ARLINGTON, VA - Calling it a "first step" in dealing with the serious stock decline in Area 2, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's (ASMFC) American Lobster Management Board has approved emergency action to accelerate two previously scheduled gauge increases for that area.

    However, to the relief of some and the frustration of others, the board did not endorse any additional emergency measures, such as a seasonal shutdown of the fishery.

    The first gauge increase boosted the minimum lobster gauge in Area 2 from 3-5/16" to 3-11/32" immediately, which meant as soon as affected states could get the emergency action through their respective regulatory agencies.

    Rhode Island and Massachusetts, the two states most directly impacted by the situation, acted right away. Massachusetts implemented the initial emergency increase on March 14 (see related story page 6B). Rhode Island put the increase on its books a day later.

    The second increase, scheduled to go into affect "by July 1," will move the gauge to 3-3/8", making it the largest minimum gauge anywhere for American lobster in 2003.

    The ASMFC lobster board made the gauge increase decision at a Feb. 26 meeting in Arlington.

    A two-thirds majority is required for approval of any ASMFC emergency action. The board passed this motion unanimously, with not a single state nor the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) abstaining.

    While scientists do not expect the gauge increases alone to reduce fishing mortality significantly, lobster technical committee chairman Bob Glenn of Massachusetts said any measures implemented at this point "will have some positive effect."

    The board further agreed to develop new measures for 2004 that reduce fishing mortality "to a level that would allow stock rebuilding." These new provisions will be implemented through a lobster plan addendum.

    Under ASMFC's procedures for emergency action, the commission must hold a minimum of four public hearings within 30 days of the determining vote, even if the action has already been implemented state-side.

    Those mandatory hearings were just wrapping up in late March as Commercial Fisheries News was going to press.

    Rhode Island held two hearings - one on March 24 in Warren and another on March 25 in Narragansett - while Massachusetts and Connecticut each held a single hearing on March 26 in Pocasset and Old Lyme respectively.

    One issue that was sure to be raised in Rhode Island was the "possession" wording attached to the new minimum gauge regulation, which requires anyone landing lobsters in the state to comply with the higher gauge. This includes Area 3 lobstermen who routinely land in Rhode Island.

    "It's not that we don't want to go up on the gauge. It's in our plan," said Bonnie Spinazzola, executive director of the Atlantic Offshore Lobstermen's Association. "But we're scheduled to go to 3-3/8" in 2004, so this is a year ahead of schedule for Area 3."

    Spinazzola said Area 3 lobstermen view the situation as "an unintended consequence" of the emergency action that needs to be addressed to maintain the principle of area management.

    However, David Borden, assistant director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, said Rhode Island implemented the "possession" language because of enforcement concerns, recognizing that the state's landings come from both Areas 2 and 3 and that differentiating between the two areas would be difficult.

    The Massachusetts regulation only impacts Area 2 lobstermen, not those who work in other areas.

    "We are working with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries to reconcile the differences in the two approaches," Borden said in late March.

    Several recent developments set the stage for the start of the Feb. 26 Arlington meeting (see CFN March 2003 for pre-meeting details and CFN January 2003 for additional background on the stock status situation).

    First, everyone in the room knew that the board's Area 2 subcommittee had voted on Jan. 14 to recommend emergency action to achieve the F10% egg production goal for Area 2 immediately, not by 2008 as called for under the interstate lobster plan.

    Furthermore, people knew the board's technical committee had been asked to calculate a total allowable landing (TAL) level to meet the F10% target, and that the number turned out to be just under one million pounds - 920,000 pounds to be exact - for the period between October 2002 and September 2003.

    In 2001, Area 2 landings in Rhode Island and Massachusetts totaled just over 4 million pounds. The difference equates to roughly a 75% reduction in landings to meet the revised calculation.

    Compounding matters, the technical committee's modeling subcommittee, which ran the numbers, concluded that F10% and the FMP's current Fmsy reference point were "probably inappropriate for use in rebuilding a depleted stock," meaning that even the paltry one-million-pound TAL might not be scientifically justifiable.

	"I see this just as a first step. This board and the key players need to keep working on this problem." (Peter K. Prybot photo) - Mark Gibson

    Several Area 2 lobstermen traveled to Arlington expecting the board to shut down the fishery for six months - from July through December.

    Word was out that representatives from Massachusetts and Rhode Island were prepared to propose such action.

    However, Mark Gibson of Rhode Island, the state's primary lobster board member, announced that officials at the highest levels of state government were unprepared to support a fishery closure.

    Instead, Gibson made the motion to accelerate Area 2's already scheduled gauge increases - a move that was strongly supported by some industry members but seen as a cop-out by others.

    When pressed about whether he thought the increases truly would address the problem, Gibson said, "It is essentially the old plan being brought into force by July 1.

