Efforts to further restrict the harvesting of lobsters by this summer were delayed this week. Fisheries managers will not impose any additional restrictions on lobster fishing for at least another year because they have not yet agreed on a clear set of restrictions to bring to public hearings, a necessary first step towards finalizing new regulations.

The next meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s lobster management board won’t take place until August.

Last year scientists reporting back to the fisheries commission called for a five-year moratorium on the harvesting of lobsters south of New England as a necessary option towards protecting a fishery on the verge of collapse. They cited overfishing, rising water temperatures and changing environmental conditions as pushing the resource towards commercial extinction. The commission’s lobster management board, however, meeting on Monday in Alexandria, Va., couldn’t come up with a proposal to offer the public for comment. The meeting was but one part of a week of meetings on fishing issues.

Last week, Vineyard fishermen joined the chorus of fishermen opposed to any draconian measure to protect the resource.

“A seasonal closure during the months of June, July, August and September would devastate our businesses,” wrote Warren M. Doty, president of the Martha’s Vineyard/Dukes County Fishermen’s Association, on March 14, to the lobster board (the letter appears on Page Eight of this week’s Gazette). Mr. Doty said the association’s fishermen could accept a change in minimum size and a seasonal closure from January to March.

But the management board didn’t get far enough along in their deliberating to accept any changes to the status quo for the time being. Instead the board heard a number of suggestions as to what to do. Tina Berger, a spokesman for the ASMFC, said the board did review a plan submitted by Rhode Island board member Bill McElroy calling for a staged set of fishing trap reductions over the next several years, with the ultimate goal of cutting fishing effort by 25 per cent, five per cent in the first year.

Members representing New Jersey proposed their own idea, suggesting that they be exempt from any lobster fishing restrictions.

Bill Adler, president of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association and a member of the commission’s lobster board, said that it became pretty clear during the meetings that proposals being offered weren’t firm enough to be ready for adoption, let alone a public hearing process. “It wasn’t ready and it was confusing,” Mr. Adler said. “Everyone is on pins and needles. The question is what is workable.”

Mr. Adler said options available to the board range from the original five-year moratorium proposal, to doing nothing about the stock decline. Mr. Adler is strongly opposed to the five-year moratorium, for that most assuredly would put fishermen out of business.

The ASMFC is a regional regulatory organization made up of 15 member states that extend from Maine to Florida. As so many species of fish move up and down the coast, the commission was established to coordinate the management of a whole range of species from striped bass to lobsters and to scup, sea bass and flounders in state waters.

It is widely known that lobsters north of Cape Cod are in good shape, because of both strict fisheries management and environmental conditions. Lobster stocks south of Cape Cod down to Virginia, on the other hand, are severely depleted, and there is some scientific data that suggest that because of water temperature changes, the fishery will not recover even if there are severe restrictions on fishing.

Mr. Doty wrote: “Your committee is considering new rules for the very large area designated as Southern New England. This area extends from Virginia to Cape Cod. It is too large an area for ‘one size fits all.’ Our lobster stock south of Martha’s Vineyard in water 150 feet deep is very different from the stock off New Jersey or Delaware, and we need to recognize this and create conservation measures adjusted for area differences.”