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WEST BOOTHBAY HARBOR, ME - In May 2000, the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) undertook a research agenda-setting effort for five of Maine's major commercial species: clams, lobsters, scallops, sea urchins, and shrimp. The following is the first in a monthly series that will summarize the results of these meetings.
Green sea urchins, Strongylocentrotus drobachiensis, are Maine's fourth largest fishery by value, worth $20.3 million in 1999. The DMR initiated a sampling program for the sea urchin fishery in 1995 and has worked with the industry, initially informally and formally in recent years with the Sea Urchin Zone Council (SUZC), on research and management issues for this valuable fishery.
The urchin research meeting was held at the Orland Town Hall where 49 people gathered for the day, including past and present members of the SUZC -- fishermen, processors and dealers, and scientists.
The following five priority research areas were identified in the meeting.
(1) Reseeding urchins and closed areas.
Participants expressed strong interest in evaluating rotational closures as a way to avoid overfishing and prevent the change in habitat from urchin barren to kelp forest. Unanswered is whether urchins would reestablish themselves if fishing pressure were removed without any other intervention.
There is strong interest in reseeding for three distinct purposes: 1) to reestablish productive urchin bottom by changing the environment from a kelp forest to an urchin barren, 2) to enhance reproduction in an area, and 3) to enhance the quality or "fatten" urchins.
(2) Urchin health concerns.
Urchin health issues are neither well understood nor well defined in the scientific literature, particularly in light of the possibility of significant regional differences. Urchin populations experience periodic die-offs.
Environmental stress is known to be one significant variable in these episodes but what the specific stressors are and how they operate within urchin populations is unknown.
In addition to the oceanographic changes contributing to environmental stress, participants considered a number of human activities including harvesting methods and pollution. The traditional elements of the urchin fishery, such as shipping, processing, and dumping waste across habitats, all provide opportunity for the spread of a disease.
Now, as the fishery becomes involved with reseeding urchins from both hatchery operations and wild stocks, the disease issues become more complex.
(3) Local management
The SUZC has provided the fishery with a rudimentary form of co-management. Fishermen of both major gear types, dealers, processors, and scientists have participated in management decisions and research planning.
Now, as the fishery is looking seriously at enhancement through reseeding and closures, the policy issues that occur in any enhancement fishery are emerging as high priority. These issues include an evaluation of the benefits and costs of different types of ownership of areas where culture techniques are being used: private aquaculture vs. community enhancement.
(4) Life history and oceanography
For urchins, as for most commercial species, the interface between oceanography and reproductive success remains a mystery. Ecological questions about predators, food, and competition are linked with questions as basic as the behavioral and chemical stimuli for reproductive behavior.
Other ecological questions include the role of large urchins, urchin barrens, and urchin movement.
Ultimately, fishermen who are taking care of closed and/or reseeded areas need to gain understanding about where the larvae produced there will settle, and the source of the natural settlement they receive. Because of the local nature of the urchin fishery, and because local management is partially implemented, these questions are being asked at a very fine scale.
In recent years both fishermen's observations and scientific developments have suggested that reducing fishing pressure alone may not be enough to rebuild the urchin resource. A complex ecological interaction between urchins, macroalgae such as kelp, and micropredators such as sea fleas, is emerging.
Questions that will expand this knowledge of urchin life history and its interactions with its biological, chemical, and physical habitat dominate the urchin research agenda.
(5) Stock assessments
At the time of the meeting, the DMR was not doing an assessment of the urchin population, in contrast to New Brunswick, which conducts a regular assessment. Participants at the meeting were most interested in the predictive qualities of an urchin larval survey, another expression of the questions that exist about larval source and sink.
Improvement of landings information is currently a priority for DMR, although it did not emerge as a high priority from the meeting. It could emerge as the DMR works on a collaborative effort to arrive at an assessment strategy for the state. A pilot stock assessment with the participation of the industry is planned for this spring.
A copy of the research priorities can be found on this site under research priorities (or click here), on the DMR page at http://www.state.me.us/dmr or by contacting Naomi Petley, DMR Laboratory, PO Box 8, West Boothbay Harbor, ME 04575; call (207) 633-9525; or e-mail Naomi.Petley@state.me.us.
