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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 32 Number 7
March 2005
Maine’s 2004 lobster catch:
Another good year
HALLOWELL, ME - Maine lobster landings topped a walloping 63.2 million pounds in 2004, according to preliminary data from the state Department of Marine Resources (DMR).
But before reaching for the record books, DMR officials were quick to sound a cautionary note. There isn’t an accurate way to compare last year’s landings with previous years since 2004 was the first time ever in which lobster buyers were required to report their purchases to the DMR. In the past, dealer reporting was voluntary so there was no way of knowing how close the final tally was to the actual catch.
The 2004 lobster landings were worth over $254 million at the dock, according to the preliminary data, an amount that ranks the catch as having the highest dollar value ever.
“We have an incredibly valuable fishery,” said DMR Commissioner George Lapointe. “Using conservative multipliers, it’s at least a half-billion dollars in economic activity for coastal Maine.”
In recent years, though, as Maine’s reported lobster catch has hovered around 50 million pounds, which is about twice the historical average, Lapointe has guardedly delivered the good news. And 2004’s landings were no exception.
Pointing to the shedder run that didn’t start until September, Lapointe said, “We had people in (financial) trouble in the middle of the year. That’s why we have to stay on top of what’s happening in this valuable fishery.”
The Maine industry frequently looks south and knows how quickly and seriously things can go wrong. Lobsters in the western end of Long Island Sound were virtually wiped out by an abrupt die-off in 1999. While not as dramatic, a critical decline in lobster abundance off southern Massachusetts and Rhode Island has forced some lobstermen to sell their boats and leave the fishery in recent years, leaving survivors to struggle with further cuts in effort.
Mandatory reporting
The state’s new mandatory lobster reporting program first became effective in 2004, according to Heidi Bray, DMR marine landings specialist.
The regulations created a new permit for dealers, called a “primary buyer” permit. Anyone who holds any type of dealer license (wholesale seafood with a permit for lobsters, urchins, or shrimp; retail seafood; elver, herring, marine worm, shellfish, etc.) and buys or intends to buy any marine species from harvesters must obtain this permit on their dealer license.
The permit is free of charge. It allows the DMR Landings Program to target the appropriate dealers for reporting purposes.
The second regulation requires all wholesale lobster dealers and retailers who hold a primary buyer permit to provide monthly lobster landings to DMR. The department is only interested in landings that were bought directly from harvesters, not from other dealers.
“This changes the target to anyone buying directly from fishermen,” Bray said, “and it includes retailers, who never had to report before.”
If a dealer is also a lobster harvester and sells his/her own catch under his/her dealer name, the business must have the primary buyer permit and must report those landings to DMR as well.
One of the system’s only potential loopholes – that is lobster catch that could end up not being reported – is fishermen who sell directly to the public, Bray said. Maine’s lobster harvester licenses do not limit fishermen to selling to licensed dealers only. They can sell to anyone.
But if a fisherman also sells the catch of another fisherman, then a dealer license with a primary buyer permit and its reporting requirement is needed.
Enforcement
The new rules are expected to markedly affect the accuracy of lobster landings information from now and into the future, Bray said.
In 2004, there were 519 dealer licenses with primary buyer permits for lobsters. Each is required to file a monthly report, whether or not any lobsters were purchased.
The 63,283,309 pounds of lobster recorded as of Feb. 22 came from 79% of the 6,228 monthly reports the DMR expects from 2004, according to Bray.
Landings are expected to continue to trickle in, she said, because complying with the required reports is a condition of dealer license renewal.
The new license year starts on April 1 for dealers. And, as the lobster catch starts to pick up, any stragglers will realize they have to get up to date with their reports or they won’t be able to renew their licenses.
Catch down
Even though Maine’s annual catch numbers have had their shortcomings, they have been watched carefully over the years as a measure of the health of the fishery.
Great care will be needed in doing any comparisons this year, Bray said.
“In the past we never knew how many landings went missing,” she said.
So, despite the fact that the 2004 catch surpasses on paper the 2003 landings of 55 million pounds, that doesn’t mean the lobster catch has increased.
In fact, Bray said, by comparing the reports of specific dealers from one year to the other, it appears landings may be down by 10 percent.
DMR’s lead lobster biologist Carl Wilson agreed that other indicators also point to a decline in the actual 2004 lobster catch.
“Based on our sampling programs, the catch was down from 2003,” Wilson said, “down by as much as 10 percent or more.”
The DMR has been running a port sampling program since 1967 as well as the sea sampling program, which began in 1985. Those programs with their consistent survey techniques provide an accurate means of characterizing the fishery from one year to another.
The drop in landings, Wilson is quick to add, doesn’t mean the sky is falling.
“We have a very healthy fishery,” he said, pointing to other indicators such as the number of eggers and v-notched lobsters.
Maine is gearing toward landing about 60 million pounds annually now with mandatory dealer reporting. From a historical perspective, what had seemed like a short-term surge when it started in the late 1980s has now seemed to become the norm.
“The population is strong, though it may not be at its peak,” Wilson said.
Price
And, any catch declines that occurred in 2004 were more than offset by increased boat prices.
“The price saved us,” Wilson said of the year as a whole.
The value of the catch in 2003 was $205.8 million and even in 2002, when 63.6 million pounds of lobster were landed, the ex-vessel value was only about $211 million.
But even the strong price didn’t buffer the financial pain from the slow summer months in some areas.
In 2001 and 2002 in some cases, the shedder run got started in early July. In 2003, the molt was delayed until August, and, in 2004, it was September. While many view that later start as more normal, the lean catches in July and much of August were a difficult adjustment for fishermen waiting for a good summer.
“We had a very strong September, followed by a strong finish in the last quarter,” Wilson said.
According to the DMR 2004 preliminary statistics, September’s landings were the highest in all counties except Lincoln and York, which peaked in November, and Washington, where October production was slightly higher.
Effort reduction
The announcement of the 2004 lobster landings came just as Commissioner Lapointe was winding up a series of coastwide meetings he had attended to talk with fishermen about effort reduction in the fishery.
The apparent health of the Maine resource raises the question of whether any change is necessary. Both Lapointe and Wilson answer that the timing is just right for starting the discussions.
“The fire is not at our door,” Lapointe said. “That makes it a good point for talking.”
The effort reduction meetings have been well attended. Lobstermen admit to trap crowding on the fishing grounds and that they’re bothered about increases in license holders despite the limits on entry.
They also think the DMR already has a “secret plan” for trap reductions, which is not true, according to Lapointe.
“We will continue to work with industry,” he said. “We will act if that’s what is needed, and we want to be ready.”
“It would be irresponsible not to be discussing (effort reduction),” Wilson said. “There’s no gun to the state’s head to do anything right now. We have a good fishery.”
One thing that could affect state action on effort reduction is the new lobster stock assessment, which is due out this summer. The assessment is expected to produce new overfishing definitions that could trigger conservation mandates for each of the three lobster stocks, which includes the Gulf of Maine.
Shell disease
DMR’s sampling programs, along with coordination with Charles O’Kelly of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, have been monitoring Maine lobsters for shell disease for several years, Wilson said. In 2003, several incidences of affected lobsters resulted in a surge in awareness of shell disease among Maine fishermen.
But all of the careful watching being done shows only a very small percentage of lobsters with any signs of shell disease, according to Wilson.
“We’ve seen less than 100 lobsters total,” he said, a frequency rate which Wilson described as a “background” condition.
Wilson will be among the participants in a day-long series of seminars on lobster health issues at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum on Saturday, March 5.
Susan Jones
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