Lobster Research Initiative Involves More Participating Fishermen and Gathers More Offshore Data

West Boothbay Harbor - With four years of funding totaling $1.6 million from the Research, Education and Development (RED) Fund, the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) is undertaking an expanded lobster research initiative designed to engage more fishermen in data gathering and provide more consistent data characterizing the lobster fishery from federal waters.

Funding will allow more fishermen to participate in DMR’s Sea Sampling Program, which will increase the number of sampling trips and target sampling in both federal and state waters.

This funding will also support a new pilot program, referred to as the Fishery Direct Data (FDD) program, that will allow fishermen to collect and share data from their commercial lobster catch and from ventless lobster traps they deploy in locations of their choosing in federal waters.

SEA SAMPLING PROGRAM

The DMR Lobster Sea Sampling Program is the largest at-sea sampling program for lobster in the northeast. The objective of the program is to characterize the commercial catch of Maine’s lobster fishery including the harvestable and discarded catch.  The program, which relies on the participation of industry members, places trained samplers onto commercial lobster boats to record biological data from the harvester’s catch, including carapace length, sex, cull status, v-notch condition, egg development stage, molt status, and presence of shell disease. Data from the Sea Sampling Program contribute directly to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) American lobster stock assessment.

Prior to the new expanded initiative there were at least 162 sea sampling trips scheduled each year, with three monthly trips in each of the state’s seven lobster management zones between May and November and one trip per month in each of the state’s three National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) statistical areas December through April.  The trips sampled both state and federal waters, wherever the commercial boats were fishing.

Under the expanded Sea Sampling Program, DMR samplers will conduct 241 sampling trips per year with participating harvesters. The new design will target four monthly trips per lobster management zone between May and November, with the goal of two trips in state waters and two in federal waters. Three sampling trips will be conducted per month in each statistical area from December through April.

"By expanding the Sea Sampling Program, we will be gathering additional data, including more consistent data from both state and federal waters in all zones, to inform a more robust and accurate assessment of Maine’s valuable lobster fishery,” said Kathleen Reardon, DMR’s Lobster Fishery Biologist.

FISHERY DIRECTED DATA (FDD) PROGRAM

The goal of the FDD program is to better understand the offshore juvenile lobster population through a new data collection effort using ventless traps in federal waters and to capture additional biological data from commercial traps of harvesters participating in the program.

DMR’s FDD program will provide participating fishermen with the small mesh ventless lobster traps used in the DMR’s Ventless Trap Survey. These traps do not have escape vents required on commercially fished traps, which allows for greater retention of small lobsters.

However, unlike the Ventless Trap Survey where fishermen deploy the traps at randomly selected sites within state waters, fishermen participating in the FDD program will fish ventless traps integrated within their existing commercial trawls in locations of their choice in federal waters.

“This pilot program responds to interest we have heard from fishermen in collecting data on juvenile lobsters observed in deeper and more offshore waters to evaluate potential data gaps in existing programs,” said Reardon. "It also allows us to provide another opportunity for fishermen to participate in the science, especially in areas that are logistically more challenging to take a sampler to collect the data, like outside of 12 nautical miles."

Participating fishermen will receive tablets purchased with the RED funds and use them to record biological data from lobsters from both the ventless traps and a subset of commercial traps on an app developed by the Rhode Island-based Commercial Fisheries Research Foundation (CFRF). CFRF is a non-profit established by commercial fishermen to conduct collaborative research and education projects that improve fishery sustainability. The app will link location and other trip data with biological data, providing valuable spatial information on commercial catch and juvenile lobsters. The FDD program will have 10 industry participants in 2025 with at least one participant from each zone, but DMR will be looking to expand the program next year.

“By expanding the Sea Sampling Program and providing additional opportunity through the FDD program, DMR is not only engaging more fishermen directly in gathering data to assess the lobster stock but also working to answer the lobster industry's questions about the offshore lobster population,” said Jesica Waller, Director of DMR’s Division of Biological Monitoring and Assessment. “We are excited to offer new opportunities to collaborate on the science to understand the lobster fishery and thank the RED board for their investment in this important work.”

The Lobster Research, Education and Development Fund is established in law to provide funds that come from the purchase of Maine lobster license plates, for research and education to support the development of Maine's lobster industry.