FROM THE CROWE’S NEST

Don't Screw with It

Another tough season is shaping up for the lobster industry. Low prices heading into shedder season are a grim prospect. It is not the first bad stretch of road for the industry, but with everything else that is going on around it – from groundlines to the economy- it is easily among the worst. Lobstermen have managed to find a way through times like these in the past.

With nothing happening in the summer news doldrums, two criminal acts, the cutting of trap lines and the shooting and wounding of a fisherman, have been blown up by the media and characterized as the by-product of a management problem among fishermen. The reaction of the Department of Marine Resources was to close the fishery for two weeks.

However the current economic situation may or may not have influenced this incident, the lobster industry remains one of the best managed fisheries in the country. Self-regulation is an important factor in this success.

The traditional means of allocating bottom, who can fish where, to increasing numbers of fishermen has worked for many decades. That means of allocation is done by the people who know it best, who will be effected by allocation most, and who are ultimately responsible for how the bottom is maintained – the fishermen.

Presenting lobstermen’s management of access as a “wild west” scene on the water may play well in Portland and Bangor to viewers slumped on their sofas. But it is an inaccurate characterization, and could create yet another threat to the lobster industry. That threat would be from territory allocation being taken over by bureaucrats slumped in their desk chairs. Too much of the fishery is already influenced by those without a clue about how and why it functions. The sink rope fiasco is one good example.

The use of deadly force is a serious crime. But it is a crime, not a fishing issue. If one or a handful of fishermen lose it, whether it’s firing guns on a wharf or intentionally crashing a truck into a bait shed, that should not result in other fishermen losing the right to fish. Nor should it be grounds for judging and tampering with the way fishermen successfully manage the resource. If it ain't broke, don’t screw with it.