Lobster Industry, Coastal “Economic Engine,” Gases Up for Coming Season

by Laurie Schreiber

ROCKPORT—After 16 community meetings with the lobster industry over the past winter, Department of Marine Resources (DMR) Commissioner Patrick Keliher has determined that a proposed three-tier license system is not ready for prime time.

However, it also became clear that worth pursuing, and under the control of the industry, are best management practices to improve quality and handling of the product and, potentially, alleviate pricing and glut problems.

In the wake of a year marked by record high landings and low boat prices in the lobster fishery, Keliher conducted a series of community meetings in January to seek input into the state of the industry and recommendations for the future. The meetings focused on both short-term (quality and profitability) and long-term challenges, including specific proposals to slow landings with days out if it becomes necessary, and discussion of a tiered licensing system.

At the Maine Fishermen’s Forum last month, Keliher summarized the feedback received, and outlined possible next steps.

“Everybody wanted to find a short-term fix,” Keliher said. “My phone certainly rang of the hook in June and July, both dealers and harvesters calling me to say, ‘You need to shut this industry down and help us fix this price.’”

The DMR is authorized to protect resources, not markets, Keliher said.

“That does not mean, though, that we stop talking about how to address profitability in this industry. It’s incredibly, incredibly important to the state of Maine. You are the economic engine of our coastal communities. And that’s recognized both by myself and the governor.”

Approximately 1,600 people attended the 16 meetings; the vast majority were license-holders. After each meeting, the DMR continued to receive emails, letters and phone calls.

The conversation started last summer with the “glut” of lobsters, Keliher said. For 2012, 123 million pounds were landed, 18 million pounds more than the year before. Five million pounds were landed in a four-week period – the last two weeks of June and the first two weeks of July. Processors in Canada and Maine were not yet prepared for that volume at that point in the season.

“That started things spiraling downhill when it relates to the boat price,” Keliher said.

Keliher said he started receiving numerous phone calls from dealers and harvesters, asking him to do something. He said he went to the DMR’s Lobster Advisory Council (LAC) to see if there was anything that could be done in the short-term to try to ensure the boat price would not continue to go down.

To alleviate future gluts, the LAC came up with a days-out proposal, to restrict harvesting to three days a week for a temporary period of time, to slow catch.

But it became evident, from the first community meeting, said Keliher, that lobstermen didn’t take to the proposal. Some said they would find ways around it by baiting harder or putting more sternmen on. Other proposals under consideration included seasonal gauge changes and seasonal trap reductions. In all proposals, Keliher said, a trigger mechanism would be built in.

The industry disapproved of a seasonal gauge change because it would mean changing trap vents, too.

Complicating the issues were regional, geographic, and operational differences.

“So at the end of the day, we weren’t going to do anything,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we don’t still talk about it, because we don’t know what’s going to happen this year. Is this a short term, one-year issue? Based on what we’re seeing with the water temperatures, I’m not sure it’s going to be.”

Going into the coming season, he said, “I think everyone’s going to have to keep an open mind. If we have additional problems, should we revisit any of these issues? We shouldn’t just shut the door.”

Keliher said the most recent proposal he’s heard is a very slight increase to the vent, by perhaps one-eighth or one-sixteenth of an inch, year-round. The dealer who proposed the increase, said Keliher, thought it might allow some of the really soft lobsters to move through the vents more easily, and then have an opportunity harden up.

“I throw it out there now as food for thought,” he said.

The other conversation that came up at every meeting was a non-regulatory approach to best management practices, Keliher said.

“A lot of people have called me about a regulatory approach to best management practices, but frankly, I don’t want to have regulations on the books that just deal with common sense. At a lot of these meetings, I heard, ‘We’re catching quantity, we’re being paid crap.’ Well, it didn’t take long for one or two people to make those type of comments, for other people in the industry to jump all over them. At no time should this industry ever talk about ‘crap.’ This product is not crap. This product is soft and then it’s hard. When we talk about ‘junk’ or ‘crap,’ you’re doing a disservice to the industry. We need to focus on moving the industry forward. We’ve got a huge volume of lobster. We’re going to be dealing with soft product and we’ve got to promote that soft product in a way that benefits the industry. Handling that soft product is going to be key.”

