New England lobster traps are nabbing dinner, data
BOSTON -- Skip Ryan has worked the same channel into Boston Harbor for 50 years, setting and hauling his lobster traps so often that he is certain of one thing.
"You just cannot figure these animals out," Ryan says. "They're not predictable."
To help science try to solve that riddle and others, Ryan and several other lobstermen have allowed the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration to tag their traps with devices that measure temperature and currents.
The project is known as eMOLT — short for Environmental Monitors on Lobster Traps and a play on the molting lobsters do when they shed their shells to grow. It has collected several years of data that are being prepped for use in an ambitious project linking ocean monitoring systems nationwide. The national project, called the Integrated Ocean Observing Systems, received $27.5 million more in funding from Congress earlier this month.
The eMOLT project's leader, NOAA oceanographer Jim Manning, says the readings could help foresee the strength of toxic red tides, determine prime spots for tidal power turbines and spot any climate change consequences.
Lobstermen hope the project can boost business by linking expected ocean conditions to their catch.
"If you know you've got a couple of bad years coming, you're not going to buy a new boat," said Jason Day, a Vinalhaven, Maine, lobsterman.
Manning first approached lobstermen in the mid-1990s after a stint on the midnight watch of a federal research vessel. While aboard, he saw lobster boats plying the water hundreds of miles offshore and came to realize each of the several million traps in the water could be used to gather valuable data.
He found New England lobsterman eager to help.
About 60 lobstermen with about 80 temperature probes among them have provided data since 2000 at a bargain price. The lobster trap temperature probes cost $150 each and collect information all year. More sophisticated data-gathering moorings cost $100,000 a year, and research boats cost about $12,000 a day for periodic sampling, Manning said.
