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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 7
March 2006
ASMFC looks at lobster mandatory reporting, BRPs
ARLINGTON, VA – The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) American Lobster Management Board is considering two major changes intended to help it get a better grip on the status of the overall resource.
First, the board is considering a proposal to require mandatory reporting in the lobster fishery – by harvesters as well as dealers – and it is thinking about revising the way it measures overfishing.
Both ideas will be aired at public meetings in March and April under draft Addendum VIII to Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for American Lobster.
Although hearing dates were unavailable at press time, ASMFC said the comment period would close at some point during April.
The overfishing aspect of the addendum is critically important on several counts, but the topic that generated the most debate at the board’s Feb. 21 meeting in Arlington was mandatory reporting.
Maine Commissioner George Lapointe barely let the discussion unfold before making it clear that lobstermen in his state have serious problems with mandatory reporting.
Understanding that better data would significantly enhance future stock assessments, Lapointe and his staff recently embarked on a campaign to explain this need to Maine lobstermen.
“We didn’t make progress,” said Lapointe. “We regressed. The data issue is still problematic for the state of Maine.”
Maine State Sen. Dennis Damon, also an ASMFC commissioner, said the opposition ran far deeper than the fishing industry. The Legislature’s Marine Resource Committee was having trouble justifying the need for and cost of imposing mandatory reporting on the state’s whole lobster community.
“As we have discussed it legislatively, it has had a very cool if not cold reception,” said Damon. “I would caution us not to go too fast and too soon.”
As for industry’s take on the idea, Damon said, “There is a certain suspicion as to why we’re trying to do this. It’s a fairly big step.”
Data “inadequate”
The whole data issue came to a head during the 2005 lobster stock assessment.
As ASMFC put it, “The 2004 Lobster Model Review Panel and the 2005 Stock Assessment Review Panel found the data available are woefully inadequate for the management needs of the lobster fishery, and it is the primary limitation on the ability to manage the fishery.”
After hearing these complaints in November, ASMFC’s lobster board agreed to at least investigate the problem.
Draft Addendum VIII contains three options for addressing data deficiencies:
• Option 1 – Status quo. States would be required only to maintain 1997 levels of reporting and data collection but would be “encouraged” to “pursue full implementation of the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program (ACCSP) monitoring and reporting measures”;
• Option 2 – A coastwide mandatory reporting and data collection program using ACCSP protocol. This approach, among many other things, calls for a “two-ticket system” using both dealer and harvester landings information at the trip level; and
• Option 3 – An expanded coastwide mandatory reporting and data collection program. This, the most advanced option, would require much more detailed reporting and monitoring requirements than Option 2 to assist scientists in better estimating the status of each stock.
Support for data
Aside from Maine, other states seemed responsive to at least the lower level of mandatory reporting. Connecticut is already up to speed with ACCSP requirements, and New Hampshire is right behind.
New Hampshire Commissioner John Nelson, who chaired the meeting, said his state’s Fish and Game Department had developed a user-friendly reporting system, which he was prepared to “send around to other states so they can take a look at it.”
ASMFC’s lobster advisory panel, which met before draft Addendum VIII was released, also discussed the issue in a general way.
“We did reach consensus that there needs to be better data collection,” said advisory panel Chairman David Spencer of Rhode Island.
However, Spencer said advisers urged the board to be careful in its approach and not make its own reporting requirements redundant with other mandates.
“We’d rather not fill out three or four forms,” he said.
Massachusetts Commissioner Bill Adler said he supports data reporting and understands why scientists want better data.
But he said ASMFC needs to adopt something “simple and easy to do” that does not require daily reporting, which would be impractical given the sheer number of lobstermen.
Lapointe, sensing that the board would approve draft Addendum VIII for public hearing purposes, acknowledged that Maine would go ahead and hold hearings.
But he reiterated, “This will be incredibly difficult to promote in the state of Maine. I don’t want to underplay how tough it’s going to be. I just want people to be aware of that.”
He also said that Maine, at the end of it all, might be in “an awkward spot in not being able to support part of the addendum.”
Overfishing at F10%
Since Amendment 3, ASMFC has used the F10% definition to judge whether overfishing was occurring.
The definition states that “the American lobster resource is overfished when it is harvested at a rate that results in egg production from the resource, on an egg-per-recruit basis, that is less than 10% of the level produced by an unfished population.”
However, the F10% definition has been widely criticized among industry members for being complicated and only based on egg production.
