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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 10
June 2009
Lobster addendum to cap Area 1 federal permits
ALEXANDRIA, VA -- Now that the Area 1 lobster fishery in the federal-waters portion of the Gulf of Maine is subject to a Jan. 2, 2009 control date, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Atlantic Lobster Management Board has begun to outline proposed language to limit entry into the area.
At its May 5 meeting, the board, following up on recommendations from the Area 1 Lobster Conservation and Management Team (LCMT), voted on potential qualification criteria to include in a new addendum to the interstate lobster plan.
The proposed addendum’s details will be reviewed by the board in August and, if approved, then will go out to public hearing.
Area 1 lobstermen asked ASMFC last year to develop the addendum primarily to prevent an influx of new effort into Area 1 by displaced groundfish fishermen who are suffering from further cutbacks in their own fishery (see CFN November 2008 for details).
Most groundfish fishermen have federal lobster permits that allow them to keep 100 lobsters per day, up to a maximum of 500 per trip for trips longer than five days. The fear is that they will use these permits to switch to trap gear and go lobstering in Area 1 federal waters, which is allowed under existing regulations.
The secondary purpose of the addendum is to prevent lobster trap fishermen in other areas from shifting effort into Area 1.
The draft addendum proposes to require qualifying vessels to:
• Currently possess a federal permit;
• Prove that Lobster Conservation and Management Area 1 was designated on the permit as of the Jan. 2, 2009 control date; and
• Prove that the vessel had “appropriate trap tag orders” for Area 1 for any one year from 2004 through 2008.
More LCMT requests
The board -- again at the request of LCMT 1 -- further agreed that the addendum would propose to:
• “Cap permits but not reduce the number of permits in Area 1;”
• “Maintain the ability to transfer trap-only permits within Area 1;” and
• “Continue to allow Area 1 permits to be transferred.”
The LCMT developed these recommendations at an April 14 meeting in Portsmouth, NH. Terry Stockwell of the Maine Department of Marine Resources reported the LCMT’s conclusions to the ASMFC lobster board.
According to Stockwell, the LCMT initially wanted “consideration of limited medical and military exemptions” to be part of the addendum as well.
However, board representative Dan McKiernan of Massachusetts cautioned against this approach. He said Massachusetts addressed the issue by going with a five-year qualification period instead, which was long enough to cover most extenuating circumstances.
“In government, it’s very difficult to deal with people’s claims on medical issues,” he said.
The board agreed, noting that the addendum for Area 1 proposed a five-year qualification period of 2004-2008.
For more information, call ASMFC lobster plan coordinator Toni Kerns at (202) 289-6400 or e-mail her at <tkerns@asmfc.org>.
Control date
Just as a reminder in case you missed the CFN report in the February 2009 issue, here’s what the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had to say when it published the Jan. 2, 2009 control date for the Area 1 lobster fishery in the Federal Register.
According to NMFS, the control date is intended to:
• Put fishermen on notice that they should “locate and preserve records that substantiate and verify their past participation in the American lobster trap fishery in federal waters;” and
• Announce to “new participants” that they may be “restricted from fishing in Area 1 with traps in the future.”
At the time, NMFS said, “This notice should discourage American lobster nontrap vessels from entering the lobster trap fishery and discourage American lobster trap vessels fishing in other lobster management areas from entering the Area 1 lobster trap fishery based upon economic speculation.”
Janice M. Plante
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