July 28, 2022 — Fishing regulators will gather in Virginia next week to talk about the potential of raising the minimum size lobsters need to be in order to be harvested by New England fishermen.
The Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission’s lobster management board is meeting on Tuesday to discuss the implications of a proposal that would install new minimum size limits and other regulations for the crustaceans, either gradually over time or triggered by lobster populations dipping below a certain level.
The proposal was drafted to protect the lobster population as surveys show indications of potential future decline. The idea has rankled many Maine lobstermen, who claim the Pine Tree State often bears the hardest brunt of any new regulations, despite having some of the strictest rules in place already.
Maine lobstermen currently have the lowest maximum size limits in New England. They can only keep a lobster if the distance between its eyes and the start of the tail is at least 3 ¼ inches but no longer than 5 inches. This is done to protect future populations and the most productive breeders.
Other areas of New England have different size limits and could undergo area specific changes under the proposal.
For Maine, one option being considered by regulators is increasing the minimum size by 1/16 of an inch if the abundance of lobster drops by 17 percent, and then again at 32 percent. Another would raise the minimum size gradually between 2023 and 2025.
Analysis done by the commission projected that raising the legal size minimum could increase the number of lobsters that reached maturity, allowing for more resilient populations.