By Sheila Dassatt
Every now and then, I have a reader that asks me about a certain topic for my next article. I am more than happy to oblige as I am glad that you folks are reading my printed material! This time, the concern and awareness is about V-notching lobsters and a couple of other concerns dealing with the health and well-being of our Maine lobster stock. I say Maine because other states may have different rules. I have taken the time to look into the facts and hope that you find it informative. We have had a hard season this year and a lot of folks want to do the best that we can to protect the mortality of our lobster population.
Here we go, I did not realize that history goes back this far. The history goes back to 1872 when Maine started early catch prohibitions for our egg bearing females or “eggers.” Then we jump to 1917 the State Seed Lobster Program started. This is when the wardens purchased egg bearing lobsters and punched a hole in their middle tail flipper before release and banned the landing of punched lobsters. In 1948 Maine transitioned to a distinct V-notch cut on the tail flipper. Then in 1957 the state outlawed mutilating lobsters to hide or remove existing notches. In 1975 the placement of the notch was officially confirmed for the right of the middle flipper.
Then in 2002-2003 V-notching went from a voluntary practice to a mandatory legal requirement for lobstermen. Please remember, this is all for the sake of conservation, which has turned out to be a very viable practice. This is probably why Maine still has the largest catch ratio compared to the other Atlantic states.
So this practice works when a lobsterman catches a female egg bearing lobster and uses a special tool to cut a small v-shaped notched in the middle right tail flipper. Then the lobster is released back into the ocean and the notch protects them from being possessed and legally sold which safeguards her to remain as a reproductive breeder for future molts.
As time has gone on, it has been brought up at Zone meetings and Advisory meetings that not enough lobstermen are continuing to notch their female lobsters. This became a growing concern due to the fact that we still need to protect our brood stock and have a healthy amount of lobsters for now and for our future generations. With this concern, a V-notching contest has been established with Zone competition. This entails that all participants have a V-notch tool and a jar for collecting the notches. At the end of the time allowed, all of the notches will be counted and see which zone comes up the winner. This was all intended to promote active V-notching again. We decided not to participate which was anyone’s choice, because we had concerns about this. Once you collect these notches, how do you determine if it is a female or male notch?
At this point, a lot of fishermen started seeing notched males and females that were not eggers. They also started seeing dead lobsters in their traps with the same descriptions. There are a few downfalls to notching that most don’t realize. The lobster does not have a vascular system, their circulation is within their shell. So if the cut or notch is too deep, there is research going on right now to see if they “bleed” out and die from this. If the cut is too deep and doesn’t heal soon enough, they can gain bacteria and contact shell disease also. So these cuts need to be just at the very end of the tail and not too deep into the tail fin.
Now this is not everyone’s only concern. It came to my attention with my research, that these protected lobsters appear in the traps more than once, actually many times. Without the proper handling, they will become weak and die. Just stop and think how many times some of these female lobsters are brought to the surface, nowadays the haulers are much faster, so then they are tossed back into the ocean again and again.
These are all awarenesses that a lot don’t even think about. A few years ago, the Lobster Institute of the University of Maine had a study and awareness about how these lobsters are handled. They really need to be handled with care and respect for the animal. An egger should be dropped carefully with their back pointed to the water so the eggs can stay in place. The same care goes for all of them, male and female.
Think about it, when lobstering started out, they were hauled by hand. This evolved over the years to a winch head or forgive me, but it was called a “nigger head.” After that, we have hydraulic and sometimes electric haulers. They started out with small discs and only moved so fast, but now, the haulers are much faster and the hauler discs can be as much as 18 inches. The lobsters are coming to the surface in a big hurry (almost like the bends) and in the age of speed hauling, they are culled out in a hurry and returned back to the ocean. How many of you have seen the same oversized lobster more than once? They may come up many times and in many different traps in their lifetime.
The Department of Marine Resources has put in for more research on these subjects as it has become an awareness. We all can play a part in this conservation measure and pay close attention to how we are doing things these days when we’re on the boat. If you see dead lobsters in your traps, please let us know. We really need to make sure that research is done about this.
I hope that I have spoken for all that have had concerns and appreciate their care about our fishery. We are all in this together.
