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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 34 Number 1
September 2006
ASMFC supports CT lobster v-notch proposal
CRYSTAL CITY, VA – Without endorsing any of the procedural details, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) American Lobster Management Board voted to approve a proposal from the state of Connecticut to use v-notching as a way to rebuild the lobster population in Long Island Sound.
The vote, which was cast at the board’s Aug. 14 meeting here, was critical to the state’s rebuilding initiative. The Connecticut General Assembly appropriated $1 million earlier this year for a “v-notch based stock restoration program” for Area 6, Long Island Sound, which includes the state waters of Connecticut and New York. However, the legislation specified that ASMFC had to approve the program by Nov. 1.
Without the board’s endorsement, 40% of the money would be reallocated to “direct assistance payments to lobstermen still suffering the consequences of the lobster die-off” in Long Island Sound and 60% would be redirected toward a lobster trap allocation buyback program.
“We need the board to recognize that v-notching would be an integral part of the principal conservation strategy for rebuilding the Area 6 stock,” said ASMFC Commissioner Eric Smith of Connecticut.
Added fellow Connecticut Commissioner Lance Stewart, “This is something we feel is especially important to our population in Long Island Sound. Those lobsters don’t mix with other lobsters.”
Lobstermen who pushed for the initiative hope the program will be successful enough to replace other stock rebuilding measures for Area 6, including future or even past gauge increases. ASMFC is currently requiring additional effort reduction measures for the Southern New England lobster stock, which encompasses Long Island Sound.
As part of the legislation, Connecticut established a Lobster Restoration Advisory Committee, made up of lobstermen, ASMFC commissioners, and others, to develop details for how the program would work.
As currently structured, students from three Connecticut schools with aquaculture or bio-environmental programs would ride on cooperating commercial lobster vessels to v-notch lobsters and record data, and participating lobstermen would be compensated for all lobsters notched and released “at fair market value.”
Mature female lobsters would be notched only when the bottom water temperature was less than or equal to 68°F “to minimize temperature-induced stress.”
State officials estimate the $1 million would cover two years worth of v-notching, which, depending on the eventual accepted definition of v-notch, could provide up to four years of protection for lobsters in Area 6.
Technical review
The Connecticut advisory committee submitted the proposal to ASMFC’s American Lobster Technical Committee for review.
According to technical committee Chairman Penny Howell, committee members concluded that the v-notch proposal by itself did not represent “a long-term rebuilding program” for Long Island Sound.
“The technical committee does not feel v-notching should be relied upon as a sole management tool to rebuild the Southern New England stock because it does not address the underlying high catch rate observed in this fishery,” she said while relaying the committee’s position to the ASMFC lobster board. “The magnitude of measures required for long-term stock rebuilding is far greater than proposed here.”
Even though the technical committee did not support the v-notch proposal as a stand-alone program or replacement for other measures, Connecticut’s ASMFC delegation – Smith, Stewart, and state Sen. George “Doc” Gunther – fought hard to gain board support for the overriding concept. They argued that the “degree” of the stock rebuilding contributions could be determined through “ongoing deliberations” and evaluation.
Stewart said, “Our plan is to achieve the most conservation value we can from this.”
As with any program, the devil is in the details, and several Long Island Sound lobstermen had trouble with the program’s initial proposal to utilize a zero tolerance v-notch definition to stretch out the time each lobster would be protected from potential harvest.
Area 6 lobsterman John German of New York said, “The zero tolerance is a major stumbling block.”
When members of the Area 6 LCMT first saw the proposal, “They were completely against zero tolerance,” said German.
George Doll, the New York co-chair of the Area 6 LCMT, didn’t think that obstacle was insurmountable.
“What John said is true. The LCMT was against zero tolerance,” he said.
However, Doll added, lobstermen “were not opposed to notching legal females and returning them to the sound.”
Doll urged the board to support the program with assurances that specifics could go back to the LCMT for discussion and revision. He also thanked Connecticut officials and Sen. Gunther for “putting a lot of work into this.”
Connecticut representatives stressed that the v-notch definition was open for debate.
“There’s nothing binding about the zero tolerance,” said Stewart. “Everything will go back to the LCMT. We just want approval of a v-notching program so we can start the deliberations.”
Smith concurred.
“I will take this to the LCMT as a strawman,” he said.
Stock rebuilding
Connecticut lobsterman Roger Frate, owner of Darien Seafood Market, also threw his support behind the program.
“We support the v-notching 100%,” he said.
But Frate thought ASMFC was missing a major point.
“The data is so wrong,” he said. “The lobsters are coming back tremendously. It was a pesticide kill, which is over now.”
According to Howell, the technical committee has not seen signs of a significant recovery yet, and this led several board members to question Connecticut’s heavy reliance on v-notching to rebuild the Long Island Sound stock.
But Maine Commissioner George Lapointe strongly supported giving the state the chance to implement the program.
“The technical committee will evaluate the plan,” he said. “If it’s a worthless plan, they won’t get any credit for it.”
The board in the end concurred and cast the needed vote of approval.
Janice M. Plante
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