Rory Jose

Department of Marine Resources, West Boothbay Harbor, Maine

During the summer I interned with the Department of Marine Resources (DMR) for the state of Maine. Throughout the summer I worked with Carl Wilson who is the chief lobster biologist for the State. I was responsible for data collection on commercial lobster boats off the coast of Monhegan Island. In June Carl and I traveled once a week to Monhegan where the fishing industry makes up 80% of the income for the local fishermen and their families. There are eleven lobstermen on the Island, and they all assisted Carl in his research of the lobster stock depletion. Monhegan is New England’s only area with a closed season for lobstering. Thus, there is no fishing in the summer months. The lobster fishery is closely linked with the social and economic prosperity of coastal Maine and New England. In Maine 62.4 million pounds of lobsters valued at $208 million were landed in 2002. Though, over the past 10 years there has been slow depletion of the lobsters off the coast of Maine. Therefore, it is important to understand and solve the issue of the lobster depletion.
Before I arrived at DMR, Carl had received a grant for research to study the relationship between traps, effort and fishing mortality in the Maine lobster fishery. The relationship between the number of traps and fishing mortality is poorly understood. For example, it is impossible to estimate the magnitude of the reduction of traps needed for biological effectiveness prior to the completion of management actions. The consequences of not knowing this relationship include failure to attain biological goals, increased disruption to historical fishing practices and a false sense of accomplishment by management. Carl proposed tests of the basic assumptions in the models used to evaluate fishing mortality by investigating trap capacity, interference between traps and effects of removing legal lobsters from the fishery.
During the month of June Carl and I did sea sampling on the local lobster boats with the Island fishermen. Surrounding the Island there were three squares of traps in the Monhegan Lobster Conservation Area. Each experimental area had a different density of traps. We went out to Monhegan a total of six times. Each day we traveled to the Island and tagged the lobsters with a different color band. Thus, the next time we went out to the Island we could count the recaptures. In addition, I entered all the important information of each lobster caught for the day into a Thistle Marine computer. This device saves the data including the location of each trap using GPS. At the end of the day the computer is connected to the internet and all the days catch is transferred to DMR on the mainland.
In addition to data collection on commercial lobster boats, I entered data in MS Access and MS Excel. The data collected and recorded was analyzed using statistical methods. This was an area in which I had no previous experience. Carl and the other staff in my office were extremely patient, and I quickly started to understand how to navigate through these programs. The computer software allowed us to summarize the data in graphs and pivot tables. The experiments in June were the beginning phase of a test for the much larger project that will start on Monhegan in the late fall.
In addition to data collection and sea sampling I went to numerous meetings throughout the state with Carl and participated in discussions on new laws and policies for ground fishing in certain areas off the Maine coast. Many of the fishermen, scientists, and politicians want to revive the ground fishing industry in certain zones throughout the state. The meetings I attended were extremely interesting because scientists at the national and state level, and the Commissioner of Fisheries were working together to figure out long term solutions for the fishing industry.
My internship this summer offered me a professional working experience that I would have never received working at a normal summer job. Additionally, I was able to explore and use the resources, at DMR for my own interests. I did many different tasks at the Department for Marine Resources, and by the last day I felt like I made a contribution toward solving a problem of the Maine fisheries by assisting Carl and other staff at the Department.
I have not completely decided on my senior project, but over the summer I came up with an idea about doing an independent study in the spring researching and writing a paper about the lobster stock depletion. I want to compare the mainland laws and regulations with Monhegan Island. In addition I want discuss the fishing methods of each area. Finally, I want to discuss fishing policies on an international basis and how international law could affect the local fishing areas of Maine.