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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 4
December 2006
Project tags, tracks Gulf of Maine lobsters
NEW BEDFORD, MA – A number of Gulf of Maine lobstermen have seen something new as they’ve been hauling their traps this fall – lobsters sporting bright yellow streamer tags.
The tags are part of a new, broad-scale migration study that began in August with the goal of tagging 12,000 lobsters by year’s end.
As of mid-November, about 7,000 tags had been placed, according to project leader Bob Glenn of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF). Rick Wahle of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in West Boothbay Harbor, ME is the other principal investigator involved in the project.
“We’re tagging short lobsters, as well as egg-bearing, v-notched, and oversized lobsters – anything the lobster fishermen can’t keep,” said Glenn. “We’re trying to learn more about how various regions in the Gulf of Maine are related and what amount of stock interchange occurs.”
Assessment mystery
Funded by a $150,000 grant from the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Insititute, the project was prompted in part by the 2005 Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission lobster stock assessment.
In that assessment, the Gulf of Maine stock was characterized as being in “good condition,” except for the southern portion – specifically statistical area 514 off Massachusetts – that wound up posting the lowest stock abundance and commercial landings in 25 years. Scientists were unable to explain why.
In their tagging project proposal, Glenn and Wahle pointed out that documenting the migratory patterns of animals can help researchers understand such differences within a stock.
They acknowledged the fact that numerous lobster tagging studies had been completed across the geographic range of the American lobster, but pointed out that those studies had been conducted “in discrete portions of coastal and offshore waters, during different seasons, on different demographic groups, in different years, and with different sample sizes.”
This tagging study covers the inshore and offshore waters of the Gulf of Maine from midcoast Maine to Cape Cod Bay. The goals of the study are to:
Determine the degree of stock connectivity in lobster populations in statistical area 514 and the rest of the Gulf of Maine;
Develop a better understanding of the dynamics between the inshore and offshore portions of the Gulf of Maine; and
Act as a pilot project for a broad-scale tagging program that can be implemented across all three US stocks of American lobsters – Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, and Southern New England.
Tagging
Glenn explained that biologists went out on the lobster boats of “captains who were willing to take us out” to do the tagging.
Placement of the 12,000 tags basically was split this way: 4,000 for the area from midcoast Maine to Kittery, ME; 4,000 for the area from Cape Ann to Cape Cod; and 4,000 for offshore waters.
“Between August and October, we tagged close to 4,000 lobsters” in Maine, Wahle said.
Technician Charlene Bergeron and undergraduates took two to four trips out of four locations on lobster boats belonging to John Seiders of South Bristol, Dave Johnson of Casco Bay, Ed Hutchins of Cape Porpoise, and Brad Parady of Kittery.
“I think Maine lobstermen are particularly interested in the degree to which Maine lobsters ‘subsidize’ the Massachusetts catch. So there’s much enthusiasm here,” Wahle said. “It will indeed be an important test of connectivity of lobster subpopulations along the New England coast and shelf.”
The Massachusetts lobstermen who had carried taggers aboard their boats as of mid-November were: Mark Ring of Gloucester; Fred Penney of Boston; Susan and Jay Michaud of Marblehead; John Barrett of Cohasset; John Carver of Green Harbor; Fred Dauphinee of Scituate; and Ken Weeks and Kurt Oehme of Sandwich.
While the bulk of the inshore tags had been placed by mid-November, the offshore work was expected to get started in earnest as the holidays approached.
DMF fisheries technician Steve Wilcox had volunteered to make the long, offshore trips in December that will be required to get the job done by the end of the year, Glenn said.
Please call
The lobster tag “hot line” had already been ringing off the hook as lobstermen began finding the shorts, eggers, and v-notched females in their pots and noticed the tags.
“We’ve gotten a good response,” Glenn said.
However, he said he’d heard stories of lobstermen finding the same tagged lobster or multiple tagged lobsters who decided it wasn’t worth the trouble of recording the information and making the call.
Glenn hopes they’ll reconsider next time that happens because every report contributes to the growing pool of important information on how, when, and where lobsters migrate.
Instructions, incentives
When you find a tagged lobster, call the number on the tag – (617) 727-0394, ext. 363. You’ll reach a recorded message machine that will ask you to leave the following information:
Tag number;
Location of capture in either GPS or loran;
Sex, egg status, v-notch status, and length of the tagged lobster if possible; and
Your name, vessel name, address, and phone number.
The researchers would also appreciate any additional observations you may want to contribute regarding the tagged lobster, such as shell condition.
You will receive a tagging project hat for the first two tag reports up to a maximum of two hats per vessel. Every tag report, including those first two and subsequent call-ins, will get you one entry into a raffle for five $500 gift certificates to a marine supply store. There’s no limit on raffle entries.
For more information on the “Northwest Atlantic Lobster Tagging Program,” contact: Bob Glenn, phone (508) 990-2860, ext. 113, e-mail <Robert.Glenn@state.ma.us>; or Rick Wahle, phone (207) 633-9659, e-mail <rwahle@bigelow.org>.
Lorelei Stevens
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