FISHERYNATION.COM

These are 2 females. The black shelled female on the left did not shed this year for the first time skipping the yearly shed. It now has eggs. It was a pound and a half and does not have to shed every year anymore. That gives it the opportunity and time to carry the eggs under its tail for 9 to 12 months while they go through three different color changes before they hatch. The lobster plans for them to hatch in June – July for the abundance of plankton at the surface, where they drift and swim around for weeks, till they settle to the bottom.

The biologists keep a log on how many settlers they count every year and can take an educated guess on how many lobsters there will be 6 years down the road. They call it the settlement rate. Maine’s is looking good. Mass is hurting.

Mass has a hard time sustaining it’s population and one of the reasons may be because they have been depleting the prolific jumbos for decades. Basically selling trophy lobsters.

I talked with a fisherman in Mass who informed me some of the lobster zones have quit taking jumbos and after 7 years are seeing an improvement to their numbers.

Personally I sold Jumbos at my family’s shellfish store as a third generation operator. Back in the 70’s they were cheaper than the small ones by a large margin because they don’t taste as good. That changed as they became scarcer and they became trophy’s. A jumbo has 100,000 eggs. 10 x a small lobster. They can mate as hard shells and don’t shed very often.

Maine’s long standing ban on keeping jumbos appears to be the key to Maine’s success. Over the past 5 years Maine’s catch has increased at a faster pace than Canada’s, 56% to 32%. Canada has a seasonal fishery and they have always caught the jumbos, It may take 7 years to build up Canada’s and the Massachusetts jumbo population to a point that it sustains the population like Maine.

The lobsters in the picture are both females. The one on the right with no black on its claw is a 1¼ pounder that shed this Spring. What you see is mostly the meat that was in a ¾ lb. lobster Slightly soft and Sweet tasting. Some call them new shells. They are still sexually immature. We had bought 2 of the smaller females and not an egg in sight in either of them. The black claw female lobster that is 1 ½ pounds is a lobster you want to protect at least till mid July when the eggs berry out onto the tail making them illegal to catch and possibly notched for further protection during the nine to twelve months it carries the eggs under it’s tail.

In the meantime, there is a good way to increase total landings and be able to fish year round for the whole lobster fishery. Presently in Canada, the DFO has their fishermen making a mad dash in the spring, just before the molt, on these skip molts, black shell females, who are about to extrude their eggs in the following month after the molt in the late spring/early summer time frame. These are the ones that need protection. A ban on the black shell females would best be from April 1 to July 15. Basically no one is fishing Jan to March so there is no reason to penalize the few who dare fish mid winter. Chances are by adopting this easily visible, enforceable regulation you will be notching more berried females to insure further years of protection on the proven breeders.

Back to Thanksgiving. There is a huge problem that has turned into a mob of 200 sworn DFO adherents destroying an Indigenous persons freezer factory and chasing two of the workers into an accessory building threatening to burn it down throwing rocks through the windows. Burnt their truck up. Odds were 200 to 2. They were carrying signs that said a season for a reason in support for the Canadians divisive draconian fishing regulation that forces the lobster men out to fish from Nov to May. All under the illusion that it is the magic pill for sustaining the biggest population of bugs possible. They close the fishery in June just before the molt till Nov. Canceling the nicest weather of the year with tons of hungry shedders. That is when Maine and Mass are out slaying the hungry lobsters.

This is when the First Nation people used to fish. Lobsters go deep in winter. Obviously they were not out on the ocean in the middle of winter. They broke out of the DFO seasonal rules and are fishing during the better weather and higher catch, year round if they want.

The First Nations have publicly come out and said they want to improve the regulations on the present method for sustainability. From where I’m standing if the First Nations would adopt this regulation plus ban Jumbos as Maine has done they would have the most sustainable lobster fishery in the world and would be recognized by the eco conscious buyer, looking for an all natural fresh caught off the boat year round and sustainably managed lobster.

