The position of Maine fishermen, who have opposed the plan from he beginning came to a head at the public hearing in Ellsworth on November 29, 2006. Discussion at that meeting was the most heated to date. Downeast fishermen said, the reporting plan is an invasion of fishing rights privacy, an unpaid work load, and the foundation for greater restrictions and management inroads that could lead to a quota system. Management and scientists have countered that the type of information lobstermen will be required to collect could help develop a higher level of understanding of the workings of the lobster resource. That understanding might help avert, they have said more disastrous results in the event of a downturn in productivity. Department of Marine Resources scientist Carl Wilson said, “We need to have a better handle on what is being landed.” . He went on to say that the information required would be pretty basic—who, what, when and where, which in itself would be “leaps and bounds beyond where we are now.” But some lobstermen thought they were already providing a lot of information. Some said they could not see why or what good more of the kind of data being sought could be. Several fishermen said the resistance of fishermen to the reporting would result in skewed data that would be useless. The Maine Lobstermen’s Association published comments, on and opposition to, options 2 and 3 in their monthly newsletter in January. These same issues were brought to the ASMFC meeting in Fairfax, Va. The resistance of Maine fishermen to participate in the mandatory reporting plan is believed to have influenced the final configuration of what was voted on. The less popular Option 3 was voted in, but amended to include the 10% participation component in order to accommodate the apparent resistance by Maine lobstermen. At public hearings in Maine there was outright opposition to the reporting plan. Acceptance was, for the most part, limited to Option 1, with the 10% component. New Hampshire and New Jersey objected to the 10% component on the grounds they did 100% reporting and at 10% Maine would not be providing enough data to make the plan effective. Not all seven states have a 100% reporting component. The options 1, and 3 as presented by the DMR in November, 2006 4.1 Option 1: Status Quo: States will be required to implement the following reporting program by January 1, 2008. Minimum Standards: 1. Require states to collect at a minimum, catch (pounds) and effort data summarized monthly by NMFS statistical areas and LCMA in an annual recall log format from each permit holder. a. Effort data includes: trap hauls, set-over days, number of trips, total traps set, and average number of traps fished per trip. 2. Require each state to collect trip-level catch and effort reports either as a census or a sample for at least 10% of its lobster fishery (statistically valid at a percent of error determined by the TC in) 3. Require all dealers involved with primary purchases (first point of sale) to report landings weights (pounds) of lobster on a trip level basis 4. Permit holder should be linked to federal vessel and individual permit/license level reporting for lobsters using ACCSP protocol (http://www. accsp.org/cfstandards.htm) 5. ACCSP would hold this information. 4.3 Option 3: Expanded coastwide mandatory reporting and data collection program. This option would replace section 4.0 Monitoring and Reporting of Amendment 3 to the American Lobster Federal Management Plan. Dealer and Harvester Reporting 1. Two-ticket system (check and a balance): dealer and harvester landings information (trip level reporting). Harvester reports trip data and catch estimates (in pounds) and dealer reports landing weights (in pounds). a. Harvester reports include: a unique trip id (link to dealer report), vessel number, trip start date, location (NMFS stat area), traps hauled, traps set, quantity (lbs), trip length b. Dealer reports include: unique trip id (link to harvester report), species, quantity (lbs), state and port of landing, market grade and category, areas fished and hours fished A one-ticket system can also be used to collect the above information. In a one-ticket system, both dealer and fisherman report different data on a single form. 2. Harvesters and dealers would be required to report standardized data elements for each trip by the tenth of the following month. 3. Permit holder should be linked to federal vessel or individual permit/license level reporting for lobsters using ACCSP protocol (http://www. accsp.org/cfstandards.htm 4. ACCSP would hold this information. |
