July 24, 2010 – Meeting in Rhode Island Thursday, the management board decided not to move forward with a lobster ban, at least not yet. This is the appropriate decision, given disputed scientific evidence. Stopping lobster harvesting for five years would decimate the tiny and dwindling lobster fishery in Connecticut.
There are only an estimated 20 full-time commercial lobstermen left in the state. Federal authorities should take such a dramatic action only as a last resort and after ruling out all other options as insufficient to address the problem.
Scientists estimate that a lobster population that reached 38 million in Long Island Sound in 1998 has dwindled to about 15 million. Using trawl surveys in April, researchers estimated the lobster population to be 14 million pounds in southern New England waters, the lowest since monitoring began in the early 1980s. Lobstermen, however, challenge these estimates, saying they do not appear to jibe with the catches they are finding in their traps.
While observers may disagree about the numbers, no one disputes that something has adversely affected the lobster population, and overfishing does not appear to be the culprit. Among the leading theories are that the lobsters are not responding well to rising water temperatures and that predators, such as striped bass, are exacting a higher toll.
Read the complete editorial from The Day.