outboard skiff stranded

Friendship Long Island, Me. -- Sunlight is setting, an icy wind has picked up from the ocean, and thetide went out, leaving the outboard skiff stranded on the shore on this nearly deserted island.

This is the moment that Diane Cowan has awaited. Wearing tall rubber boots, she wades into theshallows, overturning rocks and small boulders, her breath visible from the fading light.

Quick as lightning she grabs at something flapping in the water. "Got one! " she exclaims, beforeopening her rubber-gloved hands to show her catch.

Cradled in their hand is a tiny American lobster -- only a four inches long, its antennae flicking withcuriosity, its claws thrashing about in protest. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you," she says beforeplacing it in the plastic container. Nearby, other tiny juvenile lobsters scrabble or rest in similardishes until Ms. Cowan can tag and measure them. None is over her hand.

Until recently, few lobster scientists knew that Maine's rocky tidal shores served as nurseries forlarge numbers of juvenile lobsters. Now, Ms. Cowan, founder and president in the LobsterConservancy, a nonprofit research organization in Friendship, Me., is counting, tagging, andtracking the tiny crustaceans, collecting data that can help scientists better predict trends inMaine's lobster stocks. The data might also solve unknown in regards to the delectable shellfishwhich is central to the people who harvest them.

Scientists have been baffled at the steady increase in catches of American, or "Maine" lobsterswithin the last fifteen years, which occurred when they warned of the decline. While increasingfishing pressures destroyed New England's stocks of halibut, cod and haddock and sea urchins -- andincreasingly more fishermen have turned into lobstering -- lobster stocks have not simply stood up,they appear to have risen.

Last year, Maine's lobster catch soared to another record high, even though Gulf of Maine lobsterstocks are already officially classified as overfished for almost two decades. Maine lobstermenlanded 52.3 million pounds of lobster in 1999, compared to 47 million pounds in 1998 and typicalcatches of 20 million pounds from the half-century ending in 1985. "Each and every time thescientists say the stock is about to collapse, there has been a groan [of frustration] in the industry,"says James A. Wilson, professor of marine science in the University of Maine at Orono. "Clearly, themodel these are using is just not one which hits the nail in the head."

The approach that has proved so off-target will depend on the size and quantity of lobsters landed byfishermen. Such data in recent decades have frightened fishery managers because around 90 % oflobsters caught in Maine have just reached their legal size limit and therefore are unlikely to obtainbred. This has generated predictions that this brood stock would fall, taking away the foundations ofthe lobster population as well as a way of living in coastal Maine.

Although nobody knows why lobsters have thrived, experts have floated several theories. Thecollapse of cod and other goldfish stocks in the early 1990's could have reduced the numbers ofpredators that eat baby lobsters, while increasing the habitat available to lobsters. Lobstermenmight be inadvertently in the role of lobster farmers, as another possibility. The increased quantityof traps -- and bait -- in the water could be feeding the young, which can be small enough to slip intoand out from traps. And Maine's regulations -- which prohibit taking lobsters spanning a certain size

-- could have developed a big stock of large breeders, hiding somewhere out in the deep so that asyet undetected by fisheries managers.

Whatever the reason, scientists say they may be finally making some headway in managing lobsterresources. New information has pointed to a better strategy for predicting just what the populationcan do in the foreseeable future.

Recent studies advise that a good time to evaluate the prospects of any given generation of lobstershappens when they first settle at the base a few weeks after they are hatched, as opposed to thetraditional time -- at around 7 years of age, after they reach minimum commercial size.

Lobsters lay eggs by the tens of thousands, which hatch in becoming tiny larvae that will get carriedby ocean currents. Fresh fish along with other predators eat most those larvae. But after 30 to 40days, the cricket-sized survivors drop for the bottom and search for a place to hide.

Since they basically don't move for the next year or so," says Richard A, "Mortality drops offdramatically as soon as the juveniles find shelter. Wahle, a study scientist on the Bigelow Laboratoryfor Ocean Sciences in Boothbay Harbor, Me. Barbecues shouldn?t end up being employed

on boats - hot charcoal provides off

dangerous numbers of CO as well as

blown embers could set the boat

alight.

? Maintain cabin ventilation clear for you to

prevent any construct -up associated with toxic CO.

? try to keep fabrics from

cooking hobs for you to prevent these

from catching fire.

? Examine the flues of coal and wood

burning stoves pertaining to signs of leaks

and blockages.

