Conn. DEP: Program To Increase Lobster Size Working
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- A program aimed at restoring the lobster population in Long Island Sound is working well enough to keep the current minimum legal size for lobsters taken by fishermen, environmental protection officials said Monday.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission had planned to increase the current size by 1/16 of an inch on Aug. 1. But that will be held off for at least one year because of the V-notch program, where the tails of mature female lobsters have a ``v'' cut into them before they're released back into the water.
The mark protects them from harvest for about two years, giving them time to grow and reproduce. Maine has long had similar V-notch regulations.
Fishermen from Connecticut and New York returned the equivalent of more than 58,000 mature female lobsters between December 2007 and July 2008. That's more than 100 percent of the goal established for the first year of the program.
``Completing the first year's V-notch goal means Connecticut and New York lobstermen fishing in the Sound will not have to endure a gauge increase for at least another year,'' Connecticut DEP Commissioner Gina McCarthy said.
Lobster fishermen have been grappling with high fuel and bait costs and low catches in recent years, she added.
The V-notch program was created to help revive a lobster population that has not recovered from a catastrophic 1999 die-off in Long Island Sound. A report released last month by the state's Council on Environmental Quality determined that lobster numbers were in decline shortly before the V-notch program began.
The DEP's annual autumn trawl in 2007 yielded the lowest number in at least two decades, according to the report.
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