Managing Stocks: What Makes Lobster
Succeed While Groundfish Fail?
James Acheson
Department of Anthropology
and School of Marine Sciences
University of Maine
LL Bean/Surace Colloquium Series, University of Southern Maine
September 16, 2013
Introduction
In the Gulf of Maine groundfish management is a failure.
Stocks are at all time lows.
Lobster management in Maine is highly successful.
Lobster stocks are at historic highs.
Two explanations:
• Management
• Biological and ecological factors
Groundfishery Characteristics
• Groundfish –12 species of bottom dwelling fish (e.g., cod ,
haddock, hake, pollock, redfish, etc.)
• Caught with ottar trawls and gillnets
• Gear highly unselective
•
•
Huge mortality
Big bycatch
• Very heterogeneous industry technologically, economically,
socially and culturally
Groundfishing Gear: Ottar Trawl and Gillnet
U.S. Groundfish Regulations
• Fisheries Conservation and Management Act (FCMA) passed
in 1976
• Many plans put into effect from1977 to present: a three month
quota plan, Interim Plan, and the Atlantic Demersal Fisheries
Plan with 18 amendments and 44 frameworks.
• Have tried everything from quotas, size limits, and gear limits,
to limiting days at sea, rolling closures, etc.
• Some cut effort very substantially, e.g., Amendment 7 cut
effort 80% over Amendment 5 levels.
• All failed.
Groundfish Industry Decline
• Stocks still fell from 1976 to present
• Number of boats in Maine and N.H. fell
from 343 in 1978 to 50 in 2012.
New England Groundfish Catches (cod, haddock,
yellowtail flounder)
Groundfish Management: Four Points
1. Fishermen very unhappy. Every change in a plan
resulted in lawsuits. Ugly meetings.
2. Groundfish industry factions never agreed.
3. A lot of cheating. Up to 25% of fish taken illegally.
4. Management plans developed slowly. Extreme
bureaucratic complexity.
Lobster Industry Characteristics
• An inshore trap fishery. About 5,600 licenses
in Maine. Fishermen use an average of 560
traps.
• Traditional territoriality
History of Lobster Management
• Lobster management always based on protection of
juvenile lobsters and reproductive stock. First laws
passed in 1870s making it illegal to take egged
lobsters and small lobsters.
• “Pirate” Ethic: Before 1930 a lot of violation of laws.
Small lobsters taken and breeding stock destroyed.
• Lobster Bust: Stock failure in late 1920s leading to
very low catches. 40% of fishermen went out of
business between 1928 and 1932.
Catch (milliions of lbs.)
Maine Lobster Catches
130
125
120
115
110
105
100
95
90
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
History of Conservation Ethic
• Lobster bust convinced many fishermen of need for
more stringent legislation.
• Over the past 140 years several types of rules were
passed: min. size protected juveniles; max. size
protected breeding stock; no taking egged females;
V-notch program (voluntary effort to protect breeding
females); escape vent law; biodegradable panel in
traps
• Co-management law with coast divided into 7
management zones (1995).
• All passed with substantial industry support.
• All enforced by wardens and industry.
Lobster Regulations
Lobster Management Zones
Explanation
Why was lobster industry able to provide itself
with conservation rules and groundfish
industry could not? Two aspects:
1. Biology and Technology
• Groundfish gear highly unselective—when groundfish come to
the surface they are dead because their swim bladders break.
• Lobster traps highly selective. Can pull traps to the surface
and take out small lobsters, egged or V-notched females and
oversize lobsters and throw them overboard unharmed.
2. Interactive Social and Economic Factors
• We have modeled these to pinpoint the factors producing high
quality conservation rules.
KEY POINT OF MODEL:
When b/n > c, a fisherman has an incentive to follow a high
quality conservation rule even if no one else does.
Now suppose b/n < c. A fisherman has no incentive to follow the
high quality conservation rule if no one else does, since (1/n)b – c
< 0, which he would get from following a lesser quality rule.
The key question is what determines the benefits and
costs, the b and the c?
Factors Influencing Costs and Benefits
Our game theory model points to four factors
influencing costs and benefits distinguishing the
lobster and groundfish industries.
1. Discount Rate: affects people’s assessment of
future gains.
• Groundfish industry: a lot of cheating, falling stocks,
and management plans not working  people assume
future catches will be low. Groundfishermen want to
take stocks now.
• Lobster industry: has a history of success. Stocks
and catches are going up  willingness to sacrifice
present catches for better future catches.
Factors Influencing Costs and Benefits
2. Transaction Costs.
Small, homogenous communities with a long
history, a lot of social capital, and a lot of social
interaction will be more likely to be able to
provide themselves with rules.
Lobstering communities have these traits.
Groundfishing industry does not have any of
these traits, is highly heterogeneous.
(Elinor Ostrom 1990, 2000, 2002)
Factors Influencing Costs and Benefits
3. Number of people adhering to a rule.
• Lobster industry: good compliance.
• Our model shows that if a population starts out
with nearly all fishermen having a “pirate” ethic,
evolution will lead to a population with all having
that ethic.
• If most have a conservation ethic, over time, the
vast majority will come to have that ethic.
Factors Influencing Costs and Benefits
4. Historical events moving people from one
equilibrium to another.
• Lobster industry had the lobster bust—a truly
traumatizing experience.
• No such conversion happened in the
groundfishing industry despite declining
catches, boats going out of business and evertightening regulations.
• Groundfishermen know that stocks have been
over-exploited, but are not willing to invest
much to bring them back.
Upward and Downward Spirals
Several interactive factors affect management over
time:
• Lobster: New law → increased catches →
reinforces fishermen’s world view → more
enforcement.
• Groundfish: Regulations → declining catches →
fishermen conclude management failure →
cheating, lack of support for rules.
Lessons
• Have selective gear to:
– Minimize by-catch
– Minimize environmental damage
(Note: Politically impossible to get acceptance for
selective gear in groundfish industry at present)
• Conserve stock in vulnerable parts of life cycle
– Juveniles
– Reproductive stock
Acknowledgements
Research on which this presentation is based was supported in part by a
grant from the National Science Foundation (James Acheson, PI),
“Evolution of Norms and Conservation Rules in Two Fisheries,” grant
number BCS-0821968.