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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 37 Number 10
June 2010
Lobster settlement ’09: Southern New England worrisome; Eastern Maine-Bay of Fundy encouraging
WALPOLE, ME – The 2009 Lobster Settlement Index, a cooperative research effort by scientists and fishermen from Canada through Rhode Island, shows a continued dip in the numbers of young-of-the-year and juvenile lobsters counted in most sampled areas along the coast and offshore.
“Settlement in 2009 continued a wide-spread downturn that started in many areas in 2008,” wrote Rick Wahle of the University of Maine Darling Marine Center, who compiled the annual settlement index report that was released in May.
The goal of the index is to identify trends that could indicate the abundance of legal-size lobsters five-to-nine years down the road.
In addition to the “rather dismal” declines in settlement seen in Southern New England, Wahle added, “We do seem to be falling off the highs we were seeing mid decade in the central and western Gulf of Maine.”
The last time Midcoast Maine saw poor settlement was from the mid-1990s to 2000. That was followed by a period of high settlement, which started in 2001 and lasted through 2007 before dropping in 2008.
“So these widespread downturns do seem to be pointing to the beginning of something new,” Wahle said of the most recent data.
At the same time, sampling at stations in the eastern Gulf of Maine and lower Bay of Fundy showed an upward tick in 2009, which “may bode well for the region’s future landings,” he said.
In short, Wahle summed up the 2009 index findings this way: “Southern New England: worrisome. Eastern Maine-Bay of Fundy: encouraging.”
There is still no clear reason for the Southern New England situation, according to Wahle.
“Much uncertainty and concern surrounds the cause of Southern New England declines,” he said. “Speculation includes the impact of warming sea temperatures, shell disease, and heightened losses of larvae and postlarve.”
To gather data for the index, divers use suction hoses to scoop up and count tiny lobsters at 28 stations along the coast and offshore. In places where diving is unsafe or not practical, project participants lower and then retrieve cobble-filled collector trays and count the just-settled young-of-the-year and slightly older juveniles among the rocks.
In addition to Wahle, participants in the Lobster Settlement Index project, which is now in its 20th year, include: the Maine Department of Marine Resources; the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries; the Rhode Island Division of Fish and Wildlife; the University of New Brunswick; and the Guysborough County Inshore Fishermen’s Association and the Fishermen & Scientists Research Society, both of Nova Scotia. /cfn/
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