CARAQUET, New Brunswick – Preliminary results from lobster restocking efforts off northern New Brunswick have researchers and fishermen alike excited.

A team with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans spent a month painstakingly counting thousands of young lobsters in waters near this fishing community on the Acadian peninsula.

About 65,000 tiny lobsters were released last year as part of a pilot project aimed at increasing stocks. DFO lobster specialist Michel Comeau said he is pleased with the survival rates for the first year.

“It was quite a bit higher than the control area – up to 16 times in the area where there was a drop, compared to the control area,” he said.

The lobsters are still very small and will not be large enough for commercial harvesting for at least five years. However, this summer’s research showed the lobsters survived their crucial first year in the wild.

Fishermen say the findings are good news for an industry desperate to find ways to increase catches.

“It’s exactly what we were looking for,” said Euclide Chiasson of the Maritime Fishermen’s Union. “It’s really a breakthrough, I think, scientifically and economically.”

The union and fisheries officials will release another 120,000 young lobsters this summer in test areas near Cape Pele, New Brunswick, and along the Northumberland Strait.

Chiasson said that while the process is a labor of love, the ultimate goal is to help the lobster population.

Stocks have been declining in parts of the Northumberland Strait for the past few years.

It’s led fishing groups from New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island to participate in a buyback program to ease fishing pressure.