Maine Lobster Zone D Council Meeting Minutes, December 5, 2005

Zone D Lobster Zone Council Meeting
Rockland Ferry Terminal
December 5, 2005 – 6:30 p.m.

Call to order:
Members present: Dan Miller, Michael Dawson, Kevin Benner, Kevin Glover, Doug McLennan, Wayne Canning, Mike Hutchins, Gerry Cushman, Mike Myrick and Jason Witham. Members absent: Woody Post, Phil Bramhall, Gilbert Collamore, Sr., Robert Bradley and Richard Whitman. DMR members present: Carl Wilson, Terry Stockwell, Sgt. Dale Sprowl, MPO Danny White, Steve Robbins, Kathleen Reardon, Jeni Menendez, and Sarah Cotnoir. Other members present included: Rep. Chris Rector, Tom Ware, John Jarvis and Bob Baines.

The meeting convened at 6:50 p.m. Five Council members were not at this meeting. Mike Myrick will be resigning from the Zone D Council at the end of January. Mike was on the original Lobster Zone D Council. He has done a lot for the Zone D Council and kept us informed about whale issues.

Change to the Agenda: Carl Wilson’s Stock Assessment presentation will be moved prior to the DMR Updates.

Election of officers: MOTION: (G. Cushman and M. Dawson) Table the election of officers until the next meeting in order to have the full Council’s input. The motion passes unanimously.

Minutes: There were no minutes from the last meeting.

Zone D does not have a legislator assigned to their zone council; however Representative Chris Rector was present at this meeting.

Open to the public: Nothing stated.

Special Reports – Stock Assessment Presentation (Carl Wilson)

Carl encouraged representatives to go back to their districts and get input on effort after watching this presentation.

Discussion points from the presentation:

• Area 1 isn’t overfished and we’re not overfishing, but there is too much effort in the water.
• When landings go down to, let’s say to 30 million pounds that would be a red flag for managers. Landings were likely underestimated by 35% in 2002. They were reported in at 70 million pounds, but it was probably more in the 85-90 million pound range.
• G. Cushman reported that the Port Clyde co-op was estimating to be down 35-40% this year. Carl’s projection is that landings are probably down 30%.
• The data and the biology in this stock assessment are a couple years behind. Wilson stated that biologically, you are in a much better position, but that doesn’t translate necessarily to the fishery.
• Landings are down, but abundance has increased. The number of traps today couldn’t be supported by a 30-million pound fishery.
• Based on the Peer Review Comments, the lack of reported catch is a serious flaw in the stock assessment. Does that mean harvesters could be looking at mandatory reporting? For this assessment, we’ve been able to do somewhat better and take more information forward. More landings data and catch information provide more information to make decisions rather than move ahead blindly. We don’t know what the Lobster Management Board will do with this when they meet in February.
• The Technical Committee has proposed using reference points rather than F10. If the current reference point stays on, then we’ll have to do a vent increase in 2007.
• This assessment doesn’t consider things like cod fish, temperature, shell disease, weather, etc.
• The buildup on the shore is a serious problem. Population and pressure is increasing on the coast.
• Impermeable surfaces, such as asphalt, are making the drainage go directly into the ocean. Casco Bay was concerned with Brown Tail Moth spraying. They went to meetings and now there’s no more spraying there. Inshore Casco Bay catch is down 50%. There are many dead zones up and down the coast.

Monhegan Island Project: Carl also presented some information on a recent Monhegan Island project. DMR received some grant money funded by the Northeast Consortium. The project was to find out if there are some impacts from gear on the population. It was intended to be a short depletion experiment.

In September and October of 2004, seven fishermen fished a range of 50-500 traps in 8 areas. Traps were hauled about 12 times – counting the number of eggers, shorts, legals, v-notches, etc.

More lobsters (10-20 pounds per trap) were caught in the lower density areas, 50 traps. There were fewer lobsters per trap in the higher density areas. The video system measured the population of the lobsters collected by fishermen.

Some lobsters were caught 8 times with this experiment – rebanding after every catch. More lobsters were caught in the northern part of the range than the southern.

About the same amount of lobsters were caught with a random soak time of 1-6 days. 40% of legals were caught the first time on the next day. There are a lot of lobsters going through that area in the fall.

Over the winter, Carl will be looking at this data and show how the gear actually works with the lobster fishery. Carl will report back to this Council at a future meeting.

Continued Lobster Effort Discussion: A Council member asked Carl if he thinks the State of Maine is overfished. His reply was that if abundance goes down (natural or not), we’ll be overfished. There are too many traps in the water for average fishing. Expectations are too high biologically, but we’re in a good position. There is no magic number for reduction. It’s more economics than biology. Target of effort somewhere around the 1990’s – 1.8-2 million.

