The DEP informed that the continuing decline in the Long Island Sound lobster population is likely to lead to new size restrictions as the state grapples with the lobster die-off that started in the late 1990s. Dave Simpson, director of the DEP’s Fisheries Division, said that this is discouraging news and kind of a reflection of the status of the resource in Long Island Sound. Commercial lobster fishermen said their livelihood and the state’s lobster industry will vanish if conservation efforts to protect the creatures aren’t better targeted. They added that this is destroying their life and future. They’re looking for ways to make a buck this season but it costs money to run the boat out there.
Toni Kearns, a fishery management plan coordinator for the ASMFC, opined that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, a federally mandated regulatory agency which oversees regulation of fishery management for states from Maine to North Carolina plans to meet in May to discuss new assessments of the lobster opulation, and to increase the minimum legal size for lobsters in the waters in the management zone stretching from Connecticut through southern Massachuetts.
Local fishermen said determining a dominant cause for the population drop is difficult, but that significant factors could include warmer water temperatures in the fall which make lobsters more vulnerable to disease, and surging populations of fin fish feeding on crustaceans.
