Saving Seafood

MAINE: Catching Jonah – Could an overlooked crab break Maine’s lobster dependence?

October 20, 2015 — Tina Gray of Deer Isle recalls when picking and selling crabmeat was a prevalent cottage industry along the Maine coast. She and other lobstermen’s wives routinely picked and packaged crab meat at their kitchen sinks, she said, but many got out of the trade years ago when new federal rules for seafood processing went into place.

Gray, who’s going on 33 years picking crab meat for a living, remains one of just a few in her area who keep up with the work. She bills herself as “ The Crab Lady.”

“I remember back when I started, there was like 300 people on this island that used to pick [crabmeat] in their homes,” Gray said, picking crab while standing at a work table in a small processing building outside her house. “Now I think there’s a total of maybe eight [processing] licenses on Deer Island and Stonington.”

Crabs, once a more prominent staple among the various marine fisheries in Maine, have always played second fiddle to lobster in the state’s clawed crustacean seafood industry. But the market divide between Maine lobster and crab has grown more acute over the past dozen years. The volume of Maine’s lobster catch has soared to all-time highs while landings for all crab species have declined to their lowest point since the early 1980s.

That trend stands in sharp contrast to southern New England, where lobster catches have dropped off considerably, but harvests for one type of crab — the large-clawed Jonah crab — have more than quintupled since the 1990s.

The disparity raises questions: Could crab landings rebound in Maine? If so, can they climb back up enough to help offset Maine fishermen’s overwhelming dependence on lobster, which scientists and other officials say could have disastrous consequences if the fishery goes bust?

Lobstermen mainly catch crab as a byproduct, hauling them up in their traps as incidental income. Maine does not issue separate licenses for crab and lobster, with the exception of the recently approved green crab license.

Read the full story at Bangor Daily News

American Lobster and Jonah Crab Reports Now Available

August 21, 2015 — The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has released the final versions of the 2015 American Lobster Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Report and Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Jonah Crab. Both documents can be found on the Commission website at www.asmfc.org on the American Lobster webpage. Direct links to the documents follow:
 
2015 American Lobster Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review Report  – Please note this is a low resolution version; a high resolution copy of the report can be obtained at https://asmfc.egnyte.com/dl/kJfBicPSNR.
 
 

ASMFC Approves Jonah Crab Interstate Fishery Management Plan

August 6, 2015 — The following was released by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC):

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has approved the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Jonah Crab. The FMP implements a suite of measures to manage and monitor the Jonah crab resource for the first time along the U.S. Atlantic coast. The Plan limits participation in the trap fishery to only those vessels and permit holders that already hold an American lobster permit or can prove prior participation in the crab fishery. All others harvesters using non-trap gear must obtain an incidental permit. It also establishes a 4.75” coastwide minimum size and requires the landing of whole crabs except for individuals from New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia who can prove a history of claw landings before the control date of June 2, 2015.

The FMP seeks to cap effort and protect spawning stock biomass in the absence of a range-wide stock assessment.  The Plan was initiated in response to concern about increasing targeted fishing pressure for Jonah crab, which has long been considered a bycatch in the American lobster fishery. Since the early 2000s, growing market demand has increased reported landings by more than six-fold. The vast majority of Jonah crab are harvested by lobstermen using lobster traps.  With the increase in demand for crab, a mixed crustacean fishery has emerged that can target both lobster or crab or both at different times of year based on modifications to the gear and small shifts in the areas in which traps are fished. The mixed nature of the fishery makes it difficult to manage a Jonah crab fishery completely separate from the American lobster fishery without impacting the number of vertical lines and traps in state and federal waters. Furthermore, a lack of universal permitting and reporting requirements makes it difficult to characterize catch and effort to the full extent in order to manage the fishery. In federal waters, the crab resource is not directly regulated but rather is regulated incidentally by the American lobster regulations. Therefore, in the absence of a comprehensive management plan and range-wide stock assessment, increased harvest of Jonah crab may compromise the sustainability of the resource.

The FMP establishes commercial, recreational, and fishery-dependent monitoring measures for the Jonah crab fishery. In addition to the issues of minimum size, permitting, and crab part retention addressed above, the Plan also establishes a non-trap incidental bycatch limit of 200 crabs per calendar day, 500 crabs per trip extending longer than one calendar day and prohibits the retention of egg-bearing females. For fishery-dependent sampling, the plan requires 100% harvester reporting and 100% dealer reporting with port and sea sampling. Jurisdictions that currently require less than 100% harvester reporter are required to, at a minimum, maintain their current programs and extend them to Jonah crab. In the recreational sector, the FMP establishes a possession limit of 50 whole crabs per person per day. Finally, the FMP specifies that states whose commercial landings are less than 1% of the three-year coastwide average may qualify for de minimis status. De minimis states are not required to implement fishery-independent or port/sea sampling.

Since the fishery primarily occurs within federal waters, the Board has recommended that NOAA Fisheries implement the provisions of the Jonah Crab FMP in federal waters, pursuant to the NOAA’s authority under the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act.  The New England Fishery Management Council, which will meet in the fall to set its management planning activities for 2016, will consider whether the development of a Council Jonah Crab FMP will be one of its priorities. Regardless of its decision, the Commission and its federal partners will continue to work closely on Jonah crab management.

The FMP, which will be implemented by June 1, 2016, will be available by the end of August via the Commission’s website, www.asmfc.org, on the American Lobster page under Fishery Management Plans. Upon recommending the FMP’s final approval by the Interstate Fisheries Management Program Policy Board, the American Lobster Management Board agreed to move forward on the development an addendum to identify management measures for crab-only trap fishermen (e.g., trap and landing limits). The Board will discuss the specific measures to be included in the addendum at its next meeting. For more information, please contact Megan Ware, FMP Coordinator, at mware@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.