When the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) held a telephone conference last February, to discuss updated landings data for the 2012 shrimp season, they had bad news for harvesters, especially those who catch shrimp by means of traps, rather than trawls.
Their decision to close the season more than a month earlier than previously anticipated meant trap fishermen would not get a chance at their share of the annual harvest of Pandalus borealis, or Northern shrimp.
Even before that decision, Stephenie Pinkham had called on those who harvest shrimp with traps to form a steering committee to advocate for the interests of trappers. The result was the Maine Shrimp Trappers Association (MSTA).
Pinkham lives in the Georgetown Island community of Five Islands where her husband and father-in-law are fishermen and is the executive director of the new organization.
Maine Shrimp Trappers Association President Tim Simmons, of Nobleboro, is a third-generation fisherman.
He said the 21 members of the fledgeling group seek to represent the interests of the 125-vessel trapping fleet and work collaboratively with the 156 trawl fishermen who harvest shrimp by a method that is popularly known as dragging.
“Dragging is more efficient,” Simmons said. “We’re not trying to pit ourselves against the trawlers.”
He said trapping has a lower carbon footprint and a generally less harmful impact on the environment than does trawl harvesting and that MSTA was formed to help create new rules for the coming season to ensure trappers access to the fishery.
On June 6 at the Rockland office of the Dept. of Marine Resources, trawl fishermen from Tenants Harbor, Sorrento, Stonington and other Maine harbors joined trap fishermen from ports that included Tenants Harbor, Bristol, South Bristol, Boothbay Harbor, and New Harbor at a meeting that also included Carla Guenther and another staffer from the Penobscot East Resource Center.
“We definitely are all on common ground,” Simmons said. “They’re having the same issues we are in the upcoming 2013 season and into the future.”
He said ASMFC was concerned with providing adequate conservation measures to ensure a sustainable fishery and that MSTA wanted to be part of the process by working on motions that might help make the 2012 changes fairer for everyone.
“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.
In 2012 the delayed start and lower catch limit put trawlers in a position to harvest the entire TAC before trappers got into the game.
Simmons said he and other shrimp trappers want the hearing process to begin at the end of August, to allow fishermen time to make any gear changes that might be called for.
“Our goal is to make sure we have a 2013 season,” Pinkham said. “We would like to see public hearings happen before fall.”
Like more than 80 percent of shrimpers, Simmons generally fishes for lobster in the warmer months and changes out some of his line and other gear when he shifts to the winter fishery.
“Come November, they’re going to tell us what the TAC (total allowable catch) is,” he said. “We already know it’s going to be small.”
In addition to a new TAC, Pinkham said MSTA expects changes in monitoring regimes, season start and end dates and the hours they will be allowed to fish.
