Last season for “canner” type lobster in the Acadian Peninsula

Anglers can currently catch lobsters of two different minimum sizes.

The minimum carapace size for the “canner” type lobster, which was 77 mm, increases to 79 mm as of this season. It will increase to 81 mm next year, which corresponds to the carapace size of the “market” size lobster.

This is good news that will have positive repercussions on the entire industry, says Luc LeBlanc, advisor to the Maritime Fishermen’s Union (UPM).

” We were responsible, even though it was a big decision to leave a potentially exploitable lobster in the water. »

The members of theUPMMaritime Fishermen’s Union recently voted 75% in favor of this change in Zone 23, according to Luc LeBlanc. In the southeast of the province, anglers voted 77% in favor of increasing the minimum carapace size.

This is a strong resultadmits Luc LeBlanc. We’ve been asking for this change for a while. We made the right decision and waited for the stock and the market to be healthy to do so.

It will do us good

More than 570 fishing companies took to the sea from Pointe-Verte to Escuminac on Tuesday morning. We’re talking about more than 2,000 workers. The first landings are scheduled for Wednesday.

Among them, James Stewart, a lobster fisherman for thirty years in the Miscou region, northeast of the Acadian Peninsula, went to place his 300 traps in superb weather on Tuesday.

He accepts the decision to leave the smaller lobsters in the water, even if he will have to let go of the lobsters that normally would have ended up in the tanks of his boat.

” It’s a big change, but in my opinion, in two or three years from now, it will do us good. We’ve done it before, up the tempo, and it helped. It’s just that it went up a little quickly this year, but we’ll deal with it. »

Support for conservation

Letting lobsters grow to a larger size before catching them gives females more time to lay their eggs, which supports the conservation of the species, says Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

L’UPMMaritime Fishermen’s Union agrees.

It will be good for the stock. At 76 mm, 50% of the females able to reproduce were left at sea. There, it will be almost 100%. We will have more lobster, it will be bigger and heavier. Fishing companies will benefit. We have seen this measure elsewhere and it works continues Luc LeBlanc, of theUPMMaritime Fishermen’s Union.

Indigenous organizations were also consulted about this change, according to Fisheries and Oceans.

The little lobster less popular than before

This change should not shake consumer habits, believes Richard Bulger, owner of the Bulger Fish Market in Le Goulet, near Shippagan.

It does not change anything for us and for the customersnotes the experienced fishmonger.

It’s rare that we sell “canner” now. Fans prefer a “market” lobster of one pound or more. It’s more popular. Anyway, there’s not enough difference [de taille de la carapace] and it gives us less work to keep a single thickness. People often take “the big in the small”he said.

With information from journalist Mario Mercier