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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 32 Number 7
March 2005
RI, MA back lobster gauge freeze for Area 2
KINGSTON, RI – Key state managers have endorsed an industry bid to suspend further gauge increases in Lobster Conservation Management Area (LCMA) 2.
If the request is approved by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), the Area 2 gauge would stay at the current level of 3-3/8” rather than increase incrementally over the next four years to 3-1/2” by 2008.
In a Feb. 4 letter to the ASMFC lobster management board, Paul Diodati, director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, and Mark Gibson, deputy chief of the Rhode Island Division of Fish and Wildlife (F&W), noted that Area 2 lobstermen have been meeting to develop a new effort control plan as requested by the board.
Many industry people involved were adamant that the effort control plan revision and the suspension of further gauge increases had to go hand-in-hand.
“Now everyone’s fully engaged, not only in effort control but in stopping the gauge,” said Bill Adler, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association (MLA), who is also an ASMFC commissioner.
Conservation equivalency
In their letter, the state directors backed a recent Area 2 Lobster Conservation Management Team (LCMT) request that the ongoing North Cape lobster v-notch program be considered a “conservation equivalency” substitute for the gauge hikes.
The program, which started in 2000, was part of the massive compensation settlement agreement for the 1996 North Cape oil spill and called for the purchase, v-notching, and release of some 1.25 million female lobsters into the waters off Rhode Island.
Whether the ASMFC lobster board will accept suspension of future gauge increases will depend in large part on a decision by its technical committee. The committee will determine if the v-notch program provides the same conservation value to the Area 2 lobster resource as the larger gauge sizes.
Gibson and Diodati pointed out that “sea sampling in Area 2 by (F&W) biologists shows that a substantial portion of current egg production is being achieved through v-notched females.”
New mandates, consistency
In addition to the fact that industry remains “vehemently opposed” to further gauge increases, the state directors offered two other reasons for holding off.
The first was the need to address new overfishing definitions that are expected as a result of the stock assessment that’s due out this summer. The assessment is expected to trigger new conservation mandates for each of the three lobster stocks.
The second was the “need to strive toward more uniform management – where possible and practical – within stock units.”
Allowing the Area 2 gauge increases to go forward without similar increases in Areas 4, 5, and 6 “will widen the disparity in minimum sizes among adjacent LCMAs (by 1/4”) causing additional enforcement burden and interstate lobster commerce problems, and will likely result in increasing animosity between LCMAs and decreased compliance,” they said.
Suspension of the gauge hikes will require ASMFC to approve an addendum to the interstate lobster plan, a process that needs to start at the board’s May meeting.
ASMFC lobster plan coordinator Toni Kerns noted that the technical committee’s priority at this point is completing the stock assessment, and its ability to review the conservation equivalency proposal by the May meeting will hinge on how the assessment process is going.
Effort control meetings
In the meantime, Area 2 lobster industry representatives have been immersed in a grueling process to come up with a new effort control plan.
Lobstermen, primarily from Rhode Island and Massachusetts, have been told by the ASMFC lobster board to come up with a plan that caps traps “at or near” current levels. Depending on whom you ask, the target number ranges between 128,000 and 165,000 traps.
Regardless of the exact level, the initial allocation program will be devastating for many people in the fishery, which makes even talking about it difficult.
Recognizing that, the Rhode Island Lobstermen’s Association (RILA) and the MLA enlisted the help of Kathy Castro of the University of Rhode Island, who obtained funds from New Hampshire Sea Grant to run a series of facilitated meetings to get the job done.
Peg Parker, an independent consultant, and David Borden, former assistant director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, were hired as facilitators.
“We needed help to talk among ourselves – to take the chaos and make some order out of it,” said RILA President Mike Marchetti.
Complicating the discussions is the fact that the official trap and catch figures available are sketchy and suspect, particularly for Rhode Island.
“These guys are being asked to make very difficult choices about how to profile the industry without accurate data,” said Parker.
Transparent process
Three meetings had been held as of late February – one general RILA membership meeting and two meetings among RILA and MLA board members.
“We don’t believe we’re going to create a consensus, but we’re working toward a plan that enough people can get behind so we can go forward,” Parker said.
There’s nothing secret about the process. Detailed meeting summaries are posted on the RILA web site home page at <www.rilobstermen.com> and the association boards likely will hold another general membership meeting before going to the Area 2 LCMT and, ultimately, to the ASMFC lobster board in August.
In addition to developing an initial trap allocation plan, the industry reps are trying to come up with mechanisms that will both allow managers to adjust trap limits up or down depending on the results of future stock assessments and give the industry flexibility to allow participants to grow or downsize their businesses depending on where they are in their careers.
“It’s really hard. This is a stressful, emotional thing,” said Castro. “But these guys are making progress.”
Lorelei Stevens
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