F R O M   T H E   C R O W E ’ S   N E S T

Its Impacts Is An Unknown



Restating the obvious, there is more uncertainty affecting coastal Maine fisheries today than at anytime in the last 25 years. Maybe the last 50 years. A once-diverse range of fisheries has narrowed to primarily lobster. Declining groundfish stocks has led to increased entry pressure on the lobster fishery. The historically secure economic, social and cultural foundation that lobster fishing has provided in coastal Maine seems threatened by both knowns and unknowns. Other seasonal small-boat fisheries have been strained or marginalized.

Federal regulators and scientists continue their 45-year effort to square the industrial economic model for harvesting groundfish with the biological, habitat and reproductive reality for marine fish. Recently, they have had to enter “yeah buts” and “what ifs” into the mathematical calculations and computer models they rely on to make stock assessments, in an effort to accommodate the wild card that is global ocean warming.

The 231-year-old unsettled section of boundary between the U.S. and Canada off Machias has become front-page news. International politics may be why the boundary has remained unsettled. But the issue driving this boundary dispute into the news is lobster, not international politics. The issue driving large numbers of lobster and lobster fishermen from the U.S. and Canada into the cold waters of the 277-square-mile gray zone is global warming.

NOAA plans to soon greatly expand aquaculture operations, finfish and others, in U.S. coastal waters, basing the move on plans that were developed over several decades. These aquaculture plans will put more spatial pressure on existing fishery stakeholders. But, and perhaps more importantly, aquaculture will face the unknown effects that high ocean temperatures and elevated ocean acidity will have on aquaculture outcomes.

In light of the many other changes the Maine lobster industry is facing, Maine Lobstermen’s Association President Kristan Porter, speaking in Augusta on February 5 to legislators and stakeholders, said of the proposal to allow more individuals on the entry waiting list into the lobster fishery, “The MLA hears all the testimony brought forward today, but it’s based on the industry that we have, not the one that we could have.”

Porter referred to whale regulations regarding reduced trap lines and herring bait shortages. But his comments illustrate the impact that the unknown can have on planning. Global warming is a known.

The extent of its impacts is an unknown.