Lobster Hatchery Revival

A report just out from a technical committee of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission documents the perilous state of lobster stocks in southern New England, and much like the groundfish stocks on Georges Bank, the news is far from good.

The committee that studied the lobster fishery documented dwindling stocks, fewer breeding lobsters and a dramatic drop in lobster landings over the past ten years. There are also fewer fishermen who make their living from lobstering these days, but you don’t need a report to tell you that, just go down to the docks in Menemsha and the evidence is all around. “It makes me want to cry,” one lobsterman who has turned to mooring and dock work to feed his family told a Gazette reporter two weeks ago.

Warming water temperatures appear to be a key contributing factor to the poor conditions for lobsters, the scientists found. Their recommendation is blunt and rare in its unanimity: a five-year moratorium is urgently needed on lobstering in Atlantic waters from Massachusetts to Virginia, to allow breeding stocks time to recover.

The recommendation will be discussed at a public meeting in Rhode Island next month, and already heated opinions are emerging on both sides, as naturally happens whenever a ban is proposed on anything, whether it is development or fishing.

Regardless of whether a moratorium is enacted, it certainly is hard to deny that we are beginning to pay the price for decades of misuse of our land and water, and on an Island where these resources have remained relatively unspoiled, any upset in the balance brings the matter into sudden, sharp focus. It’s a little like the wake-up call that comes when a person in peak physical health suddenly becomes sick or injured, and the intense intellectual examination that follows. How did this happen, what is the best way to repair the damage, and most important, to crib a line from the Joni Mitchell song, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

But in the case of the lobster fishery, the very real possibility exists for not only recovery but innovation, at least on a small scale, by reviving the state lobster hatchery in Oak Bluffs. The hatchery was closed fourteen years ago, the victim of waning interest and also funding from the state government. The facility, which sits at the head of the Lagoon Pond, is in a state of increasingly poor repair due to disuse.

The idea for reviving the hatchery first surfaced a year ago when a lobster scientist gave a talk at the Chilmark Public Library, pointing to the success of a hatchery in Penobscot, Maine, which has provided both jobs and a boost to the fishery in that coastal community. And of course the best hatchery model on the Island is the one run by the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, also on the Lagoon, not far from the shuttered and vacant old lobster hatchery. Begun on a shoestring budget more than thirty years ago amid many skeptics over its chances for success, the hatchery today produces hundreds of thousands of quahaugs, oysters and scallops for seeding Island ponds. The hatchery has without doubt been a key player in keeping the shellfish industry here not only vibrant and sustainable but also expanding into new areas. In addition to the work producing seed, the shellfish group is involved in focused scientific study on water conditions and diseases that affect shellfish in Island waters. The group’s work on the oyster disease Dermo is an example of this, and biologists are experimenting with spawning oysters that are resistant to the disease which is not harmful to humans, but ruinous to oysters.

In short, the shellfish group has made a difference. Likewise, it is possible that reviving the lobster hatchery could make a difference. Cape and Islands Rep. Tim Madden will host a meeting at the hatchery this coming Friday to discuss the possibilities. The meeting begins at one o’clock.

A feasibility study to examine the viability of reopening the hatchery would be a wise step at this juncture. Small grant money for studies such as this is available from the Edey Foundation, among others, and the increasingly active Martha’s Vineyard/Dukes County Fishermen’s Association is well positioned to apply for a grant.

And that would make a good agenda item for the association’s next meeting.