ALBERTON
There will be more numbers presented at the P.E.I. Fishermen’s Association’s annual General meeting in Charlottetown next month, but Francis Morrissey just couldn’t wait that long to share a statistic from Lobster Fishing Area 24.
Morrissey, president of the Western Gulf Fishermen’s Association shared with membership during the WGFA’s annual meeting in Alberton Monday the result from a settlement survey conducted last summer.
He explained special wire traps, filled with rock to imitate the ocean floor, are put out in the same areas around P.E.I. each summer. Biologists later collect the traps and count the small lobsters hiding among the rocks to get a sense of the strength of lobster recruitment in an area.
“It was the highest recruitment that was ever recorded any place in Canada or the United States,” Morrissey said of the count in the WGFA’s survey area off Goose Harbour.
Biologists counted 198 small lobster, almost 100 more than at the next highest survey location. “That speaks very well for the area,” Morrissey assured membership.
Fellow WGFA director Lloyd Phillips said 130 small lobster was the highest number ever recorded in a survey at that location previously.
