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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 10
June 2006
Canadian/US Lobstermen’s Town Meeting
Stock assessment, data collection, predators, water quality, and more
PORTLAND, ME – The focus of the third annual Canadian/US Lobstermen’s Town Meeting was lobster stock assessment, and, by the time the daylong session was over, the discussion had ranged from data collection to external factors affecting lobster populations to cross-border cooperation.
This year’s gathering, which was held April 7 in Portland, was attended by about 100 lobstermen and other people connected with the lobster industry. The event was organized by the Lobster Institute, with the endorsement of major lobstering organizations in the Northeast and Canadian Maritimes and with major sponsorship from Darden Restaurants Inc.
The Lobster Institute convened a panel of US and Canadian scientists and managers to explain the lobster stock assessment reports and techniques on each side of the border. Following their presentations, the floor was opened to discussion.
Ted Hoskins of the Maine Sea Coast Mission was the moderator for the town meeting-style event.
Panel members included: Penny Howell, Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection; Jim Jamieson, Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), Dartmouth, Nova Scotia; Toni Kerns, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC); Harry Mears, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS); John Tremblay, Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth,; and Carl Wilson, Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR).
Bonnie Spinazzola, a member of the Lobster Institute advisory board and executive director of the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen’s Association, chaired the program committee that planned the town meeting.
The following description provides summaries of a small part of the day’s discussion. To get a complete report of the proceedings call the Lobster Institute at (207) 581-1443.
US stock assessment
Carl Wilson, the DMR’s lead lobster biologist and a member ASMFC Lobster Technical Committee, gave an overview of the latest US assessment. It recommended a new common sense approach that moves away from the use of F10% to determine overfishing. This approach uses multiple indicators called biological reference points to look at fishing mortality and stock abundance.
Furthermore, Wilson said, the assessment uses a “ traffic light” approach and compares current indicators with those of the last 25 years or so to determine the status of each stock. Limiting the reference to just the modern period was a change with this assessement, he said.
If the indicators of a stock area were rated with a “green light” relative to the last 25 years, the stock was considered in good shape. If an area fell below the average or median of the last 25 years, it was considered in bad shape and given a “red light.”
Wilson said the assessment showed that the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank stock areas were each given a favorable rating. Southern New England was a problem area, where mortality remains high and abundance is well below the 25-year average.
He added that the technical committee was surprised by how quickly some of the resource can change for unexplained reasons. The new approach, which acknowledges that “external factors can contribute to stock abundance,” is a fundamental shift away from the equilibrium approach that had been used in the past.
Statistics are important, and more data and research are needed, Wilson said. Scientists have been pushed by industry, and that has led to collaboration and improved assessment practices.
Penny Howell, who is the new chair of the ASMFC lobster technical committee, also emphasized the advantages of the median approach. It is a huge change to allow that something other than fishing can have an affect on the stocks, she said.
“We turned the Queen Mary,” Howell said, to give the audience a sense of the difficulty in gaining acceptance of nervous researchers. “It may not be precise, or classy, but it won’t steer us too wrong.”
Canadian overview
John Tremblay from the Bedford Institute of Oceanography gave an overview of Canadian assessment for the Scotia-Fundy Region, which includes Lobster Fishing Areas (LFA) 33 and 34.
He said LFA 34 (southwest Nova Scotia) had just completed its stock assessment review. Canada’s current methods, like past US methods, involve an egg per recruit model/life history model. While this method is still part of the backdrop of stocks, the approach recently has moved to include indicators such as abundance, fishing pressure, production, functions of the ecosystem, etc. These indicators are more apparent to fishermen, who can see changes, which leads to more agreement with stock findings.
The conclusions of the LFA assessment, which were released in February, included:
• Abundance indicators for legal size lobsters were primarily positive.
• Fishing pressure showed either increased pressure or no change. But they were not capturing increases in the efficiency of lobstermen, in terms of bigger boats, catching and targeting lobsters better, etc., he said.
• Pre-recruit abundance survey (conducted by fishermen with the Fishermen and Scientists Research Society with fishermen recording data obtained using special traps) indicated a pre-recruit abundance higher than it has been over the last 10 years, but starting to trend down. There are no signs indicating if this will continue or not.
Tremblay said the report emphasized a need to continue and increase getting data from fishermen, and to also look to nonfishery dependent surveys. He pointed out that similarity in the US assessment report.
