Lobster data system debated Methods on table at Portland talks

PORTLAND – What is the best way to collect data on the stock of lobster off the eastern coast of North America?

No one answer was agreed upon Friday at a town-hall style meeting at the local Doubletree Hotel. But the issue was energetically debated by the 90 or so American and Canadian fishermen, scientists and government regulators who attended the event, the third sponsored by the University of Maine’s Lobster Institute.

Carl Wilson, senior lobster scientist for the Maine Department of Marine Resources, said that an assessment of lobster stocks taken last year in the Gulf of Maine indicates that the population is doing relatively well compared with other areas of the East Coast. He said scientists used a different method with a wider set of data for assessing the gulf than had been used in previous years.

There still is a lot about how the lobster population changes that scientists don’t know, he and other experts agreed.

“Overall, I think we agree there’s a lot more [information] that could be collected,” said John Tremblay, a scientist with the Bedford Institute of Technology in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

Among the things that should be studied more heavily is how water quality and recovering stocks of predatory species such as cod and striped bass affect lobster populations, the fishermen agreed. The fishermen get mandates from federal regulators when lobster stocks decline, but often it is not the fishing that is responsible for the decline, they said.

One type of information collection Maine fishermen don’t want, however, is a requirement to keep logs of their catch. For many, that would be a first step toward imposition of quotas.

“Quotas will ruin our livelihoods,” said Bar Harbor fisherman Jon Carter, explaining the fear that many of his colleagues feel. “They’re scared to death of any kind of change. They’re scared to death of scientists and scared to death of managers because they will change the way they’ve always lived.”

Penny Howell of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection countered that such information could help protect fishermen from unfair regulation. She said in 1979 her state started requiring fishermen to keep logs, which helped show the Long Island Sound lobster die-off in the late 1990s was not because of overfishing.

“We have the data that says it wasn’t their fault,” she said.

Laurence Cook, a fisherman from Grand Manan, said that collecting data from fishermen is OK but that requiring them to sign their name to their data will only mean one thing.

“To do a stock assessment, you don’t need anyone’s name,” Cook said. “Names don’t matter unless you’re planning an individual [quota] system.”

Carter said that regulators need to consider recovering stocks of groundfish not only when estimating the lobster population, but also when deciding how to regulate the industry.

Gary Ostrom, a fisherman from West Barnstable, Mass., agreed. He said striped bass and dogfish have made huge comebacks in Massachusetts Bay and are affecting local lobster stocks.

“The fisheries is a balloon and when you squeeze the balloon it’s going to put pressure somewhere else,” he said. “We need to open up these fisheries as they come back.”

There was some debate about whether the boundaries for stock assessment areas should match up with those for management zones. Some said it is only fair to use the same assessment techniques in all lobster fishing areas, but others said that not all areas should be managed the same way because then local fishermen will lose their limited ability to govern their local areas.

DMR scientist Wilson said that the best thing for effective regulation is to have comprehensive research and data to back it up. And when it comes to research, the bottom line is funding.

Wilson said he finds it surprising that though the lobster industry generated $300 million in Maine’s economy last year, he has a hard time finding room in his budget for sampling.

“I think it comes down to money,” he said.