October 19, 2023 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) Lobster Board passed Addendum 27 last May, which entailed implementing a gauge increase in response to juvenile lobsters reaching a 35 percent decline.
The gauge size increase was initiated in 2017 as a proactive measure to improve the resiliency of lobster stock in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank but was paused due to prioritized work on the North Atlantic right whales. In 2021, the addendum was revised to consider adding a trigger mechanism that measures gauge and vent size.
These proposed triggers were based on an observed abundance of lobsters with 71-80 millimeter carapace length. This would mean that the size of “keepers” for the state of Maine lobstermen would change significantly while bordering Canadian lobstermen still get to sell the previous size allowed.
On October 16, 2023, the Lobster Board was told that the combined index of sub-legal lobsters from surveys on trawl and ventless traps has declined by 39 percent, which was 4 percent more than the trigger established in the addendum.