Except for one person at the table, if it wasn’t for the price this year, they would all be down this year. If the catch was half this year, you wouldn’t see the price doubling. Green Islands fishery is cut in half this year.

Nova Scotia runs the same number of traps and they’ve seen an increase. Biologically, they’re in the same position we are. They have a fixed number of fishermen with a fixed number of traps.

Penn Bay has been the most volatile area in the last 15 years. It represents 40% of landings along the coast.

2002 was our peak - We are now 3 years into a decline. If the settlement index is a valuable tool, we’re a few years away from the peak decline. The dip in settlement might coincide with the abundance/decline. There could be a lot of lobsters starting 2-3 years from now.

At the Lobster Advisory Council (LAC) meeting, Gerry Cushman brought up something from last year’s Zone D discussions - the idea of a moratorium for Zone D licenses & tags. The LAC is not in favor of stopping everything right now, especially Downeast. The Commissioner didn’t set forth a policy, but is open to listening.

Senator Damon was at the LAC meeting last week and stated he would like to meet with the LAC and the Marine Resources Committee at the end of January or February. The Commissioner and Senator Damon encouraged the zone councils to get feedback on effort reduction and bring it back to the LAC. Some of the questions that came out of the LAC discussion were:

Should the Department revisit the zone council process and their authorities? What's working? What isn't? Have any of these measures resulted in unintended consequences? Do the zones want additional authorities on a zone by zone basis? Does it make sense for zones to have individual authorities depending on their local issues?

LAC reps were tasked to go to their zone councils to get feedback on local effort reduction issues, get discussions started and bring back to the next LAC meeting. The MRC welcomes an educational/ informational meeting with the LAC reps from the zones to hear and understand the local zone issues/ ideas and possible effort reduction measures. A broader effort reduction discussion could be launched at the Forum. More “tools in the toolbox” available at the local and/or statewide level. If a bill came forward that put a bunch of tools in the toolbox, the zones could avail themselves to the individual tools. The LAC reps agreed to take the tools and let the zones decide if they want to use them. Zones could pursue with rulemaking or shelve them. Any changes with licensing would have to go through the legislature.

Bob Baines suggested getting a bill that would allow zones to come up with their own plans. Define what needs to be done and put that into a bill. Zone councils could specifically talk about what they want to put forward. Zone D needs to stand united as a zone, work on a plan, plus network with the other zones and bring it to the LAC meeting.

The Zone D Council wants a moratorium to freeze the licenses and tags for one year while coming up with a plan, but Baines explained that the Commissioner, the LAC and the Marine Resources Committee do not support that for now. The Zone C Council and to the west want to come up with an effort reduction plan. Even though the MRC’s terms would be ending and new people would be in office, these reports would at least be heard at the next session. These changes wouldn’t be implemented until the year 2008.

Rep. Rector who was present at tonight’s meeting stated that he would be happy to advocate when he could, but the zones need to work with the committee chairs.

G. Cushman asked the Zone D Council about the idea of sending out a questionnaire to all Zone D fishermen asking if they want to pursue effort reduction. How the questions are written is enormously important on how valuable the data is. If you ask, “Are you willing to take traps out of the water to reduce effort,” you’ll get no 100% of the time. Get some basic questions and come up with some prose to give answers to work with. A subcommittee will come up with a template and bring back to this Council.

Baines explained that he looked at license holders and tag quantities for District 7 in Zone D. He reviewed the licenses purchased versus fished and the tags purchased versus the tags fished. There were quite a few latent license holders and huge potential for trap buildup.

Carl reported that the average number of traps in Zone D is 650 traps. Many people believe there are too many traps in the water. Depending on who you ask will sway the results. Younger kids wouldn’t support until they were at their max. Some of us have kids that we want to see get in. Some people are retiring. We may get what we don’t want.

If the lobster catch goes down to 40 million pounds, biologically, we would still have a healthy resource. Price has made up for the catch this year.

People that are in the fishery don’t want to give up any traps. In order to make an effort reduction dent, we would have to go below 600 traps, so that’s not an easy answer. There are other ways to reduce effort besides affecting students and trap limits.

Area 514 has reported poor landings. DMR will be reconvening the LCMTs this winter to discuss. What tools do they need and what do the zones need?

Why should this Council talk about effort anymore if we don’t come up with something? Rather than having the state or feds working on effort reduction, this Council should poll the fishermen to see if they want to pursue this any further. Should we slow down entry, so there are lobsters to catch in the future?

