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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 37 Number 10
June 2010
SNE lobster stock in ‘recruitment failure’; TC calls for five-year fishing moratorium
ALEXANDRIA, VA – In a jaw-dropping development, biologists have called for a five-year harvesting moratorium on the Southern New England lobster stock after deeming it to be in “recruitment failure.”
The extreme recommendation, which has yet to be acted upon in any way by managers, illustrates the seriousness of the situation and is a proposal that’s likely to remain on the table for further discussion.
A harvesting prohibition of such duration would impact thousands of fishermen because the range of the Southern New England lobster stock is so extensive, covering part or all of Lobster Conservation and Management Areas (LCMAs) 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, plus a sliver of the Outer Cape Cod LCMA. In fact, the only totally unaffected area is LMCA 1 in the Gulf of Maine.
Furthermore, since a fishing moratorium means no harvesting at all, the prohibition potentially would apply not only to lobster trap fishermen but gillnetters, draggers, recreational fishermen, and others who catch lobsters from this stock.
Carl Wilson of the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), the current chairman of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) American Lobster Technical Committee (TC), presented the grim news to ASMFC’s American Lobster Management Board on May 3.
Wilson said the TC, which met for two days in late March, reached some sobering conclusions.
“We think we have strong evidence for recruitment failure in Southern New England, and we do feel that there are significant impediments to stock rebuilding,” he said.
“Abundance has been at very low levels for several years, and when the parent stock is small, the chance of recruitment is greatly reduced,” he said. “We recommend that for five years, the entire Southern New England stock be closed to lobster fishing.”
Tough call
Wilson explained that the TC did not make this recommendation lightly and was only doing so after carefully considering new information that was not available during the most recent 2009 stock assessment.
“This was a very serious talk,” he said.
In its formal written report, the TC further stated that it “acknowledges the severity of this recommendation and understands the catastrophic effects on the fishery participants, support industries, and coastal communities.”
However, the committee concluded, “This recommendation provides the maximum likelihood to rebuild the stock in the foreseeable future to an abundance level that can support a sustainable long-term fishery.”
Water temperatures
According to Wilson, the TC was particularly influenced by the fact that numerous environmental and biological “impediments” to stock rebuilding were in play.
A key impediment is water temperature, which has been on the rise in Southern New England since 1999.
Lobsters avoid water that is greater than 19ºC or roughly 66ºF, and the TC found “a widespread increase in the area and duration of water temperatures above 20ºC throughout Southern New England inshore waters.”
Citing numerous scientific studies, the TC reported, “Prolonged exposure to water temperatures above 20ºC causes respiratory and immune system stress, increased incidence of shell disease, acidosis, and suppression of immune defenses in lobster.”
As a result, the TC said, “Loss of optimal shallow habitat area is causing the stock to contract spatially into deeper water.”
Wilson told the management board, “Water temperature is a major driver in lobster development and growth.”
Egg production loss
In addition to temperature, shell disease, and other stressors, the loss of egg production due to the harvest of legal-size lobsters has become a further impediment to stock rebuilding.
In other words, taking any lobsters out of the population makes the situation worse because it further cuts the number that can contribute to stock rebuilding.
Even though overfishing is not occurring right now on the Southern New England stock, Wilson explained, “The decline in spawning stock is exacerbated by fishing” because overall abundance is so low.
Board reacts
News of the TC’s recommendation had begun to circulate a week-and-a-half prior to the May 3 board meeting in Virginia, but the verbal confirmation from Wilson was still jolting.
Early into the discussion, Maine DMR Commissioner George Lapointe moved to initiate a new addendum to ASMFC’s interstate lobster plan to deal with Southern New England.
The addendum, he said, would include a full range of alternatives from “no action” to a complete fishing moratorium, and it would serve as a public recognition of the “extraordinary circumstances” resulting in the stock’s extremely poor condition.
“I think this is the right way to move ahead,” he said. “It’s putting everyone officially on notice that we’ve got to do something.”
But Massachusetts board member Dan McKiernan was resistant to the idea.
“This technical committee document is only about 10 days old. It’s setting everyone back on their heels,” he said. “I think it’s too early to approve the development of an addendum. It’s critical that we give the LCMTs a bite at this report before an addendum is drafted in Washington.”
LCMTs, which are ASMFC’s Lobster Conservation and Management Teams, typically are heavily involved in proposing management measures for their respective LCMAs.
McKiernan said he would rather receive industry input first and also ask the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, MA for more information on climate changes and water temperature.
“I’d like to see NMFS weigh in on this,” he said.
A fishery disaster?
Furthermore, McKiernan said he wanted to “get the conversation started” about whether or not ASMFC and NMFS had the footing to seek a fishery disaster declaration given the climate impacts. Such a declaration could result in federal financial assistance for impacted fishermen.
Under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the secretary of commerce, at his discretion or at the request of the governor of an affected state or a fishing community, can designate a “commercial fishery failure due to a fishery resource disaster” if he determines that the failure was “a result of natural causes, man-made causes beyond the control of fisheries managers to mitigate, or undetermined causes.”
Infrastructure implications
Lobsterman Bill McElroy, Rhode Island’s new governor’s appointee to ASMFC, was deeply troubled by the TC report and questioned many aspects of it, including some of the data used to reach the overriding “recruitment failure” conclusion.
McElroy flatly opposed the idea of a harvesting moratorium.
“There would be no fishery left after five years,” he said. “The infrastructure would collapse.”
Furthermore, he said, the average age of lobstermen in Southern New England was fairly high, possibly in the 60-year-old range, with many people on the verge of closing out their careers.
By the end of a moratorium period, McElroy said, “There wouldn’t be anyone left to fish.”
Moving forward
Other board members, however, pressed for action.
State Rep. Dennis Abbott of New Hampshire said, “Seven years ago we were discussing the same problem. We keep batting it back to the TC and asking them to go find more information.
“It’s time to do something,” Abbott said. “We have to find the gumption to take action.”
Board member Dave Simpson, director of Connecticut’s Marine Fisheries Division, also supported the initiation of an addendum.
“We need to go to the public with something to respond to,” he said.
Like Lapointe, Simpson said the draft addendum should include a full range of alternatives with both extreme ends – no action vs. a complete shutdown of fishing – along with measures “down the middle.”
Simpson added that the document should include extensive references to “nonfishing factors,” which would give the board ammunition for pursuing a fishery failure declaration.
The board voted 8-to-2 to initiate an addendum.
What’s next?
At press time in late May, ASMFC had just scheduled a special, “single issue” lobster board meeting for July 22 in the Providence, RI area, although the exact location had yet to be determined.
During the meeting, the board was expected to begin identifying potential management options to rebuild the Southern New England lobster stock.
Lobster board Chairman Mark Gibson, deputy chief of marine fisheries for the Rhode Island Division of Fish and Wildlife, had insisted that this critical meeting be held somewhere in the heart of Southern New England – not in Washington – so that people potentially impacted by ASMFC’s actions could easily attend.
Rhode Island and possibly other states were expected to hold separate pre-meetings to help bring lobstermen up to speed on the new developments in advance of the special July 22 meeting.
Gibson said the lobster board would work carefully through this difficult issue and, if necessary, continue the debate into August and even further before sending a draft addendum out to public hearing.
“We’re not in a mind to rush this,” he said.
For more information, contact ASMFC lobster plan coordinator Toni Kerns at (202) 289-6400. Her e-mail address is <tkerns@asmfc.org>.
Janice M. Plante
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