    "I see this just as a first step," he added. "This board and the key players need to keep working on this problem. The solution is not on the table right now."

    The vote in favor of gauge increases rather than a closure came as a considerable relief to Bill McElroy of the Rhode Island Lobstermen's Association, who believes fishing mortality in Area 2 is already down significantly.

    "We're very concerned that the board is not seeing what we're doing to respond to this crisis. A lot of fishermen in Area 2 aren't going to fish or will fish at greatly reduced rates," he said.

    "It's very likely that what we're doing now - either voluntarily or out of economic distress - will get us to where we need to go," McElroy explained.

    "When you try to put us in a bin of 920,000 pounds, I have a problem with that," he said.

    Several Area 2 fishermen, however, felt differently. They viewed the board's refusal to take a tougher stand as inaction that would further jeopardize the resource.

    Reiterating the technical committee's conclusion that F10% may not be appropriate anymore, fisherman and lobster consultant Dick Allen said of the two-step gauge increase, "My sense is this is not a significant action given the conditions in the fishery."

    John Sorlien of a new group calling itself the Area 2 Professional Lobstermen's Alliance added that, by not properly addressing the situation, the board was allowing the Area 2 problem to spill over into other areas.

    "I fear if we continue down the path we're on, we'll see more and more boats press further and further offshore," he said. "I fear we'll be undermining the success of other management plans."

    Board Chairman George Lapointe of Maine, giving credence to both sides, acknowledged that more work needed to be done.

    "This is a first step to delay mortality to the F10% level," he said. "It doesn't pretend to address everything. We don't have a new F yet."

    Furthermore, Lapointe explained that "because of the compressed schedule" everyone was under to address the emergency, "a lot of people haven't cycled in yet," and their input would be important to the board.

    Lapointe did not try to downplay the seriousness of the situation or the enormous burden imposed on the Area 2 lobster conservation management team (LCMT), which has been charged with providing recommendations to the board for arresting the stock decline.

    "I think we're asking too much of fishermen to give us recommendations when the resource plummets, as is the case here," he said.

    Commissioner Ernie Beckwith of Connecticut, who has witnessed tremendous turmoil in Area 6 as a result of the massive lobster die-offs in Long Island Sound, expressed concern about going too far too fast.

    "We have to be careful," he said. "We may be moving in a direction of putting additional restrictions on fishermen when F is already down there."

    Beckwith believes the fishing mortality rate in Area 6 is now extremely low - not because of ASMFC action, but because industry members have had to respond to the crisis economically by ceasing operations.

    "In Area 6, our staffs have done work on natural mortality and F rates. Very few fishermen are fishing," he said. "We have very few landings."

    Connecticut Commissioner Lance Stewart seriously questioned the cause of the stock decline in Area 2. He expressed grave concern over inshore water quality, fearing that concentrations of chlorine and pesticides could have contributed to the problem.

    "There are a lot of factors at play here," said Stewart.

    Technical committee Chairman Glenn, when pressed for a response about whether shell disease was accelerating or flat out causing the decline, said, "The technical committee does not have enough data to confirm or deny whether shell disease has played a large part in the mortality of lobsters in Area 2."

    But Glenn also said, "The shell disease we're seeing now ... seems to progress much faster than the shell disease we've seen in the past."

    One of the committee's biggest worries, said Glenn, was that the number of prerecruit and juvenile lobsters in recent trawl surveys has been low.

    Overall, the number of lobsters industry can expect to see recruiting into the fishery over the next three years is "way down," he said.

    Massachusetts Commissioner Bill Adler, who is also executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen's Association, said the big question on his mind was: "If fishermen didn't take the sublegals, where did they go?" Predation, he asked?

    "I'm concerned that we don't have the little ones. Four out of five lobsters used to go back overboard," he said. "I'm wondering if the warmer water temperatures could have made that situation worse."

    Adler emphasized that "this disaster is not just caused by fishing," and he believed the states and federal government should share the burden of stock rebuilding.

    At Adler's request, the lobster board agreed to convene appropriate representatives from the affected states - Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and NMFS at the least - to review assistance programs. The group will report back to the board in June during ASMFC's next meeting week.

    Adler already had three types of possible programs in mind: a buyback; compensation for lobstermen who volunteer to temporarily suspend fishing activities; and/or a lobster restocking effort.

    The American Lobster Management Board is expected to review an "options paper" for further addressing the Area 2 situation during ASMFC's June 9-12 meeting. The paper will be developed with input from the LCMT for Area 2, as well as the technical committee and other appropriate groups.

    For more information about the February emergency action or the board's progress on the next plan addendum, contact ASMFC lobster plan coordinator Carrie Selberg at (202) 289-6400.