Northeast Invertebrate Fisheries 



Unit 



4 



EMORY D ANDERSON 



STEVEN X CADRIN 



LISA C HENDRICKSON 



JOSEF S IDOINE 



HAN-LIN LAI 



JAMES R WEINBERG 



NMFS Northeast Fisheries 

 Science Center 



INTRODUCTION 



Offshore fisheries for crustaceans and mollusks 

 are among the most valuable in the region. U.S. 

 commercial landings of Ajnerican lobster (32, 1 00 

 metric tons (t)) and sea scallops (6,000 t) in 1997 

 ranked first and second in overall ex-vessel value 

 with $223 million and S87 million, respectively. 

 Additionally, landings oi surtclams, ocean quahogs, 

 squids, and northern shrimp contributed another 

 SlOO million in revenue. Ihe combined value oi 

 these fisheries exceeds that for all Northcist ofi- 

 shore finfish fisheries combined. 



Four separate fishery management plans regu- 

 late the harvest ot these invertebrate species. Two 

 of these are the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management 

 Council's Surtclam and Ocean Quahog Fishery 

 Management Plan and the New F^ngland Fishery 

 Management Council's Sea Scallop Fishery Man- 

 agement Plan. The northern shrimp and Ameri- 

 can lobster fisheries are regulated by the Atlantic 



States Marine Fisheries Commission under the At- 

 lantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management 

 Act. 



SPECIES AND STATUS 



American Lobster 



Comprehensive stock assessments of the 

 American lobster resource, last completed in 1996 

 (Northeast Fisheries Science (Center, 1996a,b), in- 

 dicated that recent fishing mortality rates on the 

 Gulf of Maine portion of the resource were nearly 

 double the overfishing level. For the resource fished 

 inshore from Cape Cod through long Island 

 Sound, fishing mortality was substantially greater 

 and nearly three times higher than the overfishing 

 level. FhroLighout the range, the fishery has be- 

 come increasingly dependent on newly recruited 

 animals (in some areas more than 90% ot the lob- 

 sters landed are newly recruited to the fishery). 



Woods Hole 

 Massachusetts 



American lobster off Maine 

 coast. 



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