Contact:  Teri Frady               FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
                                   2/10/98

Gloucester, Mass.-- NOAA Fisheries will be visiting at least eight Northeastern coastal communities during March and April to seek advice on how to end overfishing of American lobsters.

This information-gathering is a step toward writing proposed regulations for the fishery that would affect lobstering under federal permits. A summary document detailing the agency's views will be available in several weeks to use as a platform for public discussion. The draft document will include additional information summarizing the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission recent amendment to their lobster plan. After the public hearings, the agency will issue its management recommendations in a proposed rule, which will give the public another opportunity to comment before they are reworked into final form.

Recently, the ASMFC passed an amendment to the interstate lobster management plan that establishes a framework for addressing overfishing and rebuilding egg production, but it does not meet the mandatory stock rebuilding goals of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. When final, the NOAA Fisheries rules will augment the interstate plan, and will deal specifically with reducing fishing effort as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act in order to help rebuild the lobster stock.

"Ideally, we want to end up with a management plan that reduces risk of stock collapse while sustaining the fishery in its traditional form," says Dr. Andy Rosenberg, NOAA Fisheries Northeast regional administrator.

"The ideas we'd like to discuss will be familiar to people who lobster," says Rosenberg. "For example, trap limits and gradual reductions, continuing a ban on new entry, possession limits for those who catch lobsters with gear other than traps, size limits, managing by zones, and helping regional industry teams to develop measures that may be different from area to area, but will accomplish the same goals," he says.

"We are committed to working with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to devise an effective, comprehensive management plan, but we must take action to end overfishing as soon as possible," says Rosenberg. His agency is responsible for managing lobsters in federal waters. The ASMFC manages state waters, where most lobstering occurs, through an interstate plan implemented by individual states.

Lobsters presently comprise the region's most valuable single commercial species, accounting for nearly 25 percent of all revenues for the Northeast fishing industry as a whole in 1996. The lobster fishery was valued at $242 million, and supports about 50,000 jobs. Since 1993, scientific analyses have shown the stock to be unusually abundant but at high risk of collapse as lobster fishing continues to increase dramatically beyond historical levels. Lobsters just reaching the minimum legal size account for most of the landings and most of the broodstock.

The public meeting schedule is not yet finalized, but will be available soon. Background documents and the schedule will be downloadable at the NOAA Fisheries Northeast Region website: http://www.nero.nmfs.gov/ro/doc/nr.htm ; and can be requested by calling (978)281-9234, or by sending a written request to National Marine Fisheries Service, State-Federal Office, 1 Blackburn Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930.