So you want to know: Why does the ASMFC manage lobsters?

First published in the MLA Newsletter, February, 2012.

It’s a mite confusing: who actually controls Maine’s lobster stocks? The state of Maine owns its submerged lands out to three miles, sure, but Homarus americanus doesn’t know that. Our valuable crustacean will wander where he wishes, out into federal waters, south into New Hampshire or Massachusetts, even migrating into Canadian waters. Lobsters don’t stay put; hence they are considered an interstate marine resource.

For many years, the management of American lobster fell to the New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC). The council controlled the harvest of nearly all the commercially-valuable species found in the Gulf of Maine and southern New England:  cod, haddock, flounder, skate, scallops, squid, you name it.

But then in the early 1990s, lobstermen began to feel uncomfortable under the council’s management mandates. “We felt strongly we were in the wrong arena,” recalled Pat White, who served as the Maine Lobstermen’s Association executive director at the time. According to White, the NEFMC process was heavily influenced by National Marine Fisheries Service and by the interests of groundfishermen, most of whom operated in federal waters.

White and other lobstermen petitioned for lobster management to move to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC). The commission was created by the fifteen Atlantic states back in 1942 to jointly manage marine species that move across state borders. The commission drafts management plans for those species that are shared and then the states themselves implement the plan through state law.

"The ASMFC dealt with species in state waters,” White explained. “Eighty percent of Maine lobstering takes place in state waters.” Through persistent lobbying by lobstermen throughout New England and pressure from the Maine Congressional delegation, management for American lobster finally moved from the council to the ASMFC.

“The ASMFC’s American Lobster Management Board approved Amendment 3 to the Lobster Fishery Management Plan in December 1997,” explained Toni Kerns, senior fisheries management plan coordinator at the commission. “With this amendment, the states took the lead role for management of the lobster fishery from the New England Fishery Management Council.” The plan establishes seven distinct regional areas, known as Lobster Conservation Management Areas, each with its own Lobster Conservation Management Team (LCMT). Each area must achieve the plan’s overall management objectives, but can do so in different ways. For example, Area 3, which encompasses coastal Maine waters, requires a V-notch on egged females. The outer Cape Cod area, by contrast, does not require a V-notch.

“One of the reasons ASMFC took over as the lead management authority is because the majority of the fishery occurs in state waters, within three miles of the coast,” Kerns noted. She added that regulations complementing the ASFMC management plan are in place in federal waters under the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act.

“It think [the switch to ASMFC] has been absolutely beneficial for Maine lobstermen,” White said. “It’s a much more amiable process because we have the LCMTs and other advisory entities. It gives everyone a chance to speak.” White served since 1994 as one of the state’s three representatives to the commission, stepping down just this year.