grand Manan Fishermen’s Association, which maintains that the gray zone is fished out when the Canadian season opens because of increasing fishing pressure from Maine lobstermen.

Kristan Porter and John Drouin, two Cutler lobstermen who fish the gray zone, said the Canadian lobstermen are setting their traps in the 30-square-mile area at the top of Machias Seal Island.

If all 20 Canadian fishermen set up there, that would mean an additional 7,000 traps in an area that is already home to 3,000 to 4,000 traps owned by the 16 Cutler and Trescott lobstermen who fish there, they said.

“They’re setting over us and we’re setting over them,” Porter said. “If your traps are all tangled, you have to work until dark or you miss traps. One day this week I missed 11 traps because they were all tangled up.”

Melanie Sonnenberg, project manager for the Grand Manan Fishermen’s Association, said each of the 20 fishermen who have permission to fish the gray zone was given a map, supplied by the Cutler lobstermen, of where the American traps were set.

Sonnenberg said the fishermen’s association would have preferred a negotiated settlement with the Maine fishermen rather than out-of-season fishing, but that did not take place.

The Lobster Advisory Committee for Grand Manan took a vote by ballot on the out-of-season fishing proposal and the majority agreed to it, she said.

U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe is the ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee’s fisheries subcommittee. Snowe’s aide, Gail Kelly, said she saw the congestion off Machias Seal Island when she visited the area Aug. 21 with Andrew Minkiewicz, counsel to the subcommittee.

“It’s like a four-lane highway out around Machias Seal Island,” Kelly said.

Minkiewicz said he learned quite a bit about the situation talking with the Maine lobstermen and the nine Canadian lobstermen who came over to the meeting he and Kelly attended in Cutler.

He is waiting to receive the petition that the Grand Manan contingent said it would be circulating, Minkiewicz said.

“They really are neighbors up there,” said Minkiewicz, who said he has encouraged the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Maine Department of Marine Resources to take a more active role in discussing the situation with their Canadian counterpart.

State Marine Resources Commissioner George LaPointe said Friday that he is trying to set up another meeting between the Canadian fisheries department, DMR and the Cutler and Grand Manan lobstermen.

The meeting would be Friday in Machias.

Tony Lyons, one of the Grand Manan lobstermen who came over to Cutler, said he doesn’t believe the ballot vote by Grand Manan lobstermen is representative of the majority because 25 percent of the lobster licenses are controlled by just seven people.

“I’m not really happy about the way this came about,” said Lyons. “It seems like a handful of people pushed it, and I think everybody should have made the decision.”