And as it turned out, stock assessment scientists had problems with it too. They called it “insufficient from a technical point of view” because, among other things, the definition could not distinguish between a depleted stock, meaning one at low abundance, and a stock where overfishing was occurring, meaning that fishing mortality rates were too high.
New way
During last fall’s stock assessment, scientists recommended new biological reference points for determining overfishing.
These include “median abundance and median fishing mortality over the fixed time period of 1982-2003 as threshold reference points” for each stock.
Addendum VIII states, “Based on the recommended reference points, ‘overfishing’ would occur if the average fishing mortality rate for the three most recent years was higher than the 1982-2003 median threshold. A stock would be ‘depleted’ if average abundance for the three most recent years fell below the 1982-2003 median threshold level.”
The numbers won’t be permanent. ASMFC’s lobster technical committee will continue to refine biological reference points as it reviews new stock assessment models.
But for now, lobstermen are being asked whether they want to stick with the old F10% approach to defining overfishing or go with this new approach, which includes more factors than egg production.
To further temper potential shortcomings in the new approach, assessment scientists developed an additional “traffic light” system to expand the number of indicators used to gauge the health of individual lobster stocks.
The traffic light indicators look at fishing mortality, stock abundance, and fishery performance and give them green, yellow, or red “lights”.
Area 6
Deeply concerned about the depleted status of the resource in Long Island Sound, Connecticut Commissioner Eric Smith put forward a motion to add an additional increase to the Area 6 minimum gauge as part of the Addendum VIII package.
Area 6 is already subject to a 1/32" increase on July 1, 2006, but Smith’s proposal would push the gauge to 3-3/8".
The motion ultimately failed, but not before it generated considerable debate and drew the ire of lobstermen in the audience who traveled to Arlington to speak on the issue but were limited in doing so.
“The scrutiny that this proposal is going to get in Connecticut and New York is going to be fierce. I’ve already heard that,” said Smith. “But let’s put this out and let people respond to it. Maybe they’ll come up with a better alternative.”
Smith said the move was important to “get something rolling” and “build some biomass.”
He said, “The clear writing coming out of the assessment is we have a long way to go in this area.”
Connecticut State Sen. George “Doc” Gunther, however, strongly disagreed. In fact, he was in the process of drafting legislation to repeal the last increase and prevent the July 1 increase from going forward.
“We practically eliminated the chick with the increase in the gauge last year,” he said. “I think this will slaughter the little guy who’s out there lobstering.”
Work with LCMT
New York Commissioner Pat Augustine was troubled by the fact that ASMFC’s Area 6 Lobster Conservation Management Team (LCMA) had not been involved in the development of the proposal, which Smith presented on behalf of Connecticut’s Marine Fisheries Division.
Augustine said that up to this point, “as far as I know, we’ve jointly participated with the LCMT in every major move we’ve made.”
Although ASMFC’s advisory panel had not officially reviewed the proposal, David Spencer said the panel “feels strongly” about preserving the existing area management process.
“We do like to see the industry and the states come up with these proposals together,” he said.
But Commissioner Mark Gibson of Rhode Island supported Connecticut’s attempt to pursue additional conservation measures for Area 6.
“The agency is on the right track. It can’t sit on its hands,” he said. “To me it would be irresponsible if the agency didn’t strike out” and be proactive.
Industry opposed
John German, president of the Long Island Sound Lobstermen’s Association, was the only industry member allowed to speak on the issue. And he wasn’t convinced any more action was necessary.
“We’ve turned a major corner in the lobster business. We have to sit back and let this work,” he said.
Furthermore, German said the proposal had zero support among the Area 6 LCMT.
“I personally know just about every LCMT member in Connecticut and New York. I’ve talked with them about this and they’re unanimously opposed,” he said.
Smith said he intended to have LCMT 6, ASMFC advisers, and board members all review the proposal and work to refine or replace it. However, Smith’s motion failed, so the proposal will not be part of Addendum VIII.
How to comment
For a copy Addendum VIII, call ASMFC at (202) 289-6400 or visit the commission’s web site at <www.asmfc.org>.
Comments should be e-mailed to ASMFC lobster plan coordinator Toni Kerns at <tkerns@asmfc.org>. Or, mail or fax comments to her attention at: ASMFC, 6th floor, 1444 Eye Street NW, Washington, DC 20005; fax (202) 289-6061.
Contact ASMFC or your state agency for additional info about public hearings.
Janice M. Plante
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