April 10, 1973
Page 11543
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with my colleagues today in introducing the Lobster Conservation and Control Act of 1973. This bill will provide for effective control of lobster fisheries on the Continental Shelf of the United States by amending existent legislation to make the lobster a creature of the shelf. Under present Federal law, foreign vessels are prohibited from harvesting Continental Shelf fishery resources except in conformity with conditions prescribed by the United States or as expressly provided by an international agreement to which the United States is a party.
The legislation is badly needed and long overdue. In recent years, foreign fishing fleets – particularly Russian, Japanese and Polish – have been lobster catching with relative abandon off the U.S. coast. In my own State of Maine, in the last 11 years, the lobster yield has dropped by more than 30 percent while the number of lobstermen has increased by more than 25 percent. It is not that the lobster is becoming more intelligent. It is that there is too much lobster catching off the Maine coast, particularly by foreign fishermen.
This legislation will help remedy this situation. At the same time, making the lobster a creature of the Continental Shelf will not prejudice the conclusion of a comprehensive international fishing agreement. Indeed, the passage of this legislation by the Congress should stimulate serious negotiation.
At this time, I ask unanimous consent that a recent article from the Bath-Brunswick Times Record on our declining lobster supply be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the Bath-Brunswick (Maine) Times Record, Jan. 25, 1973 ]
LOBSTER SUPPLY DROPPING, BUT WHAT'S TO BE DONE
(By Vern Warren)
Lobster, for years the most important Maine seafood in terms of dollars as well as taste, is getting scarce. Decline of the lobster population off the Maine coast has reached a point where officials and lobstermen alike are saying something has to be done about the problem. The question is, what can be done?
It is often a difficult thing to get Maine coast lobster-catchers to agree on anything – even if they are the best of friends. But they are beginning to be concerned about the decline in the lobster population and most will agree the lobster industry is having problems.
"There just aren't as many as there used to be," said Robert Green of Bailey's Island in a recent interview. "There's no question about it."
Green says he has been lobstering for 20 years. After his return from military service about 1955, he set a string of about 120 traps and in the next few years increased his gear until he was running about double that number.
"Back then, 250 traps was a respectable gang of gear," he recalls.
Now Green is working "about 600 traps." He says he has to have that many out to make a living.
Maybe Green is lucky. There are lobstermen around Casco Bay who have 2,000 traps and claim they need that many to earn a living.
Green says that many traps was unheard of just a few years ago. In the late 1950s, he said, there were a few "highliners" who started working with 800 or so traps. "We thought that was terrible at the time – still do – but look at them now."
Despite a tremendous increase in the price of lobster over the past few years, lobster catchers have had to increase the number of traps they tend in order to make a living.
Green is at the point now where he says, "there has to be something done – no question about that. If something isn't done the industry is in real serious trouble."
Lobster-catchers talk in terms of their ability to earn a living from the sea. Biologists and researchers talk in terms of statistics, but the conclusion is the same: the lobster is getting scarcer.
Figures provided by Robert Dow of Maine's Department of Sea and Shore Fisheries indicate a decline in the available lobster population over the past few years.
In 1962 there were 22 million pounds of lobster landed in Maine. In 1963 the figure was 23 million; in 1964, 21 million; in 1965, 19 million; 1966, 20 million; 1967, 16 million: 1968, 21 million; 1969, 20 million; 1970, 18 million; and 1971, 18 million.
All the figures aren't in yet, but Dow, head of research for the department, says the catch will total no more than 15.2 million pounds.
The decline from yields of over 20 million pounds during the 1960s to a projected 15.2 million this year is dramatic in itself, but added to the increase in effort expended to catch lobster of the same period, the statistics become alarming.
In 1962, there were 5,658 licensed lobster catchers on the Maine coast. Dow says they were using a total of 767,000 lobster traps at the time.
In 1972, there were 7,117 licensed lobstermen using 1,247,000, Dow said.
In other words, in 11 years, the lobster yield dropped by 31 per cent while the number of lobstermen increased by 25.8 per cent and the number of traps used increased by 62 per cent.
Despite a tremendous increase in efforts to catch lobster, the yield declined by nearly one-third.
Dow says that is not because the lobster is getting smarter.
"It is a typical overfishing situation," he said, "The curve could be used to illustrate a textbook."
With state officials, biologists, other researchers, and lobstermen agreeing something has to be done, it would seem a solution could be found. That may not be easy, however.
After talking with four lobster-catchers on Bailey's Island for a couple hours recently, this reporter was asked, "See how we are? You can't get even one of us to agree to anything even for a little while – and we're all friends."
The four, Green, Carl Johnson, Carl Clark and Martin Wyman, are all veteran lobster catchers. As Green put it, "These boys cut their teeth on a bait box."
They all said catching lobster is getting more difficult because the crustacean is getting scarcer. All four agreed: "Somebody has to do something." But all four also agreed there is wide disagreement about what should be done.
