Read Part I of this two-article series

Throughout most of the past twenty years, the Southern New England lobster stock steadily declined, and eventually collapsed, while fishery managers failed to take any meaningful action to address the problem. Yet, even as southern New England lobster abundance fell to new lows, Gulf of Maine lobster were becoming more abundant. The 2009 benchmark stock assessment found Gulf of Maine lobster abundance “at a record high,” and reported that landings had increased from 19,200 metric tons (mt) in 1990 to 37,300 mt by 2006. The 2015 benchmark assessment revealed that landings had since soared to new highs, peaking at 64,000 mt in 2013, and averaging 51,000 mt per year between 2008 and 2013. Gulf of Maine landings rose even higher, to 68,456 mt, in 2018; average annual landings rose as well, to 63,016 mt for the years 2014 through 2019.

But fisheries managers were beginning to notice some signs suggesting that all was not well.

A Technical Committee report issued in 2015 noted that while the abundance of adult Gulf of Maine lobsters was very high, there had been a decline in the number of older lobster larvae, as well as in the number of young-of-the-year lobster settling to the ocean bottom. The report advised that, should the Management Board become concerned about a possible decline in recruitment and wish to take some sort of action, “simulation calculations suggest that increasing the minimum carapace length has the potential to produce similar total landings by weight, with a smaller number of lobsters but at larger sizes. However, because lobsters would survive longer before capture, such changes in [minimum carapace length] could result in a significant increase in the numbers of mature lobsters and [spawning stock biomass], potentially adding resilience to the lobster population.”

The issue of increasing the minimum carapace length—effectively, increasing the minimum size—for Gulf of Maine lobster has been debated ever since.

To Head Off Stock Collapse

The Management Board got off to a good start, empaneling a Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank Lobster Subcommittee (Subcommittee) that, in 2017, produced a report that, among other things, urged that managers heed the lessons learned from the collapse of the Southern New England stock. Among those lessons was the warning to “Be proactive: Given the rapid decline in the [Southern New England] stock as well as the time needed to develop, comment on, and implement regulatory changes, initiating actions after landings have started to decline will be too late.”

A subsequent Subcommittee report advised that, as part of such proactive measures, “triggers be developed which require management action [in response to declining recruitment while adult lobsters are still] at a higher abundance. The nature of such triggers…as well as the management response…still needs to be developed; however, the Subcommittee recommends Board members initiate conversations with industry early in the…process to field potential goals and gain consensus…”

In accordance with that recommendation, at the Management Board’s August meeting, Patrick Keliher, a Maine fisheries manager, moved to “initiate an addendum to consider standardized management measures in the Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank stock. This addendum is intended to be a proactive management response to increase the resiliency of the stock.” His motion was seconded by New Hampshire’s Governor’s Appointee, Richie White, and was adopted by unanimous consent.

With the motion approved, David Borden, the Management Board Chair and Rhode Island’s Governor’s Appointee, observed that, “from a southern New England perspective, there are scary parallels that are going on” between the collapse of the Southern New England stock and what was beginning to occur in the Gulf of Maine. The members of the Management Board clearly understood the potential threat arising off the northern New England coast.

ASMFC staff began to develop the proactive management measures, which would become Addendum XXXII to Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (Addendum XXVII) for Atlantic Lobster, in early 2018, although development stalled as other issues were given higher priority by the Management Board.

But at the Management Board’s October 2020 meeting, Mr. Borden warned against delaying too long: “I would just simply note, state the obvious, that if we start an addendum today and it takes us two or three years to finish that addendum, which it usually does. Then we adopt it, and then it takes another two or three years for NOAA to do about federal waters. It’s a long period of time. If you factor in the point I made about southern New England, I think there is some urgency here to deal with some of the issues that the Board attempted to deal with before.”

Such warning was heeded at the February 2021 Management Board meeting. Mr. Keliher chose to “Move to re-initiate the [Plan Development Team] and Technical Committee work on the Gulf of Maine resiliency addendum. The addendum should focus on a trigger mechanism such that, upon reaching of the trigger, measures would be automatically implemented to improve the biological resiliency of the Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank stock.” Cheri Patterson, the New Hampshire fisheries manager, seconded the motion.