Canada is not protecting the reproductive potential with it’s seasonal rules. They force the lobstermen to throw the baby out with the bath water. Lobstermen who are trying to make a living for the whole year in two months are targeted on the most important lobster for reproduction. The DFO has the lobstermen slaying the black shell females in May and June before the molt then shuts the whole fishery down at great cost to the guys who must remove millions of traps and miss out on possibly millions of pounds of the sweetest hungry shedders filling out their bigger shells and filling out everyone’s pockets who are involved in the lobster industry which will bubble up profits in the communities they live in. whereby bringing new money into their small coastal communities.

This is how an industry decides when to fish. And it just so happens to be after the lobsters have shed mated and spawned. When to fish in Canada was figured by some pencil neck back in 1872 who did not realize how lobsters reproduce. Our landings in Maine have risen 56% compared to A Season for no Reason at 36%. Canada is harming not only their own stock but those would be drifting larvae may end up in Maine too.

Bernadette Jordan could solve this with the stroke of a pen. Pound her with the facts!! Stop this devisive seasonal fishery BS

It looks like the season for a bad reason is a reason to get rid of the season for a reason.

Jim O’Connell
Bar Harbor Maine
[email protected]

“Fishing without vertical lines is what is going to save this
species.“ says CT Harry of the IFAW who work hand in hand
with NOAA.
A ridiculous statement in view of the 18 cruise ship strikes in
the GSL in the past few years. Read the text, top right, Those
are 6 cruise ship strikes in the Gulf of St Lawrence that are
deceptively used as entanglement advertising. Not all whales
were necropsied and at the end of 2019. There were 10
reported deaths. 3 were entanglements. So whose doing the
math. This is a Ropeless gear advertisement and Pew Trust
is in over their heads as a nonprofit constantly slandering the
lobster industry. They are ruining our pristine product while
feeding the public a red herring. Cruise Ships win. CLIA
wins. The Whales go extinct and the lobster industry goes out
of business. It’s $2000 bucks for each trap and 2000 for the
sending unit. A guy with 800 traps has to cough up $
1,602,000.00. That is what Pew’s one red herring will catch
with their hopeless ropeless clap trap. Pew has no problem
saying the word lobstermen, but when it comes to saying
Cruise Ships, Ha !! They are more than likely receiving
millions in donations . It’s hard to get someone to understand
something if their funding depends on them not understanding
it.

Most likely Carnival Cruise Lines is responsible for 18+ Right Whale deaths in the past 3 year, at which rate they would soon be extinct. >click to read<

2/25/2020

By Jim O’Connell

“Fishing without vertical lines is going to save the species” “A recent study attributes nearly 60% of diagnosed North Atlantic Right Whale (NARW) deaths over a 15 year period to entanglement” The second statement 60% is pathetic! It may be 80% ships 20% entanglements over a 15-year period.

This blame game is out of hand when in fact the NARW which are not reproducing have in the last 5 years have found copious copepods in the South West Gulf of Saint Lawrence (GSL) underneath a dedicated cruise ship corridor which feeds fecal matter nutrients to the little crustaceans, nutrient rich black water discharged at a constant rate of nearly 50 gallons a minute while 12 miles offshore. Copepods eat fecal matter. It’s their favorite food. Whales eat copepods it’s their favorite food. Cruise ships run down Right Whales at night when they are likely sleeping near the surface as they must breath air. apparently Carnival Corp favors killing whales than spending 15,000 extra bucks to reroute around that isolated area where there is a good plankton bloom year to year. The reason I hold them responsible is they took out 3 in 2015 up to 10 whales in 2017 and yet they still sailed through that same area in 2019 and took out 6 or 7 more.

If this International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) thinks 1|4 whale per year from lobster fishing over 22 years is wiping out the species then they will be culpable in misdirecting the effort to stop the cruise ship industry from taking out 6 whales per year in the GSL. It looks to me like IFAW could care less about saving a species and more about selling a totally unnecessary and impractical ropeless lobster trap. Ignorance is bliss. If they succeed in diverting attention from the real problem they should be sued for causing the avoidable deaths in the SW Gulf of St Lawrence.

7 dead ship strikes were found in the wake of the Zaandam between May first and the end of July last year. The Zaandam begins to once again on 4/29 “accept the guilt for the necessary murder of the Right whale to sell tee shirts on PEI.

