Trawling Up

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In an earlier letter to the regional office, dated June 13, MLA executive director Patrice McCarron wrote, “The MLA is pleased that NMFS has moved away from its one-size-fits-all, broad-based rulemaking approach, in favor of an area-specific, risk-based approach for the proposed vertical line rule….However, Maine lobstermen remain frustrated over the need to implement additional whale rules given the lack of definitive data regarding how whales are entangled in fishing gear and the impact that the Maine lobster fishery has on whales relative to other fisheries. Lobstermen consistently state the rarity of seeing right whales off the Maine coast and continue to struggle with the existing sinking groundline requirement which poses significant ongoing safety, operational and economic challenges.”

Requirements were developed with input from the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team (ALWTRT), which includes fishermen, state managers, gear specialists, non-government organizations and scientists.

For Maine, measures include the status quo for the exempted waters, status quo for the pocket waters, new trawling-up requirements, a new 6-mile line, additional gear marking, some island buffers and an implementation date of June 1, 2015.

There will be a minimum number of traps per trawl based on the different lobster zones and distance from shore to reduce the number of buoy lines in the water column. Exempted waters do not have a minimum and can fish any configuration, including singles.

According to NMFS, these new requirements achieve over a 37 percent reduction in co-occurrence of whales and gear.

The delineations are intended to recognize the realities of different types of vessels and operations, the further offshore an operation. Namely, small boats are large enough to travel into federal waters, but not necessarily big enough to handle a large string of traps. The establishment of a three- to six-mile zone fine-tunes the numbers.

The rule summary for Maine is as follows:

Zones A, B and C:
• Beach to the Exemption Line – status quo
• Exemption Line to 3-mile line – pairs minimum, no singles
• 3 to 6 miles – triples minimum
• 6 to 12 miles – fives minimum
• 12-plus miles – fifteens minimum

Zones D, E, F and G:
• Beach to the Exemption Line – status quo
• Exemption Line to 3-mile line – pairs minimum, no singles
• 3 to 6 miles – triples minimum
• 6 to 12 miles – tens minimum
• 12-plus miles – fifteens minimum; except in Zones F and G, from Nov. 1 to Feb. 29, twenties minimum.

Northern In Shore State Trap/Pot Waters.

 

Maine Pocket Water definitions indicated by bold straight lines.

 

The six-mile line is a line connecting the following points (Machias Seal to Isle of Shoals). 44° 31.98 N. lat., 67° 9.72 W. long (Machias Seal), 44° 3.42 N. lat., 68° 10.26 W. long. (Mount Desert Island), 43° 40.98 N. lat., 68° 48.84 W. long, (Matinicus), 43° 39.24 N. lat., 69° 18.54 W. long. (Monhegan), 43° 29.4 N. lat., 70° 5.88 W. long. (Casco Bay), 42° 55.38 N. lat., 70° 28.68 W. long. (Isle of Shoals).

 

The MLA called the trawling-up measures “significant for some lobstermen and less so for others, but it is a good overall framework for the Maine lobster industry.”

The rule allows for “pocket waters” in Maine to fish a minimum of two traps per trawl instead of three.

And the rule creates a quarter-mile buffer in waters surrounding Monhegan, Matinicus, and Ragged islands; boats fishing within this buffer will be allowed to continue the current practice of fishing singles.

The MLA said, however, the buffer “does not capture the full range of affected island fishing bottom. The MLA strongly recommends that the quarter-mile buffer be granted to two groupings of islands: Penobscot Bay and the Isles of Shoals. This request is based on direct feedback from lobstermen who fish these islands. The islands in these two groupings share the same characteristics: very shallow waters around the island with extremely rocky and boulder bottom which drops off to deeper waters. Due to the rough bottom conditions, lobstermen are not able to fish pairs with sinking rope in these discrete areas. Doing so would pose extreme operational and safety hazards and severely compromise their ability to fish these productive areas. Lobstermen would be either forced to risk the safety of the vessel and crew, or to give up fishing these waters, which would be a significant economic hardship. This fact is important because Maine’s younger and older fishermen often fish these shallow areas and would be disproportionately impacted by such regulation.”

Buoy lines must now be marked three times (top, middle, bottom) with three 12-inch red marks (rather than the one 4-inch red mark currently in place) in waters outside of the exemption line. There will continue to be no gear-marking requirement inside Maine’s exemption line.

The MLA said it is “concerned about the requirement to expand the size and frequency of gear marking outside the exemption line. Any requirement to mark ropes three times with 12-inch marks would be extremely labor-intensive. Lobstermen’s practice in lengthening and adding lines to fish in deeper waters could make this operationally problematic. Further, as marks wear off and foul over the season, it is difficult to keep all ropes properly marked. Lobstermen have noted that the additional marks proposed at the top and bottom of the line are redundant because all lobster buoys and traps are marked or tagged with a lobsterman’s license information.”