In support of his motion, Mr. Keliher argued that

Mr. White expressed his support for the motion, but also issued a caution:

Mr. White’s comments would prove to be prophetic.

The motion passed by unanimous consent.

Nearly a full year later, at the January 2022 Management Board meeting, the first complete draft of Addendum XXVII was presented and approved, but it was never released for public comment, as the Management Board instead chose to reconsider the document’s management options and their possible financial impact on lobster fishermen. One year later, at the Management Board’s January 2023 meeting, a modified Addendum XXVII was finally approved and released for public comment.

A Short-Term Perspective

As might be expected, the comments were overwhelmingly negative, with fishermen happy with their current landings, and unconcerned about what the future might bring if no management action was taken. While some saw a benefit in standardizing management measures across the various lobster conservation and management areas—of the 119 oral and written comments received on the topic, 46 (39%) supported at least some degree of standardization—proposals to adopt any sort of proactive management measure, that might prevent the sort of stock collapse that occurred in southern New England, were extremely unpopular, finding support in only 18 (14.5%) of the 124 comments addressing the issue, while 106 (85.5%) opposed any and all measures that might halt such collapse before it began, but might also reduce fishermen’s short-term incomes.

Those who opposed proactive management sounded a few common themes. Many feared that increasing the minimum size would put them at a competitive disadvantage, as smaller Canadian lobsters would continue to be shipped into the United States. Others argued solely from an economic standpoint, saying that they made a substantial investment in their permits, and pay high prices for fuel and bait, and so should not be expected to take a cut in their lobster-derived income.

Some fishermen didn’t believe the survey data. Some accepted the data, but argued that any trigger should be based on a longer, 10-year time series, rather than just the three years that Addendum XXVII would use.

There were fishermen who claimed that they were not observing any decline in lobster numbers, while others argued that if there was a decline, it was just part of a “natural cycle.” As one Massachusetts lobsterman noted, “my observations have seen periods of plenty and then periods of not so plenty. Cycles have come and go without regulations…Cycles in this fishery occur, Mother Nature sees to it.”

Many fishermen thought that managers would do better focusing their attention on the threat that wind turbines allegedly posed, with one Maine lobsterman saying, “I am really worried about the wind mills in the future and that will affect where everyone will fish. And there will be an impact on the lobsters from the sonic boom. Lobsters are very reactive to waves and noise in the water and if we blind the antennas, what will happen? We had the earthquake, the lobsters disappeared for a bit. It is going to be the same with the windmills.”

Yet, despite such comments, most Management Board members understood the need to act to avert a crisis, rather than merely responding to a crisis that has already occurred. They agreed that management action, in the form of an increased minimum size and, eventually, requiring larger escape vents in lobster traps, must be taken if data from standardized surveys indicated that the abundance of recruits (defined as lobsters with a carapace length measuring between 71 and 80 millimeters) fell by more than 35% below the average for the years 2016-2018. The final version of Addendum XXVII was adopted at the May 2023 Management Board meeting.

An Unpleasant Surprise

At that point, no one thought that the management trigger would be tripped very soon, but on October 2, 2023, the Technical Committee notified the Management Board that, once 2022 survey data was considered, recruit abundance had fallen 39.1% below the 2016-2018 average. The number of young lobsters recruiting into the stock had fallen so quickly that the trigger had been tripped less than six months after Addendum XXVII’s adoption.

Talks with Canada were still going on, in the hope that the problem of smaller Canadian lobsters entering the United States market might be resolved, and there was a real question as to whether enough of the gauges needed to determine whether lobsters met the new minimum size would be available. To provide some breathing room, the Management Board, at its October 2023 meeting, decided to delay implementation of the new minimum size until January 1, 2025. However, those issues, and in particular the questions surrounding Canadian imports, dragged on, leading the Management Board to further delay implementation, until July 1, 2025.

