) Fishery Management in the Gulf of Maine, USA

The American lobster (Homarus americanus) supports one of the most valuable commercial fisheries in the Northeast USA. Current regulations in the Gulf of Maine US side include license limitation, trap specifications, size regulation and protection of ovigerous females. These regulations are commonly used in managing lobster fisheries all over the world. In this study, we use Gulf of Maine (GOM) American lobster fishery as an example to evaluate the effectiveness of these regulations. A sex-specific and size-dependent operating model is developed to simulate the GOM lobster fishery managed by various combinations of regulations for a 25-year time period. Scenarios of different recruitment dynamics, fishing mortalities and natural mortalities, as well as uncertainties in key fishery parameters are considered in the evaluation. Our results suggest that current regulations are effective in sustaining the high level of recruitment in the GOM lobster fishery. Similar approach can be applied to other fisheries to identify ineffective regulations before they are implemented.