The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) and the Maine Department of Marine Resources are sponsoring a programme to collect data that will help managers better understand the future prospects of the once lucrative Northern Shrimp Fishery.

The 2015 Gulf of Maine shrimp season is closed because of record low abundance. This is the second year Maine’s northern shrimp fishery has been closed due to low abundance of both harvestable size shrimp and juvenile shrimp. The ASMFC has concluded that the decline is linked to a combination of environmental factors, including warming ocean temperatures.

While data from this limited sampling project won’t help estimate current stock abundance, it will help managers track the timing of egg hatch, size and gender, and developmental stage of the shrimp.

Four trawlers from Maine and Massachusetts and five Maine-based trappers have been selected to collect samples in four regions in the Gulf of Maine. The project is timed to coincide with the historical commercial fishing season so data can be more accurately compared with past fishery samples.

Starting in late January, the trawlers began fishing in four regions of the Gulf of Maine. Fishing approximately once every two weeks, for a total of five trips apiece, they will continue until the shrimp are no longer carrying eggs, estimated to be near the middle of March.

The five trappers will each fish up to 10 traps and will provide samples to DMR five times between 1 February and 20 March.

In Maine, approximately 600 licensed fishermen landed nearly 5 million pounds of shrimp valued at $4.6 million in 2012. In 2013 landings dropped to 563,000 pounds, worth approximately $1 million.

Samples from the program are now being worked up at the DMR lab and results to-date can be found on the Maine DMR website.

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