Area 514
Pointing out the three stock assessment areas, Massachusetts lobsterman Gary Ostrom asked why Statistical Reporting Area 514 in the Gulf of Maine (GOM), which is where he fishes, got discreet treatment.
Area 514, which includes Massachusetts Bay and Stellwagen Bank, was singled out by scientists despite the overall positive findings for the GOM stock area. It received red lights on many mortality, abundance, and fishery indicators.
Howell described 514 as a transition area and said Massachusetts lobster scientist Bob Glenn, chairman of the stock assessment committee, felt everything there wasn’t as fine as the rest of the GOM.
Southern New England fell apart when we didn’t expect it, she said. “514 could be the canary in the mine shaft.”
Data collection
Bonnie Spinazzola asked if data were collected by statistical areas, would that provide the information to make good decisions by management areas.
Wilson responded that statistical area reporting is only minimal. “The Maine coast has only three statistical areas out to 40 miles and that is not fine enough.”
Connecticut fishermen started filling out logbooks in 1979, said Howell. When the lobster die-off happened in 1999, those 20 years of logbook information was critical.
“When the die-off hit, fishermen would have been targeted as the cause,” she said. “We had data to show they weren’t.”
Maine has no reporting requirements for its lobstermen. While assessment scientists say better data is fundamental to conducting better and more accurate stock assessments, mandatory reporting remains very controversial in Maine.
Several of the state’s lobstermen explained why.
Jon Carter of Bar Harbor said that one of the big reasons is a fear that the individual reporting will lead right to quotas and, “quotas will ruin our livelihood,” in coastal communities totally dependent on lobstering.
According to Ted Bear of Harpswell, Maine already provides information about its catch through the sea sampler program and the ventless trap project.
“Logbooks are not the answer unless they guarantee no quota will be thrown at us,” he said.
Casco Bay lobsterman Elliott Thomas said some of the resistance to giving data was that in past experience, information reported in other fisheries just came back to hurt fishermen. He used as an example fishermen who lost their federal fishing permits because they reported that they hadn’t fished.
Some will report if their name isn’t tied to the report in any way, he said.
From Grand Manan lobsterman Laurence Cook said the only reason there’s a need for individual reporting is if managers want to go to individual fishing quotas (IFQs), otherwise showing who caught what shouldn’t matter.
Predators
As an Area 514 lobsterman, Peter Prybot asked how the rising numbers of striped bass and seals are accounted for in the assessment of inshore lobsters.
Bear added the increasing number of cod seen in lobster traps as another predator along with the striped bass and seals.
Pointing to the resurgence of stripers in Downeast Maine, Jon Carter wanted consideration given to allowing more fishing effort on recovered species to avoid a drop in lobsters. It’s all intertwined, he said.
Wilson said the amount of predation was one of the external factors affecting lobster population.
“We tried to use that predator field. But we didn’t have consensus that there was a cause and effect relationship,” he said.
While the information wasn’t integrated yet, a better understanding is needed so it can considered.
Water quality
Kittery, ME lobsterman David Kaselauskas said he was worried about the impact on the lobster fishery of the proposed Kittery Point (treated) sewage outflow pipeline. “New Hampshire wants it so how are you going to stop it,” he asked.
Jim Bartlett, a Beverly, MA lobsterman said water quality is the big issue. Pointing to what had been said about Area 514, Bartlett asked, “Did the stock assessment committee consider the 500 million gallon a day outfall from the MWRA pipe?”
Massachusetts lobsterman Dave Casoni, who served on a Massachusetts Water Resources Authority (MWRA) panel, said there was “no smoking gun.” No one denies that water has been compromised, but funding is needed to look at water particulates more closely to see what in it is affecting crabs and lobsters. At the same time, the effect of pharmaceuticals such as estrogen that get disposed of in the ocean have to be investigated, he urged.
According to Harry Mears of NMFS, water quality is a management issue, not a stock assessment indicator. Management is moving in the direction of becoming ecoystem-based because of issues like water quality. Innovative thinking is needed, he said, and water quality scientists have to be included in a nonconfrontational manner.
Bill Adler, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, said his argument is that managers won’t wait to get answers to water quality, predation, and other factors affecting lobster stocks. Mangers will look at “best available” to decide if they’re going to lower the hammer on fishermen again. It’s time to start working on these measures, he said.
Adler, a member of the Lobster Institute advisory board, helped to draft the list of potential action points being considered by the whole board.
Susan Jones
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