To that end, he said, there are things the industry can do to better handle the product and lower dead loss. At a recent meeting with dealers, he said, dealers agreed that, if the industry can figure out ways to go from 15 to 20 percent dead loss to the single digits, it would be a big benefit both to harvesters and dealers, and will eventually reflect in the price.

Three-tier System

With regard to long-term issues, fishermen at the 16 meetings considered a proposal to change the licensing system to a three-tier system of 50, 400, and 800 traps for the majority of the coast, with qualification requirements to enter each tier.

The one thing everyone agreed on was that the resource was unlikely to continue to grow forever, Keliher said. When an eventual downturn rolls around, he said, using traps as the currency to protect the resource will not work. A trap reduction imposed in 1997 was a perfect example, he said.

“It was supposed to be a gradual slowdown,” he said. “We dropped it to 800. A lot of people came down to 800 and a lot of people went up to 800. And, at the end of the day, there were more traps in the water.”

The industry must continue to talk about latent licenses and about entry and exit issues, he said.

“The good thing about having the conversation now is, we have time, outside of the regulatory arena and outside the legislative halls,” he said.

The DMR’s goal is to have a licensing system that’s capable of responding efficiently to a change in the resource, balances entry/exit constraints with opportunities for access, recognizes differences by region as well as diversity of fishery operations, and is simple and fair.

“We threw a tiered licensing concept up on the board and everybody said ‘Holy shit, that’s not simple or fair,’” Keliher said.

With regard to the 400-trap tier with potentially open access, “Everybody went ‘Whoa, hold on, we don’t want more product on the market. You’re going to let more people in all of a sudden, it’s going to be potentially bad for the price and, frankly, we don’t have room for any more traps,’” Keliher reported. “We heard that loud and clear at every single meeting we held.”

Keliher said he holds to the idea that latency needs to be addressed for the long-term, in order to alleviate concern that latent effort will one day be added to the fishery, and to protect the profitability of the existing fleet.

“A lot of people in the industry disagree with me,” he said. “A lot of people said, ‘Those traps [that are not in the water] aren’t hurting us now.’ They’re not, but they could.”

The Mount Desert Island meeting, he said, was particularly illustrative of the issues that plague another aspect of the current licensing system – long waiting lists for would-be entrants.

“It was a great conversation between the license holders – the haves – and people on the waiting list –the have-nots,” he said. “The current system was set up with the original legislative intent to allow people, after they go through the apprentice program, to get in after maybe two, three, four, maybe five years. Now it’s 20, 30, 40 years to get in. That was never the intent. What the harvesters said was, ‘We can’t let you guys in after five years because we still have a trap-density problem, we still have a glut problem. And the people on the waiting list said, ‘Then make it 10 years, but make it known. Give us something known, so we can plan how and when we’re going to start fishing.’ It seems like a reasonable approach and one we need to continue to talk about.”

Keliher said he will hold more industry meetings this year, to develop long-term strategies.

“The three-tier licensing system was just a starting point,” he said. “We need to continue to talk about how it would work.”

Possible next steps may be to take elements of the tiered license proposal and integrate them into the existing license and zone systems to achieve some of the goals.

“It’s a tough conversation, but it’s one we have to have,” Keliher said. “We’re committed to continuing that conversation and not force something down the industry’s throat. I want to build buy-in through this, so everybody understands what the playing field is. We don’t need regulations for the sake of regulations. We want regulations and laws that work, based on sound science and on the understanding that it will benefit the industry in the long run. At the end of the day, we need to continue to talk about how we maximize the lobster resource in the state of Maine, around the country and around the world. That’s my commitment and that’s the governor’s commitment.”