July 2, 2018 — Maine’s lobster industry is on watch as fisheries regulators weigh whether to make significant cuts to herring catch limits, which could drive up bait costs that have already seen a sharp increase over the past decade.
Maine’s lobstermen draw their bait from the Atlantic herring stocks, which are managed by the New England Fishery Management Council and National Marine Fisheries Service.
In recent updates, the council said it planned on setting a significantly lower herring catch quota in 2019 than in 2018. The catch limit for 2018 was 111,000 metric tons, the same as it was in 2017. But the herring fleet landed many fewer fish than that last year, harvesting just 50,000 metric tons.
The council also called for a reduction to the catch cap for the rest of 2018 amid concerns about low densities and slow replenishment in the fish stock.
“The decline of the most important forage stock in New England is a significant blow, not only for the lobster industry that uses it for bait, but also for those species that rely on herring as forage like groundfish, tuna, whales, and seabirds,” Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, wrote in a recent post. “Without this motion, rumor has it that the herring fishery would need to be capped at 15 metric tons in 2019, far lower than the 100-metric ton fishery that has operated in recent years.”
A herring stock assessment group held meetings in late June to try to determine its next steps and come closer to determining what quota it might propose. The group should release more details about the expected catch limits in the fall.
“Everyone’s worried about the quota and what that’s going to be,” said Kristan Porter, a Cutler lobsterman and president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “There’s bait around right now, but what happens in the fall? We just don’t know.”