November 28, 2012 — The total shrimp tonnage Maine fishermen will be able to haul up and the length of this year's season hangs on what the regulatory body that oversees the fishery decides early next month. Fishermen are concerned they will not be able to turn a profit with a short season and a significant reduction in what they will be allowed to catch.
Records of overfishing threaten the existence of the fishery in Maine and its end could mean consumers purchasing their shrimp from Canada.
From Port Clyde to Portland, they gathered for a special meeting at the Natural Resource Service Center in Hallowell with Department of Marine Resources (DMR) staff on November 26 to discuss upcoming decisions by a governing body of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC). The Commission's Northern Shrimp Section decides the Total Allowable Catch (TAC) and the season dates each year, based on scientific conclusions. Some fishermen questioned the accuracy of these findings at the meeting, where DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher had asked for feedback and to develop some consensus on the issue.
He and others will attend a meeting of the fishery's Advisory Panel, followed by a Section meeting in Portland December 3 at which members from the three states of Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire will decide the rules for the 2012-2013 shrimp fishing season.
The Section this month approved changes to the interstate management plan for the fishery that allocates 13 percent of the total catch to those who trap shrimp, and 87 percent to those who trawl. According to a November 15 press release, changes in the plan also allows the transfer of unused catch between gear types, sets aside a portion of the catch for research purposes and gives trawlers the option to use a “size sorting grate system … to minimize the retention of small shrimp.”
Steve Peaslee, who has been hauling a couple hundred shrimp traps out of Sheepscot Bay for the past three years, said he is not sure what to expect for this year's season, but is certain the allowable catch is going to be lower.
“It's still kind of up in the air,” he said. “Last year was a hard season.”
Trap fishermen had just 17 days last season. Between setting up, locating the fishing grounds and the weather, this left trap fishermen with about six real productive days of hauling, Peaslee said.
Peaslee is the treasurer of the Maine Shrimp Trapper's Association. Even though he has been trapping shrimp for just the past three years, he draws on a life-long commercial fishing experience and from having attended numerous meetings about this fishery in past years.
How well the trappers will do depends on the length of the season and the weather. The percentage they are allowed is unfair, he said, but believes a later start to this year's season would help everyone. Due to warmer water temperatures, shrimp numbers did not climb until late, according to Peaslee.
Read the full story in the Boothbay Register