Imagine a world in which convenience store owners, under cover of darkness, take hacksaws to the hoses on their competitors’ gas pumps. Or where restaurant owners unplug their competitors’ freezers and refrigerators, spoiling their food. Or where a newspaper company smashes or steals thousands of its competitor’s delivery boxes. In any of the scenarios, would law enforcement and the public respond with a “well, that’s par for the course” shrug?
Of course not.
The public would be outraged at such intimidation, such lawlessness, such costly destruction. Yet in the lobster business, there is a “ho-hum” response to incidents where one fisherman cuts the lines to 50, 100 or more traps. The victim who loses 100 traps has to spend well over $5,000 to replace the gear. It’s easy to see why some turned to violence on Matinicus Island last summer.
Lobstermen see themselves, and are understood by the public, as rugged individualists, answering to no one, making their own rules. This image must change. They are business owners, often with $250,000 invested in their boats. Cutting competitors’ traps must not be tolerated by the public, by law enforcement and most importantly, by the industry itself.
Raising the penalty for those convicted of trap molestation, the charge that comes with cutting traps, would seem to be a logical step.
Not so fast, says Lt. Alan Talbot of the Maine Marine Patrol, who oversees the region from the St. George River to the Canadian border, including Matinicus Island. A couple of years ago, trap molestation was reduced from a criminal offense to a civil offense, primarily to make it easier to get convictions. In a civil case, the burden of proof is lower. Yet Lt. Talbot notes that twice in the last year juries acquitted in cases in which marine patrol officers witnessed men cutting trap lines. He believes jurors were reluctant to convict, knowing the defendant would lose his license for three years.
Marine patrol officers are frustrated. “We can’t hide behind a tree,” Lt. Talbot said, and getting an officer onto an island without every fisherman within five miles knowing it is also difficult. Most trap cutting occurs during the day, he said, usually under cover of fog. Officers can go undercover, posing as recreational boaters, but still, it is difficult to catch them in the act.
The industry pushed for stiffer fines for having short, oversized or V-notch lobsters, so fishermen are not outlaws by nature. The key to breaking the cycle may be to end the belief that fishermen have the right to defend their waters. “It’s so ingrained,” Lt. Talbot said, that cutting traps is an appropriate response to a newcomer putting his traps where another man has fished for years.
“It’s not their water,” he says. “It’s not their resource.” If leaders within each management zone step up and educate younger fishermen, the vandalism could end.
“It’s a great way to make a living,” Lt. Talbot says of lobstering. “Forget what the other guy is catching, just concentrate on what you’re doing,” he says. That’s good advice.