Alexandria, VA – The Commission’s American Lobster Management Board approved Addendum XIV to Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for American Lobster. The Addendum XIV modifies the Lobster Conservation Management Area (LCMA) 3 trap transfer program, including changes to the conservation tax and trap cap.
Given the competitive nature of the fishery in LCMA 3 (offshore waters), it is expected that once transferability is implemented, all fishing entities will elect to fish the highest number of traps in order to remain competitive. There was concern the end result would be fewer participants in the fishery. The Board adopted the lower trap cap to keep more participants in the fishery as consolidation occurs, which maintains existing social and cultural features of the industry. This action also considers concerns for increased costs and overhead in the fishery by promoting economic efficiency in harvesting the resource. The Board adopted a single lower conservation tax to address concerns that the high tax of the previous plan would deter transfers from occurring and was confusing to industry. The conservation tax is a passive reduction of traps that will occur with each trap transfer event at the rate of 20%. For example if 100 trap tags are transferred to a fisher, the net number of tags received by that fisher will be 80.
The Addendum sets a 20% single conservation tax partial trap transfers within LCMA 3 and a 10% conservation tax for the sale of a complete fishing operation. It also lowers the trap cap under the transfer program for Area 3 to 2000.
In other action, the Board initiated an addendum to cap permits to fish traps in federal waters of LCMA 1 by requiring a qualification process for federal permit holders. The draft addendum will explore capping permits but not reduce the number of permits in LCMA 1 and allowing trap only permits within LCMA 1 to be transferred. The draft addendum will address effort control issues in LCMA 1 by preventing non-trap permits from converting to trap permits and by not allowing trap permits from other LCMAs to declare LCMA 1. The Board will review and consider approving the draft addendum for public comment at its next meeting in August.
Copies of Addendum XIV will be made available by mid-May and can be obtained by contacting the Commission at (202) 289-6400 or via the Commission’s website at www.asmfc.org under Breaking News. For more information, please contact Toni Kerns, Senior FMP Coordinator for Management, (202) 289- 6400 or at tkerns@asmfc.org.