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by Ann Kane Rheault
RIVERHEAD, NY - The New York and Connecticut Sea Grant programs are finalizing plans to use federal funds awarded in June for extension and outreach on behalf of the Long Island Sound Lobster Research Initiative.
According to Antoinette Clemetson, a New York Sea Grant lobster outreach specialist, each state Sea Grant program received $165,000 as part of the awards.
Connecticut Sea Grant Extension Program Leader Nancy Balcom explained that Sea Grant will serve "as a liaison between the researchers, the lobster industry, the committee, and the public."
Several of the New York-Connecticut outreach and extension projects will operate jointly.
For example, for the next three years, Sea Grant will continue hosting the annual Long Island Sound Lobster Health Symposium that began back in April 2000 with a meeting in Stamford, CT, alternating between the two states starting with New York later this year.
These meetings "will continue to be the primary forum for the industry, research community, resource managers, environmental groups, legislators, and interested public to hear firsthand updates on the status of the resource, including the shell disease problem and the research into the cause(s) of the die-off," Balcom said.
Sea Grant Extension will also use some of the funds to publish a semiannual newsletter, press releases, fact-sheets, and articles "to acquaint the public with the researchers and the work that is being done" in the 17 federally funded research projects, Clemetson said.
She urged all those who would like to receive the newsletter to contact the Sea Grant office to get on the mailing list (see contact information below).
Market impacts
A third use for the funding will be to conduct a study analyzing both short-term and long-term impacts on the lobster market due to the die-offs.
Balcom said that "resource economists in New York and Connecticut will be developing the project jointly so the data collected are compatible. The analysis will examine the lobster market for the years prior to and then following the 1999 mortality event."
This economic study will probably start in the spring of 2002, Clemetson added, and use information from lobstermen, dealers, restaurants, distributors, and others hit by the mortalities.
A fourth project will involve working with the lobster industry in each state to "learn more about their observations of conditions and try to tease out more information about the period leading up to the die-off, using any observations noted in logbooks, in Connecticut's case," Balcom said.
Consumer confidence
The Connecticut Seafood Council will receive $10,000 in Connecticut Sea Grant funds to "help rebuild or strengthen consumer confidence in Long Island Sound lobsters over the next couple of years through marketing and promotion," Balcom said.
More information is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.seagrant.sunysb.edu/LILobsters/LILobsters.htm.
In New York, Clemetson can be reached at:
phone (631) 727-3910; fax (631) 369-5944; or
e-mail aoc5@cornell.edu.
In Connecticut, Balcom can be reached at:
phone (860) 405-9107; fax (860) 405-9109; or
e-mail balcom@uconnvm.uconn.edu.
