More than 30 shrimp trappers were in attendance at a meeting with Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher, Director of External Affairs Terry Stockwell and others in Wiscasset Feb. 1. At least two dealers were represented at the meeting that was held at the Lincoln County Communications Center.
“There’s not a whole lot of shrimp out there,” Keliher told the gathering, as he described preliminary landings data from the first week of the trawl fishery.
Bill Gerencer of the New England Fishery Management Council said Feb. 4 the Gulf of Maine was closed to shrimp fishermen before, “for a couple of years” in the mid-1980s.
“Who knows if it will come back,” he said. “The Gulf of Maine water temperature is higher that it has been, 73 this last summer sustained. We’ve never seen that before.”
At the Feb. 1 meeting in Wiscasset, fishermen said they were concerned data from the trawl fishery, which began Jan. 23, is not being processed quickly enough to allow DMR to respond with fair regulations for trap fishermen. The trap season was set to begin Feb. 3 and will continue until the total shrimp quota set by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is met.
Keliher told the group that approximately 30 percent of Maine’s 175 fish dealers had not reported shrimp landings after more than a week of fishing. He said some of those may not be buying shrimp. He also described the process that takes data reported on Tuesday six days to be useable for regulatory purposes, and said he does not have the staff resources to contact all of those dealers individually.
Maine Shrimp Trappers Association Executive Director Stephenie Pinkham said she is in daily contact with fishermen who have access to cell phones. She volunteered to gather daily reports on the trap fishery’s catch and pass those numbers on to DMR.
Keliher said that would be a good, informal way to help with daily decision-making about open and closed fishing days. He said there would be legislation offered in the current session to improve reporting.
Keliher asked fishermen to advise his office as to how they wanted this year’s shrimp season to proceed. He said he was not sure their product would attract the premium price trapped shrimp usually brings.
For 2013, trap fishermen are allowed to harvest 13 percent of the total of 625 metric tons allowed for both trap and trawl fishermen. That total allowable catch, or TAC, is a 72 percent reduction from last year. Keliher said the allowable catch is so low that trap fishermen could theoretically land their quota in less than two days of hauling, if they were able to harvest 1000 pounds a day.
Individuals may fish with either trap or trawl gear, but are restricted to only one gear type for all permits in any season. Each fishery will close when 85 percent of its total allowable catch, 540 metric tons, is projected to be reached, with a four-day allowance for fishermen to gather their harvest without resetting gear.
“This is the third year we’ve been shut out,” Wayne Delano of Friendship told the meeting. He and others urged Keliher to penalize those dealers who are not reporting landings.
Craig Sproul of Southport said that trapping has less of a negative impact on the future of the fishery as a whole because traps do not catch juveniles and egg-bearing females in the quantities that trawl fishing does.
In June 2012, DMR shrimp biologist and chairwoman of ASFMC’s Northern Shrimp Technical Committee Maggie Hunter said trawling season has traditionally started ahead of the trap season because Pandalus borealis, or Northern shrimp, are not accessible to traps until they come in shore to hatch their eggs.
“They don’t stick around much after that,” she said. “They go offshore again to molt.”
Northern shrimp are hermaphrodites that change sex, from male to female, during their life cycle. Females are generally larger than males, and therefore of greater interest to fishermen.
“Only females come in,” Hunter said. She said that, after shedding their eggs, the larger females go offshore and mix with the smaller males, making them a less attractive target for trawl fishermen.
“They are most easily and safely caught by our small boat fishery when they come inshore. That’s why the trawl fishery historically begins first.” Hunter said that by the end of March all the shrimp are far offshore.
“Why not just let us go from Day One?” Sproul asked Keliher. “Draggers will be cut off when they get their quota.”
In 2012 the delayed start and lower catch limit put trawlers in a position to harvest the entire TAC before the trap season began.
Stockwell, who is chairman of the shrimp section for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, said representatives from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, where there are few shrimp trappers, vote as a bloc when setting the quota for trapped shrimp.
On Feb. 5, Stockwell said recent seasons have seen emergency closures, just at the time when trappers are just beginning to get their best catch. Because of that, the shrimp section decided to give the trap fishery a fixed percentage of the TAC, based on historical data.
Most of the fishermen at the Feb. 1 meeting said they were considering staying on shore. They discussed a variety of options, including delaying the start of the season for a week.
Keliher said scientists’ recommendation, after conducting test trawls, was to have no shrimp fishery in 2013.
“When we’re counting shrimp in numbers, not pounds, it speaks to the problem we have,” he said.
Sen. Chris Johnson, D-Somerville, chairs the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee. He said fishermen need to harvest the shrimp that are available to them, if only to help gather the data that could help legislators understand the sustainable aspects of their methods.
“By the time we get traps set and consider the cost of setting them, whether we start now or a week from now is insignificant,” Sproul said. He said the set would take days to accomplish because of the weather. “We’re shackled anyhow.”
Fishermen said the price would suffer if the quota was reached in just a few days.
Keliher suggested fishermen “start slow” in order to bring a higher price for their harvest. He said DMR would continually review landings data with an eye to revising rules, possible on a weekly basis, in order to maximize the trap harvest.
“We can be fairly flexible, but don’t forget it tales a couple of days to get a notice out,” Keliher said. “It means for everybody to watch their emails.”
Later that day, DMR posted new information for the shrimp fishery.
For trawlers, Keliher eliminated the sunrise to 3 p.m., time-of-day restriction established for the first two weeks of the fishery, allowing them to fish 24-hours a day for the two days a week allowed.
“The commissioner will continue to closely monitor landings and issue notices of change to hours if needed,” the DMR website said.
Keliher also lowered the daily limit for shrimp trappers from 800 pounds per day established by ASMFC in December, to 500 pounds per day until further notice. Trappers are allowed to haul Monday through Saturday, 24-hours a day.
The Maine Shrimp Trappers Association’s Pinkham will gather shrimp trap landings daily to assist the DMR with quota monitoring. Trappers can voluntarily send landings information to her by calling or sending a text message to 837-1458 or by writing to pinkhams@live.com.
Dealers are still required to report to the DMR Landing Program by 5 p.m. each Tuesday.
For more information visit the website at maine.gov/dmr or contact DMR Policy Development Specialist Chris Vonderweidt at 624-6558.
