PORTLAND (AP) — Fishery managers are using trawlers and trappers to collect data to better understand the future prospects of the Gulf of Maine’s collapsed shrimp population.
Regulators say the data will help track size, gender, development of the shrimp and timing of egg hatch. The Maine Department of Marine Resources is paying four trawlers $500 per trip and allowing them to sell up to 1,800 pounds of shrimp per trip. It is also allowing five trappers to keep up to 100 pounds of shrimp per week for personal use.
Maine’s shrimp fishery is in its second year of closure. Fishermen landed nearly 5 million pounds of shrimp in 2012 before the fishery collapsed to 563,000 pounds in 2013. Regulators say the decline is linked to environmental factors such as warming ocean temperatures.
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