A legislative study committee headed by GOP Senate Majority Leader Richard N. Berry of Cape Elizabeth recently made recommendations for limits on the number of traps a man can set, restrictions on the number of licenses to be issued, and local zone management of the lobster industry under the direction of the Department of Sea and Shore Fisheries.
If the few lobstermen contacted recently are any indication, a majority of them would at least accept some kind of trap limit and some would welcome the idea – up to a point.
Their main concern is how any trap limit would be imposed. As Green put it, "You'd have to limit licenses at the same time. Otherwise, two men with licenses could work the same boat and have twice as many traps. If licenses aren't controlled, you'd all of a sudden see twice as many licenses issued."
But there are reservations about a freeze on licenses. "How about the young fellows coming up?" Johnson said. "You have to give them a chance, too."
The study committee recommends setting a 600-trap limit the end of this year; a 450-trap limit the end of next year; and a 300-trap limit at the end of 1975.
Green had reservations about that. "A 600-trap limit is reasonable but cutting it in half after two years – I don't know about that. That's a pretty hard thing to swallow."
Green and others are quick to point out there are many who will oppose any trap limit. "How about those working 1,200 or 2,000 traps?" Green asks. "They have all that gear and want to work it. You can't really blame a man for going after all he can get."
Green said there may be some men working 1,200 traps or more who "really know how to fish."
"You take Charlie Johnson. He's one of the few men in my own mind that can really work that amount of gear. He does it. Take most of them though, they have to run that much gear just because they don't know how to fish with less.
"I think the real bonafide fishermen are the ones who fish a few traps and really fish them well," he said. "But of course you know that's just my idea of it. Everybody has their own ideas."
What it amounts to, Green said, is "You can't please everybody. Whatever is done, somebody will be hurt and they'll say everyone else is being selfish."
The local zone management control idea is a big question to the lobster-catchers. Several asked this reporter what the proposal is all about and indicated they would have to know more about it before commenting one way or another.
Several lobstermen came up with suggestions they said could help the industry.
Green suggested eliminating "part timers." He said, "The part timers are killing us," and said licenses should go only to those who earn a living from the sea.
One man, who asked his name not be used, said the state should begin a program to increase the number of lobsters through aquaculture. "Then all of us could work however many traps we want to," he said. Millions of lobsters are born each year but most are eaten by predators or die from other causes, he said. The state, he reasoned, could help the industry by starting programs to get more young lobsters which would in turn make more mature lobsters available.
One suggestion by some researchers meets with considerable resistance from lobstermen.
Some researchers say if the minimum legal carapace length of lobsters is increased from three and three-sixteenths to three and one-half inches, the change would produce a sizable increase in the lobster population. Carapace length is what determines whether a lobster is a legal or not.
Reason for the idea is sexual maturity in lobsters is not reached until almost the legal minimum. That means very few lobsters reproduce before being caught, according to researchers. In fact, Dow says lobstermen are now catching 90 to 92 per cent of the lobsters reaching the minimum legal size.
Increasing the minimum size would result in more lobsters reproducing before they are caught, the researchers say, and the lobster population would increase.
Most lobstermen contacted oppose the idea Green explained it this way. "People want pound or pound and a quarter lobsters. At $2 a pound, bigger lobsters are priced right out of sight. Folks just can't afford them."
And, he says, the minimum size still allows plenty of reproduction. "I've thrown back as much as 200 pounds of lobsters in one day because they were punched. That's just in one day. They were punched for a reason. They were punched because they are seeders."
While lobstermen disagree about what should be done, more and more recognize someone has to do something soon.
As William Ganske Sr. of Cundy's Harbor put it, "I think you'll find out most every lobsterman on the Maine Coast knows something has to be done. It's just that no one can agree on anything. Those that don't know it now will soon realize soon enough."
Ganske, a lobster-catcher in the area for 27 years, says he has been here such a short time "most people still call me an outsider." But he says he has seen the increasing problems in the industry and is "quite concerned about it."
"If the state doesn't do anything soon the feds will," he said, "and that will mean it will be all over for the little guy. The feds will favor big operations and that's the way it will be. I know they say it can't happen, but it will.
"It will either come to the point where it will be all big lobstermen or there will be a limit and everyone will have an equal chance," he said.
Ganske says failing health in the past year has forced him to put his gear up for sale. "But I can still growl about the problem, can't I?" he said.
Despite the declined lobster population and increasing problems in catching them, lobstermen have continued to make money because prices have gone up so much. It is a kind of vicious circle, some point out.
More people want more lobsters and are willing to pay for them. As the price rises, more people put more effort into lobstering. As the effort increases the lobster population decreases and prices go up more. As Dow points out, even though the annual catch is decreasing, total value is increasing.
Even with a substantial drop in the catch this year, the industry was still worth well over $20 million.
More and more lobstermen are saying "it has to stop somewhere."
Martin Wyman, asked what solution he could suggest, said jokingly, "It's simple really. The state should issue just one license – to me."