Parts of Jordan Basin and Jeffreys were originally identified as areas for potential seasonal closures for lobster fishing, based on a study that showed high use of those areas by whales. But neither of the proposed closures were included in the final rule. Fishery officials previously said closures would likely only result in fishermen relocating their gear, instead of suspending fishing.

The rule will be implemented June 1, 2015 to align with Maine’s annual lobster trap tag requirement date.

Under other considerations, the MLA said it “remains concerned that a small group of lobstermen cannot safely fish the required trawl minimums that begin at the 12-mile line. Maine’s fleet is very diverse. There are some vessels that are unable to deal with the weight of the gear fished in these deep waters making trawling up…a safety hazard. The issue is, in part, the number of traps, but more importantly, it is the amount and weight of the rope that must be handled when fishing these longer trawls in deep offshore waters. These boats may be limited due to length, width or the hauling system.”

Before the rule’s finalization, the MLA had proposed that NMFS “adopt a process for these vessels fishing beyond 12 miles to apply for a ‘safe trawl equivalency’ which would allow them to fish the areas they’ve traditionally fished with a safe number of traps per trawl, but not less than 10 traps per trawl.”

Despite concerns, there were few surprises for the industry and state, said John Higgins, trainer and gear specialist with NMFS’ Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office.

“Everyone rolled up their sleeves and worked hard on this,” he said. “The industry, state, and fishery associations did a good job of figuring out what the industry can live with, as far as lengthening out trawls and taking care of small boats. It doesn’t happen that way all the time. That’s what stands out about this one.”

In meetings leading up to the new requirements, lobster fishermen and state officials were generally receptive to the idea of an area-based, strategic approach for the vertical-line rules, as opposed to what some called the “one-size-fits-all” approach to the sinking-line rule implemented in 2009.

The development of the rule was based on a model that determined the co-occurrence of fishing gear density and whale density, using fishing gear survey data from 2000 to 2011, and whale sightings.

The numbers of traps per trawl were based on the co-occurrence model, discussions with the public, and NMFS’ state partners, NMFS said. In Maine, the traps per trawl were defined based on state lobster zones.

Gear-marking was first implemented in 1997 and currently requires fishermen to mark their buoy lines with one 4-inch mark depending on the area they fish. The colored mark is midway along the buoy line. Colors correspond to specific management areas designated by the plan.

The current gear-marking strategy is inadequate, NMFS said. The gear-marking strategy is designed to identify when and where entanglements occur.

The ALWTRP was implemented in 1997. Since then, NMFS has modified it on several occasions. But entanglements continue. NMFS’ 2011 entanglement report says there were 10 live and one dead entanglements of right whales, 21 live entanglements of humpbacks, 1 live entanglement of a finback, and four live and two dead entanglements of minkes.

Other threats to whales include ship collisions, water pollution, noise pollution, climate change, and reductions in prey, NMFS said.

Higgins said his job now is to train industry how to comply with the new requirements, and train enforcement people on what to look for.

“It’s important that I’m doing the same exact show for both, so everyone’s on the same page,” he said.

Data and Negotiation Maine’s Strategy in Vertical Line Rule

by Mike Crowe

 

“Maine got a pretty good deal, considering what it was up against and what might have been,” said Spruce Head lobsterman Jim Tripp. Tripp was on the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team that worked out details of final rule on vertical traplines with lawyers for environmental groups threatening to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service over lobster trap gear which, they charged, threatened federally protected whales in the Gulf of Maine.

Lobstermen were up against the Endangered Species Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Act, two of the most powerful laws in the nation. “We learned from the groundlines process that began nearly a decade ago that a consensus on vertical lines was not going to be easy,” said Patrice McCarron of the MLA. Five years ago we started the vertical line process and knew one plan for the whole coast was not going to work, she said. Maine needed a flexible plan for very varied coastal conditions.

Maine based its proposal on overlaying gear data – quantity, type, location and when – over data on whale location information to determine where the two were at the same time. This co-occurrence method was the foundation for deciding what gear changes were needed and where.

The new agreement on vertical endlines “buys us five years, when there will be another assessment,” said Tripp. Maine also wanted its own rope-marking color, so that entanglements that occurred elsewhere, but were discovered in Maine, would not be counted toward Maine’s entanglement history.

“The environmentalists wanted some areas closed to fishing,” said Tripp. “No new measures in exempted waters was our biggest accomplishment. The rule reflects the fact that 80% of Maine licenses are not federal. Another success was that the proposed seasonal closures on Jeffery’s Ledge were avoided. There will be no closures, instead longer trap trawls will be used,” said McCarron. Maine interests said their strength was in the comprehensive data, from all the Maine zones on traps and gear, brought to the table by the DMR and MLA. “I feel really good about the final rule from the MLA perspective,” said McCarron.

Some fishermen say the final rule is complicated, and some areas will have a harder time than others. Still, said Tripp, things could have been much worse. Tripp said he was impressed by the preparations of the DMR and MLA, and the ability of these entities to help transform a hostile situation into a workable one.