MOTION: (M. Myrick and G. Cushman) To develop and send out a questionnaire requesting direction on effort reduction. The motion passes unanimously.

Discussion: There is the fear of simple trap reduction going from 800 to 600. Carl stated that even with trap reductions, there are high density areas. The edges would see the benefits.

Once lobstering became a booming business, people rushed in. There won’t be anything left to fish.

With the last trap limit that came about, people cut back while others built up. This will just be a redistribution of effort. Somebody’s going to have give somewhere.

Kevin Glover reported that there are so many kids in his area, with more traps and bigger boats. An 18-year old kid isn’t going to want to give up traps. They haven’t seen anything different.

A lot of the snarls are from the younger fishermen.

The subcommittee (Gerry Cushman, Kevin Glover and Dan Miller) will work with Carl Wilson to help craft questionnaire language and bring to the next Zone D Meeting.

Delegates’ reports:

Lobster Advisory Council – The LAC met last Tuesday. Discussion items included Carl’s Stock Assessment Presentation and the shrimp season. Bob Baines was elected the new Chairman.

LCMT – Nothing to report. They are going to meet sometime this winter.

Whales – Phil Bramhall was not present. Terry Stockwell and Steve Robbins are here tonight.

There’s still no word on when the whale rules will be published.

Steve stated that he has been working on a gear project. There is nothing new to report since the last Zone D meeting, but is here to answer any questions. He’s collecting logbooks and gathering data over the next couple months to see what works and what doesn’t.

Zones C & E – Both Zones C & E are going to meet in January.

District Reports – No district meetings have been held.

DMR Updates: There was a hearing last week on 3 proposed rules (mostly housekeeping).

1. Definition for rigged for fishing – if it has a hauler, it is rigged for and defined as a lobster boat.
2. Rules will be synchronized with state statutes to allow family members to run the boat of a person with a medical waiver.
3. Apprentices will have 30 days to send in their logbooks after the 50-day logbook is completed.

Zone F has proposed a 5:1 exit ratio. It is due to be voted on at the next DMR Advisory Council meeting.

A technical correction is in the rulemaking process to correct the Zone E/F boundary. The boundary was off 1 degree in the rule from the charts issued in the original rulemaking.

2005-2006 Shrimp Season/Gear Conflict Meetings: This year’s shrimp season will be 140 days starting December 12 and ending April 30, 2006. The season is set by the ASMFC Shrimp Section annually after review of the Stock Assessment. This is the best report in about 30 years.

A number of lobstermen and mobile gear fleet in the Port Clyde area brought gear conflict issues to the Department. With the help of fishermen, charts were created showing where the shrimp tows are located, along with the draggers’ and operators’ names. DMR distributed lists that included lobster license numbers, buoy colors, phone numbers, etc. Marine Patrol is not going to make people get out of the tows or make draggers tow in certain areas. This is a way to try to improve communications between the two fisheries.

One of the recommendations that came from this gear conflict working group was the problem with wet storage. There is a proposed rule to move the 30-day wet storage to 14 days during shrimp season. There are provisions for vessel breakdown and weather conditions. There is a public hearing on December 20th in Boothbay Harbor.

Two gear conflict meetings, one in St. George and one in Friendship, have been held. Three more meetings are scheduled - Cundy’s Harbor, Portland and Kittery.

Review and Sign Bylaws: Two new districts were added in April of 2005: A second District 7, which would represent Spruce Head and South Thomaston and a new District 12, which would represent the islands (Monhegan, Metinic and Green Islands). In addition, the bylaws were amended so that this Council can also vote on issues by written ballot.

MOTION: (M. Myrick and K. Benner) To accept amended bylaws. The motion passes unanimously.

Old Business: None.

New Business: There have been a couple of cases recently where the Coast Guard has boarded vessels and seized and dumped the catch for lack of a Federal Operator’s Permit. If you’re in federally exempted waters, you still need an operator’s permit. If you have a federal fisheries permit, you need to be sure you have a current federal operator’s permit inside or outside.

There is a short legislative session this year. There aren’t any lobster bills on the docket.

Commercial Fishing Safety Council (CFSC) – DMR is putting forward a bill to give the Commissioner the authority to put forward safety regulations that come from the Commercial Fishing Safety Council. The CFSC is also proposing a safety course through the Apprentice Program.

Set date for next meeting: January 9, 2006 at 6:30 p.m. at the Rockland Ferry Terminal.

Open to public: No comments.

Adjourn: The meeting ended at 9:00 p.m.

DEPT. OF MARINE RESOURCES

Maine Lobster Zone D Council Meeting Minutes, December 5, 2005