Connect the dots. CLIA, Cruise Lines International Associates, Disney Cruise Line, Disney Corporation owns Disney Cruise lines and National Geographic. Disney Cruise is probably well connected under the CLIA umbrella where all cruise lines collaborate.

In October 2019 after it looks like Carnival has killed up to 7 or 8 more whales National Geographic launches 2 page well done shock art of a whales entanglement dance of death, with a trawl of lobster traps, done in collaboration with the IFAW International Fund for Animal Welfare artists. They should be drawing a new cruise ship route around the feeding area in the Gulf of St Lawrence, before May 1st. Pew trust, totally misdirected, is funding rope less lobster traps, that are impractical and will only save ¼ whale per year killed by the lobster industry, Pew Charitable Trust’s partners , CLF Conservation Law Foundation and Earth Justice filed suit 2/8/2018 against NOAA to take action against the fishing industry meanwhile one Cruise ship takes out 7 more whales in the Gulf of St Lawrence the following year, 2019. CLIA then launches new 2 page ad pictured below in latest 2/20 Geographic showing a Holland American Carnival Corporation ship whale watching in Alaska, The very cruise line who is most likely responsible for 18 Right Whale deaths in the past 5 years in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

The outright hypocrisy is criminal. It’s a total denial for what they are getting away with under the wandering eye of economic Canadian “priorities”. CLIA, the dirtiest most non-transparent tourist industry in the world fights back with it’s most powerful tool, its advertising campaigne. The Pew Charitable Trust kills off the whole Right Whale species throwing a red herring at the public by blaming the lobstermen while Canada under the illusion of millions pouring into PEI: Ay it’s just another dead squirrel beside the road. The Zaandam makes 13 passes through there starting April 1st 2020. A little bump in the night and a 50 ton animal is dead. Enjoy your cruise.

There have been no Maine Lobster Industry caused Right Whale deaths since 2002 according to this NOAA Document. 5 in all of New England since 2000. That is ¼ whale per year. Well within the tolerable zone.

Why isn’t NOAA sharing this data in support of the lobster industry?!!

In reaction to a birthrate plummeting to 0, and a few shocking photos of trussed up whales Earthjustice sued NOAA to tighten the reigns on the lobster industry. All you had to do is follow the numbers north and the answer becomes obvious. 18 possible Carnival cruise ship strikes by several of it’s ships over a 3 year period. It looks to me like someone has to call for an emergency Cruise Ship Course change before 4/29/20.

When they took out 7 last year. The lobsterman took ¼. That is a 28 to 1 vote to get rid of cruise ships.

It looks like Earthjustice is the harm we can avoid and we shouldn’t tolerate that chain of thinking. Emotional money dictating science. Back off!

You are defaming the lobster industry. Thousands of tightly bound community members, whom are the true stewards of their sea.

Recent record catches proves they are the best conservation minded people around. They are not responsible in this. Their effect is tolerable. Yet now they have been given a black eye. The blame looks like it is on Carnival Corporation for its negligence. And Boston for allowing such poisonous air pollution industry that makes it’s money trampling mother nature to berth right down town violating its 5 minute idling code around the clock to the tune of 10,000 idling semi trucks emitting one gallon of 15 ppm diesel per hour.

I bet there is more asthma attacks there as it only takes .02 ppm to kick off an attack. I read the fine is $500. for repeaters. So if the Zaandam is berthed at the Black Raven idling away it is burning at least 100 gallons or more of, at the minimum 600ppm per hour to power it’s huge hotel. 600 has 40 times the sulfur as the 15ppm semi truck. So if your getting fined each time you idle 15ppm for 5 minutes @$500. Then the Zaandam should be paying 240 Million dollars for 10 hours . That marine diesel they burn is classified as a Group1 carcinogen. Not what you should burning right in town.

So, do you want to crush the only thriving conservation minded fishery out there, worth well over $100 Million, and watch mother nature get trampled into extinction to make a buck? Of course not! Kick the cruise ships out of this country.

By Jim O’Connell