Results of Area 1 lobster fishery qualifications

First published in Landings, March, 2013.

In 2008, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission amended its management plan for lobster to include a limit on the number of federal lobster licenses allowed in Area 1 of the Gulf of Maine. According to Peter Burns, lobster specialist at the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) northeast office in Gloucester, the commission was concerned that lobstermen in other federal lobster management areas where the number of licenses had been capped or were in the process of being capped and had experienced declining landings would move into Area 1 and stress lobster populations there. The Area 1 Lobster Conservation Management Team and ASMFC Lobster Management Board wanted to cap the licenses at 2008 levels. Lobster industry representatives suggested that the licenses go to those lobstermen who had actively fished Area 1 between 2004 and 2008 rather than simply to those lobstermen fishing in 2008.

NMFS wrestled with the question of how to prove a lobsterman was actively fishing Area 1 during that period. Lobster harvests are categorized by the state in which the lobsters are landed, not by the specific place in which the traps are set, Burns explained. So landings history would not work. Instead, NMFS settled on trap tags. “All federal permit holders must at least have bought a tag,” he said. So NMFS set up three tests to determine who could receive a federal permit to lobster in Area 1: possession of a valid federal permit, proof of Area 1 designation on that permit for the 2008 fishing year, and proof of purchase of at least one trap tag between 2004 and 2008.

In June, 2012, NMFS informed all current Area 1 license holders that they would have to submit an application with the required information by November 1 in order to renew their license for 2013. Approximately 1,800 lobstermen held federal licenses for Area 1. Of those, 1,700 submitted the application on time, Burns said, and have been reviewed by the agency. Some 70 individuals are still under review, however.

Some of those are under review because they could not prove they had purchased a tag during the four year period. Others are there because their permit was not active in 2008. “You can put your permit on the shelf, so to speak,” Burns explained. “It’s called Confirmation of Permit History (CPH). If your permit was in dormant status in 2008, it can’t meet the test.”

NMFS has sent those lobstermen whose applications are still under review a final request for the required information. Burns anticipates that the review process will be completed by May 1. “Whenever you have a limited entry program there’s always some that don’t get in,” he added.

Kristan Porter of Cutler was one of those who “didn’t get in.” Porter had two quahog/lobster permits for Area 1. He purchased a new boat in 2005. One of his quahog/lobster permits could not be transferred to the new boat because of the vessel’s larger size. “So, instead of giving up my quahog permit, which I would have had to do because you can’t split permits, I put both permits into CPH and bought another lobster permit for the new vessel,” Porter explained.

Unfortunately, Porter found that the two permits in CPH were not counted by NMFS as active permits. “Apparently when you are in CPH you are in no man’s land and have no designation. I did not know this and assumed that if it went in to CPH as an area 1 permit it remained an area 1 permit. Mine was the only one that was taken that met the tag requirements but was in CPH in 2008. If I had put those permits on a skiff like many others did I would have been golden,” Porter noted. “I am advising everyone I know to get their permits out of CPH as fast as possible.”