? Simply utilize the gasoline suggested

by the heater manufacturer.

Other kinds may burn up also hot.

? Dispose involving embers carefully.

If they?re still heat they could

cause the fire or build-up associated with CO.

? Ensure almost all hobs get shut-off

or isolation valvesMr. By collectingyoung lobsters through the oceanfloor to keep track of their populationtrends, Wahle with his fantasticcolleagues made this discovery. "Youmay have survival rates of 70 to 90percent, which had been a surprise toeveryone."

Such work raised the chance that bysurveying juveniles, scientists couldpossibly predict more accuratelyprecisely what the commercial lobsterstock may be like five or six years inthe future.

"We've got this reasonably well nailed down, and then we will be minn kota rebate able to utilize thislike a good indicator of population tendencies," says Robert S. Steneck in the University ofhttp://www.mercurymarine.com/ Maine's Darling Marine Center, in Walpole.

Mr. Steneck, Mr. Wahle, Ms. Cowan, and other scientists are actually tracking the juveniles sincethey become adolescents, the length of time between once they leave their shelters at age 3 as wellas the time, two to five years later, after they achieve the minimum legal carapace period of 31/4inches and commence landing in lobster pounds. Mr. Steneck says they're already visiting a "nicecorrelation" between the amount of bottom settlers they've recorded inside a given year's "class"and the amount of undersized lobsters appearing in lobster traps a couple of years later. Furtherconfirmation will come from new trawl surveys with the Maine Department of Marine Resources,and data from Ms. Cowan's intertidal surveys.

The fishery might be set for a downturn if there is a correlation between larvae settlement andfuture lobster landings. Since 1996, Mr. Wahle and his awesome Bigelow colleague, oceanographerLewis S. Incze, have experienced a drop in the quantity of larvae and newly settled lobsters at twosites inside the western Gulf of Maine. If similar trends are occurring at other areas on the coast, thelobster industry might view a decline in the next several years.

"The major mystery means that there's this modification in larvae and post-larvae," Mr. Incze says."Could it be the transport? The egg hatching? Caused by overfishing? We have no idea."

Scientists agree that early detection of changing population trends is much simpler than figuring outwhy the changes are occurring. Understanding the location where the larvae result from -- and what

conditions increase their survival -- is already a focus of research with this direction.

One theory is the fact that a substantial proportion of larvae travel great distances on coastalcurrents before reaching nursery grounds.

Just last year, larval surveys by Eric Annis, agraduate student in the Darling Marine Center,suggested that the Eastern Maine CoastalCurrent might serve as a larvae superhighway.The current, which flows from east to westdown Maine's coast, may deliver huge variety oflarvae into Maine's highly productive PenobscotBay lobster fishery from as far away as NewBrunswick, Canada. "If the proves correct, then,within the big picture, it means how this fisherygets managed by other states and countries isextremely important," says Mr. Incze, whosupervised the research.

Earlier sampling of newly settled lobsters by Mr. Wahle also showed few larvae in eastern Maine(where lobster catches are small) and huge quantities in western Penobscot Bay (that has recordlandings). Mr. Steneck says it's probable that a warm ocean-temperature front off Penobscot. Ontypical , 20 fire-related accidents

and injuries occur on boats each yearBay may prompt many larvae to settle towards the bottom,developing a veritable snowfall of tiny lobsters.

The researchers caution that they can do not yet understand the relative incredible importance oflarvae which can be hatched locally and people transported along the coastal current. However, ifthe latter are a significant force, natural variations in currents, wind patterns, and oceantemperature could considerably influence the lobster fishery. A small change could depositcommuting larvae in deep water (where they could not survive) or on sand or mud bottoms (wherethey are a simple meal for ).

"It'spossiblethatoceanog

raphic factors are playing a significantly larger role in lobster demography than are the lobstercatches," Mr. Steneck says. "That's almost heresy to say within a world that's so seriouslyoverfished, where so many stocks have already been entirely extracted. But lobsters have revealedthemselves to be highly resilient."

Maintain the drastically increased harvest rates recently can't be maintained, though most scientistsand fishermen. The marine patterns could well shift back and send populations plummeting ifnatural variations inside the ocean have driven the lobster boom. According to everything we know,"says Ms, "You can't keep taking lobsters around this level and intensity forever, no less than. Cowan,tagging another tiny lobster on the darkening shore of Friendship Long Island.