April 1, 2014 — MOUNT DESERT, Maine — The state’s lobster industry needs to develop a road map for changes it likely will have to contend with in the not-too-distant future.
Patrick Keliher, commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, stressed that message Tuesday to a few dozen lobstermen and other people who attended an industry meeting at the local Neighborhood House.
The state of the resource — the lobster population in the Gulf of Maine — is good right now, he said, which is why it’s a good time to start talking about what should be done when it inevitably starts to decline.
The meeting held Tuesday, one of a dozen planned throughout the state from March 1 through April 7, is part of a dialogue with lobstermen that Keliher hopes will lead to a vision for the future for the fishery.
The state does not have a fishery management plan for lobster — or, Keliher said, for most of its fisheries. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission does, he added, but the commission would not take action until Maine’s annual harvest declines to 35 million pounds.
Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News