Tag Archives: Maritime Fishermen’s Union in New Brunswick.
The domino effect. Fisheries policy raising the carapace measure risks dividing fishermen
The domino effect. That’s sort of what lobster fishermen in P.E.I. are up against after the Federal Fisheries Department decided the carapace measure has to go up in Lobster Fishing Area 25. Prince Edward Island’s 225 fall fishermen share Northumberland Strait’s LFA 25 with 470 New Brunswick boats and 16 from Nova Scotia. It’s a narrow strip of water, so it’s impossible to draw a line through the middle of it and keep the Island boats on one side of the line and leave the other side to the mainlanders. Despite fishing the same body of water, the fishermen on either side of the puddle – or at least the organizations representing them – have opposing views on what the minimum carapace size should be. Read the op-ed here 11:58
Fisheries and Oceans Canada – Lobster size minimums to increase in Lobster Fishing Area 25
New Brunswick lobster fishermen are “ecstatic” about the federal government’s decision to increase the minimum size for lobster harvested between the southeast of the province and P.E.I., by five millimetres over the next three years. Fisheries and Oceans Canada issued a notice on Friday, informing harvesters of the change for the western half of the Northumberland Strait, known as Lobster Fishing Area 25. “Our harvesters feel this is an historical decision,” said Christian Brun, executive secretary of the Maritime Fishermen’s Union in New Brunswick. It comes after a long-standing dispute between fishermen in New Brunswick and P.E.I. over carapace size, he said. The legal harvesting size will increase by one millimetre to 73 mm this season, and will further increase to 75 mm in 2017 and 77 mm in 2018, according to the government notice. Read the rest here 20:49
