Description of the Gulf Region lobster fishery in 1993, 2005, 2011, and 2016 from standardized phone surveys of southern Gulf of St. Lawrence lobster fishers / Stephanie A. Boudreau and David Giard.: Fs97-4/3247E-PDF

"American lobster (Homarus americanus) supports the most valuable commercial fishery in Atlantic Canada. Over the past decades, lobster landings and abundance indicators in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence (SGSL) have been increasing; landings are above the long-term median and commercial landings are expected to continue in an upward trend. Management of the SGSL lobster fishery is based entirely on fishing effort. The four most important measures in controlling lobster fishing effort are; (1) a fixed number of lobster fishing licenses, (2) individual trap allocations, (3) limited fishing seasons, and (4) trap specifications. Information on how this fishing effort is deployed, and the impact regulatory changes have on effort, is not well understood or documented. To learn more about the spatial, temporal, and socio-economic changes in the SGSL lobster fishery, telephone surveys of lobster fishers were conducted in 1993-94, 2006, 2012 and 2017. Questions were constructed around five general topics; (1) vessels, (2) traps, (3) fishing patterns, (4) general opinions and, (5) captain and crew. This manuscript combines four surveys that represented the 1993, 2005, 2011, and 2016 fishing seasons. A Canadian Industry Report for the 1993-94 survey has been already published. The 2005, 2011, and 2016 survey results are presented for the first time in this document. Results demonstrate that there have been some notable changes in addition to evidence of regional variabilities in some fishing practices while others are stable across the multiple surveys, years, and areas"--Abstract, page iv.

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