Lobstering ban is off, at least for now

Warwick, R.I. - A regional lobster management board decided Thursday to put aside a plan for a five-year moratorium on lobster fishing in waters south of Cape Cod.

The plan, proposed by the technical committee of the American Lobster Management Board and based on a study of the current lobster population, has been roundly criticized at public hearings since it was announced in April.

Instead, board members decided they needed a second study to make sure the technical committee's numbers are correct. Based on the second study, the board will look at either maintaining the current catch limits, reducing them drastically or imposing a moratorium.

The lobster board advises the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Board members said Thursday they recognized the "emotionally charged" moratorium would have been disastrous, a "nuclear option" at this point.

"The industry has given all that it has given," said Bill McElroy, a Rhode Island lobsterman and board member. "The board needs to confront the reality that destroying the industry doesn't do well for the lobstermen."

"This is an initial victory for the lobstermen of Connecticut," said U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District. "Jobs and a New England way of life are on the line, and I am pleased that ASMFC has for the moment rejected a ban and instead ordered a new study on lobsters. I have heard over and over that the numbers in ASMFC's study do not match what lobstermen are seeing on the water. With an entire industry and families in potential peril, a ban would have been unacceptable."

Mark Gibson, deputy chief for the marine fisheries Rhode Island division of fish and wildlife, said the National Marine Fisheries Services would choose an independent party to review the data. The board hopes to have those findings ready for its annual meeting in November.

The lobster board said it wants the data to be reviewed again because what was being proposed was "substantial." Still, the unanimous decision to put aside the call for a moratorium and focus on alternatives left lobstermen wary.

"I think the moratorium could pop up again," said Gary Mataronas, a lobsterman for 47 years out of Sakonnet Point, R.I. "We've given back before. They can't control things like temperature increases, but what is it that they can control? Us."

"Enough is enough. Let us lobster," Mataronas added.

'Almost biblical'

Almost 200 people - many of them from Connecticut and Rhode Island - assembled for the meeting at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Warwick.

Board members held a lengthy discussion on the technical committee's data presented and questioned whether additional data or techniques should have been considered. The board is planning to specify the scope of the second study at its August meeting.

Lobstermen questioned who would conduct the second review. Nick Crismale, president of the Connecticut Commercial Lobstermen's Association, stressed that it should be a team of qualified scientists.

"This is almost biblical, putting lobstermen out of service for this moratorium," Crismale said.

Based on trawl surveys conducted in April, the lobster population in 2009 was estimated to be 14 million pounds in Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts waters. That would be the lowest it has been since the early 1980s.

"I've read your data, but I'm seeing a different story in my traps," said Albert Crosinha, a lobsterman out of Westport, Mass.

The lobster board talked about factors such as increased water temperatures, shell disease and predation that could have reduced the population to the numbers reported by the technical committee.

Harvesting would drop by two-thirds in two to three years if natural mortality continues at the rate based on recent technical committee estimates.

David Simpson, director of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection's Marine Fisheries Division, urged the board to look at ways to manage the fishery without proposing a moratorium, saying he hasn't seen any data yet to justify such a severe ban.

Simpson proposed alternatives such as limiting the lobster harvest season by state, using quotas or trap limits as an output control, instituting a program to compensate lobstermen for returning egg-laying-eligible female lobsters to the water and modifying the minimum and maximum lobster size for catching.

The board will meet in August to discuss the scope of the second study. Based on the study results, the commission's plan development team will draft a document with options to reduce lobster mortality and rebuild the population.

That proposal will go through a series of public hearings and won't be implemented until sometime next year, board members said.