American Fisheries Society 369 



Our suggestion is that a permanent close season be placed on lobsters 

 above 12 inches long, in order to increase the number of young produced 

 by nature. Then the Bureau and the state commissions will, in addi- 

 tion, preserve the eggs from the lobsters between 9 and 11 inches long, 

 and thus increase in large measure the efficiency of the work as carried 

 on at present. 



To secure that and to secure an enforcement of the law which as it 

 exists today is absolutely impossible to enforce without a deputy in 

 every boat, we are suggesting that a law be passed making the lobster 

 pot of a legal specification, that is, that the entrance ring shall be about 

 3% inches in diameter inside, with space between the slats of about 2 

 inches. That will permit the small lobsters under 6, 7 or 8 inches to 

 escape; in any event, it will prevent the entrance of a lobster above 12 

 inches. Therefore by the inspection of the pots the inspection of the 

 marketed lobsters will be rendered unnecessary. The law will then in 

 a certain measure automatically enforce itself. The inspection of the 

 pots will be as relatively easy then as the inspection of scales and 

 measures. Each pot will be stamped by the inspector, and any pots 

 which do not conform to specifications can be destroyed wherever found, 

 whether in the water or elsewhere. It will be a severe tax on the 

 fisherman to have his pots destroyed, as they are valued at 75 

 cents to $1.50 apiece; therefore the enforcement of the law will be 

 relatively easy. 



I believe that the situation in Massachusetts in any event demands 

 some rather drastic measures. Our lobster supply has now come down 

 to less than five per cent of the total catch. The relative number of 

 egg lobsters in proportion to the number caught has dropped remark- 

 ably. Formerly one lobster in every 22 was an egg-bearing one. At 

 present I have not the exact figures here, but it is not very far from 

 one lobster in 150. That means a tremendous drain upon the productive 

 capacity of the race, and we have simply done it by killing the lobster 

 at the wrong end, that is to say, by killing the breeding adults. 



