Science Advisory Report 2021/020

Assessment of American Lobster (Homarus americanus) in Lobster Fishing Areas 35–38

Summary

• Lobster Fishing Areas (LFAs) 35–38 are effort controlled, with restrictions on season length, number of licences, number of traps per licence, minimum legal size, and retention of berried females.
• The primary indicator for describing stock status relative to reference points is the modelled commercial Catch Per Unit Effort (CPUE). The primary indicators show commercial biomass is at or near the highest in the time series in all areas.
• Secondary indicators represent time-series trends that are tracked individually, without defined reference points. The secondary indicators are landings, total effort, recruit-abundance time series from the DFO Scallop and Summer Research Vessel (RV) surveys, commercial biomass estimates from the DFO Summer RV Survey, and relative fishing mortality.
• The DFO Summer RV Survey commercial-biomass time series showed a pulsed increase from 2000–2004, which subsequently declined until 2010, followed by an increase to 2013 where biomass has remained high and variable since.
• The DFO Summer RV Survey recruit abundance (70–82 mm carapace length) has followed a similar pattern to total biomass, with increases from 2010 to 2013, followed by variable catch at a substantially higher level than has been observed in the time series.
• The current status of the Lobster stocks within each LFA is within the Healthy Zone.

LFA 35

• The CPUE trend indicates an increase in stock biomass occurred between 2005 and 2011. The CPUE time series has remained high (more than twice the Upper Stock Reference [USR]) since 2011. The 3-year running median for CPUE for the 2017–2018 fishing season is 3.90 kg/Trap Haul (TH), which is above the USR (1.62 kg/TH).
• Landings in LFA 35 reached a record high of 3,941 t in the 2013–2014 fishing season. The reported landings for the 2018–2019 fishing season are 2,577 t. This does not represent a full accounting due to outstanding logs.
• The abundance of Lobster recruits from DFO Scallop Survey tows within LFA 35 have increased in recent years from 14 to 35.4 Lobster/km².

LFA 36

• The CPUE trend indicates an increase in stock biomass occurred between 2010 and 2013. The CPUE time series has remained high (more than twice the USR) since 2013. The 3-year running median for CPUE for the 2017–2018 season is 3.91 kg/TH, which is above the USR (1.36 kg/TH).
• Landings in LFA 36 have more than doubled to a record high of 4,022 t in the 2017–2018 fishing season. The reported landings for the 2018–2019 fishing season are 2,913 t. This does not represent a full accounting due to outstanding logs.
• The abundance of Lobster recruits from DFO Scallop Survey tows within LFA 36 was low between 1999 and 2005 at a median of 4.6 Lobster/km², increased to 2010, and has remained high and stable since with a median of 49.3 Lobster/km².

LFA 38

• The CPUE trend indicates an increase in stock biomass occurred between 2013 and 2014. The CPUE time series has remained high (more than twice the USR) since 2014. The 3-year running median for CPUE for the 2017–2018 season is 4.78 kg/TH, which is above the USR (1.91 kg/TH).
• Landings in LFA 38 more than doubled to a record high of 5,711 t in the 2015–2016 fishing season. The reported landings for the 2018–2019 season are 3,830 t. This does not represent a full accounting due to outstanding logs.

This Report is from the Science Advisory Process held on October 1, 2019, Stock Assessment of American Lobster Fishing Area(s) (LFA) 34 and 35–38. Additional publications from this meeting will be posted on the Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) Science Advisory Schedule as they become available.

Science Advisory Report 2021/020 (PDF, 1,246 KB)

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