FISHING THE GRAY ZONE

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Historically, Drouin said, Maine fishermen fished the area around Machias Seal Island, but kept to the U.S. side of the Hague Line that separates the waters of the U.S. and Canada. He noted, “The Canadians stayed on their side of the line and we stayed on our side of the line.” But both Drouin and Cook admit some fishermen from both countries have fished in each other’s waters to reach the most lucrative areas.

Brian Guptill, president of the Grand Manan Fishermen’s Association, said that years before Americans and Canadians started fishing the Gray Zone, “There were hardly any folks that fished offshore that far; just a couple from each country and just down around Machias Seal Island.” He said nobody fished trawls back then, just singles and pairs, and nobody fished in the deep waters.

“There’s deep water between Grand Manan and Cutler,” Guptill explained, noting, “There’s a shoal that is the island and North Rock, which is just a ledge. Some boats from both countries fished the shoal water down around the island, but nobody fished in the deeper water on either side of the island because the trawling we do nowadays wasn’t prevalent back then. We didn’t have the buoys to tend it. We didn’t have hydraulic power to haul it. It just wasn’t feasible back then.”

Then as the stocks increased and people got more hydraulic power and fished offshore further, Guptill said, fishermen from both countries expanded into Gray Zone. He explained, “The Americans fished that area more because their season was open and our season was closed in summertime. We didn’t fish that area much, especially in the fall because we had bottom that was closed. So when we started in November there was no sense in going to Machias Seal Island because it had been fished.”

From the second Tuesday in November, when LFA 38, the waters from around Grand Manan to Maine, opens, the waters surrounding Machias Seal Island encompass the Gray Zone. Drouin explained, “At the end of June, when LFA 38 closes, the Gray Zone becomes LFA 38B for the Canadians who choose to fish there after June.”

Cook added that Grand Manan fishermen have to have special summer tags from the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans [DFO] to fish in the Gray Zone. Otherwise, as part of LFA 38, the Gray Zone opens the second Tuesday in November and closes June 29. Cook said, “We have to be in the Gray Zone or on the bank on June 29 at 2359” (a minute before midnight). Canadians with those summer tags, which become valid as the regular tags become invalid, can fish the Gray Zone again until it closes the Friday before the second Tuesday in November the following year, giving Canadian Gray Zone fishermen three days to remove their traps from the water before re-setting on opening day.

Between 2000 and 2002, according to Drouin, the Canadians decided to fish the Gray Zone because Americans were fishing it. “They feel it’s their sovereign waters. We feel it’s our sovereign waters, and, of course, it had never been delineated as to who owns what.”

Cook disagrees, citing the Treaty of Ghent, the peace treaty in 1814 that ended the War of 1812. “That treaty,” he said, “stated that all islands in the Bay of Fundy would revert to the British crown. Is Machias Seal Island an island?” Cook asked rhetorically. “Is it in the Bay of Fundy? Then it’s Canadian and so are the waters surrounding it.”

But a transcript of the treaty shows that Canada never did decide which country owned Grand Manan and Machias Seal Island. Instead, it referred the issue to a commissioner from each country who didn’t solve the problem either. But an earlier treaty, Jay’s Treaty of 1794, gave the United States Eastport and Moose, Frederick, and Dudley islands in Cobscook Bay, and gave Britain Grand Manan. In 1817, according to Wikipedia, the U.S. gave up its claim to Grand Manan and surrounding islands, but you’d never know it from talking to downeast Maine fishermen.

Drouin argued, “The line that we call ours is in a fair manner to be somewhat equidistant between the two countries. Canada is trying to claim within a few miles of the American shore, and then because they want to claim Machias Seal Island, they are trying to push that line even further down to the southwest because of a little rock in the ocean.”

But Cook simply stated, “The closer you get to the Canadian line, the more lobsters you catch. They are caught in a very small area, so there are a lot of snarls.”

He thinks those who fish in the Gray Zone are a different breed because they’ll put up with the entanglements. “It’s not an age thing,” he said. “It’s a mentality thing: Gray Zone fishermen are aggressive. They say, ‘I’m going to go there. If 10 or 15 of my trawls are snarled every day, so be it. I’m going to fish there anyway.’ You’ve got two different countries’ aggressive, hard-core fishermen butting heads on the line, so, it’s not a friendly fishery.”

