The Department of Marine Resources last year slashed the number of days when urchin harvesting is allowed, but DMR believes the species remains in decline. Fishermen, on the other hand, say that urchins are plentiful and they should be able to spend more days looking for them. Both views could be right depending on your vantage point. Like so many other ocean species, abundance varies widely from place to place. This is a good argument for localized management.

A bill sponsored by Rep. Ian Emery, an urchin diver from Cutler, would move in the opposite direction by having the Legislature set the urchin season. LD 479 is the subject of a public hearing before the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee this afternoon. Fishermen are likely to pack the hearing room and repeatedly tell lawmakers that DMR’s urchin regulations are too strict and are putting them out of business. While this may be true, putting urchin decisions in the hands of legislators, very few of whom know much about the fishery, is a move in the wrong direction.

Instead, more authority should be given to the fishermen themselves. There is already a model for this type of management in the state’s highly touted lobster zone councils. There are currently seven zone councils along the coast, each with between seven and 13 districts. Lobster regulations are tailored to meet local conditions and with so many lobstermen involved in managing the species, they, in effect, police themselves.

For urchins the state has just two huge zones, one from the New Hampshire border to the western side of Penobscot Bay and the other from the bay to the Canadian border. The southern zone, Zone 1, has been overfished with urchins declining to nearly zero in 2004, according to DMR data. For this reason, DMR staff recommended that the zone be closed entirely. Not wanting to put fishermen out of business, DMR Commissioner George Lapointe reduced the urchin season in Zone 1 from 45 days to 10 last summer.

The number of days in Zone 2 was cut from 94 to 45 days. However, in this zone the number of urchins varies by location. Cobscook and Passamaquoddy bays are the only areas in the state where urchins have become more plentiful between 2001 and 2004, according to DMR. Allowing more fishing in these areas may be OK.

Another bill, LD 167, could allow for this. This legislation would allow the DMR commissioner to create urchin management areas and to place limits on who can fish in them.

This is a sensible approach that, if broadened to include fishermen in management decisions, would move the fishery in the right direction.