The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Lobster Management Board, when it met in August, approved the Area 2’s proposed trap plan to go out to public hearing.  It did so without changing or tweeking it and this was a positive step.  We want to commend the Area 2 Lobster Conservation Management Team, the LCMT, for their hard work in trying to develop a trap plan that is designed to cap trap effort near current levels.  There is also a little wiggle room in the plan that can allow a few more traps to be used and still not upset the applecart.  We also need to commend the Fisheries Divisions of the State’s of Massachusetts and Rhode Island who worked with the LCMTs on this very difficult and gut-wrenching task.  This was not an easy job and no one wanted to hurt any fishermen.  Efforts were made to try and accommodate as many as possible.

 The state agency representatives, to their credit, kept their commitment to the LCMTs and held back the minimum size increases as part of the deal.  As we may all recall, this trap plan was a rewrite of an earlier one but further gauge increases in addition to a trap plan was part of the original plan.  The industry lead by the LCMTs had insisted that if the ASMFC and the two states wanted to revisit the Trap Plan issue for a rewrite that the managing agencies had to also revisit the much hated provision that would have sent the Area 2 gauge, already at 3 3/8”, off into the ozone layer at 3 ½”.  The states, for their part, were able to hold off those further increases.  The LCMTs, for their part, redrafted the Trap Plan.  This was an exercise in cooperation.  No one in the industry is overjoyed with the Trap Plan, which is understandable, but it proved that as long as there is cooperation, both sides can get something they do want.

 We will digress for a paragraph on the whole idea of “Trap Plans” in general.  It is now becoming evident that designing any trap limiting provision beyond a general trap cap, which is prudent, is not the best way to manage this particular fishery.  It is very hard to enforce.  It can be circumvented by more efficiently managing the traps one has and thus defeating whatever the trap reduction was supposed to do.  It also has not been adequately proven to industry as to whether they might be able to achieve the catches they need to survive with less traps.  Trap reduction initiatives on paper or in an Addendum don’t save any lobsters if industry doesn’t buy into the program.  On another front, a University of New Hampshire Professor, Dr. Win Watson, has done a study that shows, and this one’s even on a video tape, that in reality, traps for “trapping” lobsters are a joke.  This is in spite of what fishermen may think of how well “their” trap works down on the bottom.  Many lobsters move in and out of traps fairly easily and they don’t hold all the lobsters that go in for the meal and we’re talking “keepers” here.  Restrictions on traps, therefore, may in fact not be the best measure to use in the management of this fishery beyond, as we’ve said, a universal trap cap for everyone.  It also, however, can cause severe acrimony among the human side of this equation and may only serve to breed mistrust, contention and non-compliance.

 All that having been said however, and going back to the Plan at hand, management is moving towards a trap limiting program for Area 2 and the industry is trying to do its best to accommodate even with these misgivings.  With this new Addendum on the launch pad it will be important that the lobster industry get to the public hearings and speak.  At no time should any blame be targeted at the industry LCMTs who were stuck between the rock and the hard place and did their job as unpleasant as it was for them.  Other than that, we will not suggest how one should react, that will be up to those who attend the hearings.

 Finally, we would strongly recommend that the ASMFC adhere to the agreement made between the involved states and these fishermen on the minimum size issue.  We also strongly suggest that the Atlantic States Lobster Board also listen to these fishermen whose help they will need if they want to try and make the plan on paper translate into one that might(???) accomplish something for the lobster resource itself.

 You’ve got to give a little and not just take a lot.           

Bill Adler
Executive Director                     

9/05