This unfriendly fishery began in 2003 when Grand Manan fishermen started fishing the Gray Zone. Cook said Canadians can fish the 375 traps allowed for a single license or those 375 plus another 188 traps for a total of 563 traps allowed for those with a double license. “We have an 800-trap limit,” Drouin said, “but that does not mean all fishermen fish 800 traps or, if they fish in the gray zone, that they fish all 800 in the zone.” (Drouin noted that this story is just the tip of the massive iceberg of Gray Zone lobstering.)

The differences between Maine’s Department of Marine Resources [DMR] and Canada’s DFO is astonishing. As Cook put it, “The DFO in Canada is very powerful. If they decide to open a summer fishery, the government doesn’t have to meet; there’s no act of legislation. Now retired, Greg Peacock was then in charge of the lobster fishery.”

Canadian fishing boats now carry so called black boxes, so DFO personnel know where they are. Cook said, “Every 15 minutes our boats report their positions to the DFO.” That and dockside monitoring started when Gray Zone fishing began.

Cook described dockside monitoring as an automated system called Just Talk. Each fisherman calls in, reads off his Fisher Identification Number and his license number (the number of licenses signed by the department to the license for the Gray Zone.) The fisherman tells Just Talk when he leaves the wharf, when he plans to return, and then, when he finishes fishing and an hour before returning to port, he has to call a dockside monitoring company and say how many pounds of lobster he has onboard and when he expects to be in.

The department makes random tests, sending a monitor out to meet the occasional boat to check poundage of the actual catch with the reported one. The monitor checks Gray Zone catches for the number caught, number of traps hauled, and the position of the trawl and the vessel.

Cook said, “The department knows every 15 minutes where my boat is, in what direction it’s going, how fast it’s going, the whole works.” He said, “It’s very frustrating to Canadian officials when they ask the DMR how many American boats fished the Gray Zone with how many traps and the DMR says, ‘We have no idea.’” Cook said, “I have 24 hours after I return to port to mail my logbook. If a page out of my logbook, signed by the dockside monitor and by my buyer, gets lost or doesn’t go in, the next year I can’t get a license. It’s very serious.”

“You’re spending a few minutes every trawl, writing down catch numbers,” explained Cook. “There’s no scale aboard, so you’re guessing the weight, but when you have to do it and you’re penalized when you’re wrong, you get pretty good at it. We’re usually within 10 pounds.” He added, “The control on the Canadian side is absolutely there.”

Each year since 2003 the number of fishermen participating in the Gray Zone fishery has increased. Drouin doesn’t know how many Americans fish the Gray Zone. He thinks about 20 come from Cutler, plus a few others from other downeast ports, but he feels there are fewer Maine than Canadian fishermen.

According to the Canadian DFO, the highest number of Canadians fishing the Gray Zone to date is 41. Originally, Drouin noted, not all Canadians wanted to fish in the summer.

Guptill is one who still feels that way, and then some. “Let’s make this an international marine park and nobody fish it,” he proposed. “Both countries have a mandate to create marine parks.” He noted that catches the last few years have been phenomenal and that for the last couple of years, lobsters have been all over the Gray Zone, rather than just one area, as they migrate in and out. He thinks fishermen can fish the edges of the zone and catch those migrating lobsters.

But Drouin disagrees. “If the Gray Zone is closed to fishing,” he asked rhetorically, “where are we supposed to go? If we have 20 guys who are fishing whatever we’ve got for traps out there—let’s say it’s 10,000 traps, and if you push all those traps basically within the three-mile line of Cutler harbor, the only place we could fish would be those 3 ½ to 4 miles of Cutler. Where could we fish, off Jonesport? We can’t do that. There are people fishing there and off Cutler, too. We’re not the only people fishing from Cutler. There’s already gear there.

“Look on a chart where Grand Manan is and where Nova Scotia is,” Drouin said. “They have miles upon miles of water for their fishermen to fish. They have somewhere else to go, and we don’t.”