ELLSWORTH – Not many people showed up at a public hearing on proposed lobster fishing regulations at City Hall on Monday night, but that doesn’t mean Maine fishermen are indifferent to the suggested changes.

Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner George Lapointe conducted the half-hour hearing and took comments from the 10 or so people in attendance. Lapointe and the few fishermen attending were in agreement about an amendment being considered by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

“We hate it,” Lapointe said. A similar hearing Sept. 5 in Portland drew roughly 25 people who felt the same way, he added.

Lapointe and the local fishermen are opposed to a proposal that would allow fishermen who fish east of Cape Cod to keep lobsters that Maine fishermen cannot keep. Bar Harbor lobsterman John Carter said fishermen in Maine have been cutting V-shaped notches into the tips of the tails of reproducing females and throwing them back into the ocean for years. Carter, the president of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission lobster council management team for the zone off the coast of Maine, said this measure was voluntary initially but has been required of Maine fishermen for several years. Fishermen in other states did not start cutting the notches into the tails of the females they catch until relatively recently, he added.

Some Massachusetts lobstermen who fish west of Cape Cod are suggesting that they be allowed to keep lobsters with V-notches as long as they adopt a larger minimum size for those they are allowed to keep, Lapointe said. Lobstermen are not allowed to keep lobsters smaller than 31/4 inches long.

Lapointe said the proposal would be voted on next month when the marine fisheries commission meets at the Samoset Resort in Rockport. Each member state on the commission, which includes every coastal state between Maine and North Carolina, gets one vote in the matter, Lapointe said.

To allow the exception would undermine the conservation efforts Maine lobstermen have long fought for, according to Northeast Harbor fisherman Eric Jones.

“I don’t understand how we could allow someone else to keep our V-notch lobsters that we’re getting credit for,” Jones said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Lapointe said that the V-notching has helped make Maine’s lobster fishery productive in recent years.

“V-notching puts money in the bank for us,” he said.

Leroy Bridges, the president of the Downeast Lobstermen’s Association, said the exception would have an adverse effect on the lobster population in the Gulf of Maine.

“This would be a travesty,” Bridges said. “It’s a given that Maine lobstermen are not trying to catch the last lobster.”

Carter said that he is confident the measure will not pass, but was critical of the one-state, one-vote arrangement.

“We’re 80 percent of the industry,” he said of Maine’s fishery.

Lapointe said there has been some pressure from fishermen in southern New England for all of the member states to increase the minimum size for lobsters that fishermen are allowed to keep. He said this would put Maine fishermen at an economic disadvantage with Canadian fishermen, who could keep smaller lobsters that sell for a cheaper price.

“All the other areas think it’s a good idea,” Lapointe said of the designated fishing zones further south on the East Coast. “We’d lose market share.”

Lapointe said that the United States increased its minimum size to 31/4 inches in 1989, but that Canada did not increase its minimum requirement to the same length until last year. If the United States increased its minimum size again, Canada likely would not change its restrictions accordingly for several years, he added.