or somewhat concerned about the costs associated with the whale plan and its impacts on the way they fish. Eighty percent said they were very or somewhat concerned about the supply or price of herring as bait.

More pertinently to the point of the survey, fishermen responded with concern about the number of traps in the water. About three-quarters said they were very or somewhat worried about trap numbers. More than half said they would support reducing the number of traps in their area. When asked about the mechanism for reduction, about half said they supported a proportional cut, where every lobsterman removes the same percentage of traps; the median decrease was 25 percent. On the other hand, half said they would support an across-the-board cut, with a median trap cap put at 600.

Fishermen were pretty evenly split on whether to freeze entry of new licenses into the fishery. They were also split on the question of whether to freeze the number of tags for those already holding commercial licenses. Surprisingly, there was also no consensus on whether to eliminate latent effort.


George Lapointe on the survey
"One of the most important aspects of the survey was the level of participation," said Commissioner Lapointe of the survey. Of the licensed lobster fishermen in Maine 35% responded to the survey. A number considered very high.

"It shows people in the lobster industry are concerned about the fishery," said Lapointe. "People are interested in meaningful and fair action on effort. The message we are hearing from the survey is that whatever we do must be fair, but we're not sure what that is yet."

The lobstermen with a small number of traps voted differently from the large holders. The last time we went from 1200 traps to 800, the fishermen with 1200 felt they sacrificed while those with 400 benefited. At the same time there are some who fear a loss in the number traps will make them part time lobstermen.

"The apparent willingness to lower the number of traps," said Lapointe, "is a result of an increase in fixed costs and reduced landings."

The Advisory Council
The information went to the advisory council on July 30 to get their impressions. There will be discussions at zone council meetings in August. The written comments submitted in the survey have yet to be recorded and released. There was a lot of written material submitted, which is expected to be published.