Fishermen oppose any new rules

As 2025 began, the fishermen most affected by Addendum XXVII demanded that their states go out of compliance with its provisions. In New Hampshire, Governor Kelly Ayotte wrote a letter to the ASMFC, in which she defiantly declared that, rather than adopt the larger minimum size required by Addendum XXVII, the state would maintain its current regulations. To emphasize her refusal to comply with the addendum, she also posted an image to the social media site X which featured the image of a lobster along with the legend, “COME AND TAKE IT.”

In Maine, hostile lobstermen beset fisheries managers in a series of hearings. The harangues from the audience grew so severe that the usually unflappable Patrick Keliher, who then served as the state’s Commissioner of Marine Resources, threw an obscenity back at the crowd. But, in the end, the unruly fishermen got what they wanted, as Maine’s governor agreed to withdraw the proposed rules, and go out of compliance with Addendum XXVII.

The two states’ recalcitrance set up a showdown with the ASMFC, which has the legal authority to refer such noncompliant states to the United States’ Secretary of Commerce, who in turn may shut down the affected fishery in such states’ waters until they adopt the ASMFC-mandated management measures.

But that showdown never happened.

Instead, realizing that there was a very good chance that the incoming Secretary of Commerce would not shut down Maine’s and New Hampshire’s lobster fishery over what was admittedly a proactive, precautionary measure, the Management Board backed down, and voted to initiate a new addendum to rescind the size and vent requirements included in Addendum XXVII.

It was something that most members of the Management Board did not want to do.

Mr. Keliher noted that when he made the motion to initiate Addendum XXVII more than seven years before, the addendum was “intended to be the first of its kind, to provide proactive protection.” He added, “If I was right and the industry was wrong, there could be many lobster boats for sale in coming years.”

Despite his belief that Addendum XXVII was needed, he acknowledged that conforming regulations would not have made it through Maine’s rulemaking process due to the opposition of some industry members, who were “very vocal to the point that some were completely out of line.” Still, he maintained that “Rolling back resiliency measures is the wrong thing to do. Absolutely the wrong thing to do. The Maine lobster industry is focused on the short term…We were unable to convince the industry that now is the time to act.”

New Hampshire’s Management Board members were also unafraid to put the responsibility for Addendum XXVII’s demise on the shoulders of the fishermen and related businesses. Cheri Patterson, a state fishery manager, admitted that their state couldn’t move forward “due to pushback we have been getting from the lobster industry.” Dennis Abbot, New Hampshire’s Legislative Proxy, observed that “Before we can get anything out of the lobster industry that’s helpful, we really need from them a buy-in that there is a problem.” And Douglas Grout, the Governor’s Appointee, told the industry that it was time for them to make the next move, saying, “I challenge the lobster industry in the three states to come up with appropriate new measures that will put more lobster eggs in the water. The downturn in the Gulf of Maine lobster population has just begun.”

Dan McKiernan, the Massachusetts fishery manager, was equally blunt, saying, “I ask the fishing industry to stop the nonsense,” of baselessly criticizing the lobster science. He noted that the data underlying Addendum XXVII’s trigger was very accurate, and that lobster landings closely track survey indices.

When asked what might be acceptable to Maine’s lobster industry, Mr. Kelliher responded that “What they will accept is unknown right now…The Maine industry can’t expect to solve their problems on the backs of others…There is a very vocal group that is saying that we don’t need to do anything right now, and they are wrong. They are dead wrong. We need to do something that helps stabilize this. It will be a sad friggin’ day if we don’t do something.”

Yet, in the end, nothing was done. An addendum nearly eight years in the making will be undone. And unless something unexpected happens, Gulf of Maine lobster recruitment will continue to fall.

Perhaps the stock will collapse, as it did farther south. Perhaps it will not. That’s something that we can’t currently know.

But one thing is nearly certain.

Should the lessons provided by Southern New England lobster go unlearned, and a fishery now worth over $500,000,000 falls into ruin, the people who blocked implementation of Addendum XXVII and destroyed their own future will surely blame everyone—except themselves.

Top image by grfx4 from Pixabay

Read Part I of this two-article series