US Gulf of Maine & Georges Bank lobster - pot/trap

The lobster trade (Retail, Restaurant, Ecommerce, Processor and Distributor) is backing away from purchasing and selling lobsters due to concerns with right whale entanglements and the recent Monterey Bay Red Listing of the North American lobster. Given the controversy over this issue at the fishery and government levels there are no immediate solutions that will prevent the lobster market from collapsing further, creating risk of additional long-term impacts over $100M in revenue per year. The lobster trade needs to take action to protect its consumer reputation and its market, but also needs to deploy an effective, real, industry-based data driven strategy to reduce risks of North Atlantic right whale (right whale) entanglements in the North Atlantic Ocean. With an overall goal of North Atlantic right whale species survival alongside thriving fishing communities and fisheries-dependent industries, the project’s activities involve the seafood industry to create a market incentive for fishing operation to fish in ways or areas that have been found to have lower risk of serious entanglement to right whales, based on robust datasets. This FIP will focus on the North Atlantic Lobster using Pot Traps. 

The fleet pursuing this project is represented by the 6 proccessing companies and the docks that supply them. Specifically these processing companies and docks operate in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachussettes. By sharing the dock level finate harvest information down to vessel level we will be able to indentify the exact federal and state permitted vessel and dock.