Protecting Female Lobsters A Maine Tradition for Generations

By Patrice McCarron and Melissa Waterman

Maine lobstermen have recognized for generations that maintaining a healthy number of fertile female lobsters provides a good foundation for the long-term strength of the lobster stock. After all, less than 1% of lobster eggs will survive to become adults, so the more eggs that are released each year, the better the prospects for the future.

That’s why egg-bearing females have been protected in different ways for more than 100 years.

In 1872, the Maine Legislature passed its first law to protect egg-bearing female lobsters. Two years later the state established a minimum legal harvest size for lobsters. Then, in 1917, the state started its first marking program for female egg-bearing lobsters in order to bolster natural egg production. The Sea and Shore Fisheries Department bought female lobsters kept in pounds that had extruded eggs to stop the pound owners from scrubbing off the eggs and selling them. Wardens punched a hole in the center tail flipper and released them. Maine lobstermen were forbidden from harvesting those lobsters.

According to the Sea and Shore Fisheries, by the mid-1930s, the state of Maine was purchasing “60,000 pounds of seed lobster, from the fishermen through dealers, at market prices.”

The state’s lobster fishery experienced a bust in the 1920’s and 1930’s, when landings slumped for two decades. In 1933, Maine established the “double gauge” law, establishing a minimum and maximum carapace length to legally harvest lobster in an effort to rebuild the fishery.

During the 1930’s lobstermen became convinced that illegal harvesting was causing their low catches. Lobstermen felt that protecting reproductive females would augment the stock and support for lobster conservation measures grew steadily among lobstermen. During this time the practice of voluntarily V-notching began to spread. As landings slowly increased lobstermen were certain that V-notching benefitted themselves, the entire fishing community, and was a way to build up the fishery for future generations.

In 1948 the practice of punching a hole in a female lobster’s flipper changed to making a V-notch but remained in the center tail flipper. Later the location for the mark was changed to the right center tail flipper. The new law had widespread support from lobstermen. From that time on, the program became known as the V-notch program.

In the 1970’s, state and federal lobster scientists argued that V-notching and the oversize measure should be abolished. Many believed that V-notching was a source of infection and the oversize measure was doing little good because too few lobsters were reaching that size. Instead, scientists pushed to increase the minimum gauge size.

Under the leadership of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA), lobstermen aggressively fought to keep the V-notch and oversize measure as critical conservation measures, contending that an increase in the gauge size was not necessary.

By the 1980’s, thousands of Maine lobstermen were notching lobsters. A survey conducted by the MLA and the Lobster Institute found that more than 60% of egg-bearing females had been V-notched.

In 1995, when lobster management was moved to the Atlantic States Marne Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), V-notch protection was extended to all lobsters landed, from Maine to Cape Cod. ASMFC originally established the definition of a V-notch as a 1/4” notch. Today, it is illegal to land any lobster with a V-notch of 1/8” or larger anywhere in the U.S. fishery.

In 2002, with strong backing from the lobster industry, V-notching egg-bearing females along with a “zero tolerance” V-notch definition became mandatory as part of the ASMFC Lobster Management Plan for Lobster Management Area 1. The plan recognized the long-term conservation value of the practice.

The “zero tolerance” V-notch standard makes it illegal to land a female lobster if the center right flipper has any mark, no matter how small, or if the flipper has been mutilated.

This summer, the MLA and NEFSA are celebrating Maine’s long and proud history of V-notching which remains a cornerstone of Maine’s lobster conservation plan. Every lobster that is V-notched is an investment in the future of the fishery and a concrete assurance that the fishery will remain strong for generations to come.