Lobster News Lines: Catching up to the 2009 Lobster Season
It’s been just about six (6) months since I last posted an article on kellys-stuff.com, which seems a heck of a time ago. Ideas have come and gone, the Moseley Report was published, a LAC/DMR Tiered Licensing system proposal was defeated by Zone Councils, trap wars came off with a bang and everyone held their breath as the price for shedders hovered around $2.50 plus bonuses. Nobody was making any money!
I sat on the sidelines at Maine Med and Miles Memorial trying to get an okay from the doctors to set-out. Wasn’t going to happen as June let go to July and August rolled into September. Never been sick a day in my life, but I’ll tell ya, after a couple of heart valve jobs, everything came to a screechin’ halt. What have I learned? First of all I concocted a new drink, The Mount Gay 40, including a couple/few shots of rum with a squirt of WD40 to keep heart things lubricated and moving. The other thing I learned, when a lobsterman gets sick, the most humane thing to do is to shoot him! If you can’t work, there’s damned little else to do! So right now I’m playing catch up, painting a few off shore buoys for friends, thinking about collecting Social Security early to get through the winter, and playing with the idea of taking a run down to the winter bottom to see if I still got it in me.
“So…what’s to catch-up on”? Running down the list, it seems the whole shape of the Lobster Industry is in some state of change. The Islanders are looking to establish their own “Conservation Zones”, State mandated boundaries, corralling their bottom to keep poaching trespassers from molesting their lobster. If Matinicus gets a go ahead nod from the State, Watch Out! Every Island from Kittery to Lubec will be looking for similar treatment. Eventually, we might even see Conservation Zones carved out on the Mainland territories, preventing the ongoing and costly cutting & sinking shenanigans.
Then there’s the Whale Rope. Jesus Good Gawd! What a fiasco! Between chafe, replacement cost, hang-downs and lost gear we seem to have been had again. Fishing the stuff on hard bottom is as risky as running without an oil pressure gauge. And you can count on replacing it every year, that is unless you want to haul a 60 fathom rope with as many knots. The great “float rope, multi million dollar buy back” program lulled us all into complacency, not fully realizing how expensive and detrimental the “stuff” would be on a yearly basis. The only guy making out is manufacturing poly rope doormats. That is, people across the northeast wiping the mud off their shoes and our faces.
And of course, we’ve seen the Tiered License system idea come and go…for the moment, voted down by Zone Councils. Don’t think for a minute that particular DMR effort is over! Trap reduction is still very much alive & well, as is the trap count down to 600. The Augusta bureaucrats took the rejection kinda hard, going as far as saying, “They (the Harvesters—That’s Us guys) don’t know what’s going on and often don’t want to hear it…The Councils are flawed and the DMR will come up with ideas for a new way to deal with challenging issues” (Herald Gazette: August 20, 2009). So much for the democratic process in the State of Maine! Don’t ya love it!
Oh Yeah! Can’t forget the Lobster Task Force’s “Strategic Plan for the Maine Lobster Industry” prepared by the Moseley Group for $108,000, give or take a thousand here and there. Seems the biggest problem before us are the “tensions existing between dealers and harvesters, as well as the rivalry between harvesters (that’s US again)”, which tends to “pull profitability out of the industry”. Sounds like we all should be swallowing a few Xanex every morning to take the tension out of going broke, then again, maybe a couple of Mount Gay 40’s are in order to stay well lubricated.
Anyhow, another highlight of the report suggests the formation of a marketing/research entity. You and I both know “entity” means more bureaucracy and more bureaucracy means more regulation. The kicker is, the $10 million funding is to be raised by increased license fees and a tax on lobster landed (5 – 10 cents per pound). Holy Jumpin’ Jesus! You know darned well who’s going to take that tax slam right on the nose. The dealers sure aren’t going to absorb the all of it! They might cut the State a check, but a 3rd grade education tells me a hefty percentage will be coming off our bottom line as a shared expense. Go figure!
There’s other stuff in the report like handling lobster gently so as not to stress them out (more Xanex), costing the industry $50 million in shrink (dead lobster); promoting product and storage innovation; improving communication between all parties, which will be more like a Conflict Resolution Workshop between the US Army and the Taliban; and finally managing & strengthening sustainability, a good thing we’ve all being doing for the past 80 years. We might as well take credit for it now!
Certainly, someone has to come up with a comprehensive marketing program, because most of the dealers sure haven’t done their job, ‘tho considering State intervention is a frightening alternative. All in all, the report has some good points and some bad, however, no one knows how to begin implementing Phase #1 and/or what Phase #1 is, because there is NO money. It’s going to be a long haul!
In other parts of the world, Canada has allocated a $65 million dollar economic package for the Maritimes, aimed at promoting product marketing and innovation for their lobster industry. Of that $65 million, $15 million will go directly to the fishermen facing financial hardship (just a drop in the hardship bucket). A license buyback program on PEI, meant to reduce some of the 400 licenses currently held in that area, met with criticism from the Captains because funding for the project, estimated at $56 million, would be assessed by way of a tax on lobster landed and collected from those who remained in the business. The crippling effect would be enormous upon kids trying to enter the business.
The Western Australia Cray fishermen are also taking it on the chin this year. Once considered the best managed fishery in the world and proud of it, they are now facing renegade scientific and political interference. In other words, the bureaucrats have control of the show, trying like hell to take profitability out of the industry because research doesn’t support their hard work and effort. Measure and vent sizes have been increased; there have been some area closings; and a 5.500 ton quota has been imposed along with decreased allowable days at sea (4-5 days depending upon catch). The Captains consider the increased restrictions to be a Fisheries Management effort to further reduce the Cray Fleet, thereby adhering to the scientific & mathematical models of regulation. Do I hear an echo here? To get a better handle on an industry’s demise at the hands of government bureaucrats go to www.crayzone.com.au. What they have to say will open your eyes!
That’s about the all of it for now. I’ll do my best to keep current in the future. Hold the curve.
Tags: crayzone, Lobster Task Force, Tiered License system, Whale Rope