outboard skiff stranded

Friendship Long Island, Me. -- Direct sunlight is setting, an icy wind has found off the ocean, alongwith the tide has gone out, leaving the minnkota skiff stranded about the shore of this nearlydeserted island.

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

Quick as lightning she grabs at something flapping within the water. "Got one! Before opening herrubber-gloved hands to show her catch, " she exclaims.

Cradled in their hand is really a tiny American lobster -- merely a four inches long, its antennaeflicking with curiosity, its claws thrashing about in protest. "Don't worry, I won't hurt you," she saysbefore placing it in a plastic container. Nearby, other tiny juvenile lobsters scrabble or rest in similardishes until Ms. Cowan can tag and measure them. None is beyond her hand.

Until recently, few lobster scientists knew that Maine's rocky tidal shores served as nurseries formany juvenile lobsters. Now, Ms. founder, Cowan and president from the Lobster Conservancy, anonprofit research organization in Friendship, Me., is counting, tagging, and tracking the littlecrustaceans, collecting data that may help scientists better predict trends in Maine's lobster stocks.The information can also solve unknown in regards to the delectable shellfish that is central topeople who harvest them.

Scientists happen to be baffled in the steady surge in catches of American, or "Maine" lobsters overthe past 15 years, which occurred whilst they warned of a decline. While increasing fishingpressures destroyed New England's stocks of halibut, haddock and cod and sea urchins -- andincreasingly more fishermen have turned to lobstering -- lobster stocks have not only stood up, theyappear to have risen.

A year ago, Maine's lobster catch soared to an additional record high, regardless that Gulf of Mainelobster stocks happen to be officially considered overfished for nearly two decades. Mainelobstermen landed 52.3 million pounds of lobster in 1999, compared to 47 million pounds in 1998and typical catches of 20 million pounds in the half-century ending in 1985. "Whenever the scientistssay the stock is about to collapse, we have seen a. Fire could spread rapidly

on a boat, even upon water.

Alarms and detectors can

help keep the crew safe.groan [of frustration] in the industry," says James A. Wilson, professor ofmarine science at the University of Maine at Orono. "Clearly, the model these are using is just notone who hits the nail about the head."

The approach which has proved so off-target will depend on the size and quantity of lobsters landedby fishermen. Such data in recent decades have frightened fishery managers because around 90percent of lobsters caught in Maine have just reached their legal size limit and so are unlikely toobtain bred. Barbecues shouldn?t be employed

on boats - hot charcoal provides off

dangerous levels of CO and

blown embers could set the boat

alight.

? Preserve cabin ventilation clear in order to

prevent a develop -up involving toxic CO.

? try to maintain fabrics away from

cooking hobs to end up being able to avoid all of them

from catching fire.

? Examine the flues associated with coal and also wood

burning stoves for signs of leaks

and blockages.

? only utilize the gas recommended

by your heater manufacturer.

Othertypesmayburnaswel

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? Dispose regarding embers carefully.

If they?re nevertheless heat they might

cause a new fire or build-up of CO.

? Ensure most hobs have got shut-off

or isolation valvesThis has generated predictions that the brood stock would fall, removing thefoundations of the two lobster population along with a lifestyle in coastal Maine.

Although nobody knows why lobsters havethrived, experts have floated several theories.The collapse of cod as well as other sharkstocks in early 1990's could have reduced thenumbers of predators that eat baby lobsters,while increasing the habitat accessible tolobsters. Lobstermen can be inadvertently inthe role of lobster minn kota terrova farmers,as another possibility. The improved numberof traps -- and bait -- within the water might befeeding the young, which can be small enoughto slip into and from traps. And Maine'sregulations -- which prohibit taking lobstersmore than a certain size -- may have made abig stock of large breeders, hiding somewhereout in the deep and also as yet undetected byfisheries managers.

Whatever your reason, scientists say these are finally making some headway in managing lobsterresources. New information has pointed into a better way of predicting just what the population willdo later on.

Recent reports suggest that the perfect time to assess the prospects of a given generation of lobstersoccurs when they first settle at the base a couple of weeks after they are hatched, rather thantraditional time -- at around 7 years old, after they reach minimum commercial size.

Lobsters lay eggs from the tens of thousands, which hatch to become tiny larvae that will get carriedby ocean currents. Largemouth bass and other predators eat nearly all those larvae. But after 30 to40 days, the cricket-sized survivors drop on the bottom and search for a spot to hide.

"Mortality drops off dramatically after the juveniles find shelter, mainly because they basically don'tmove for the following year or so," says Richard A. Wahle, an analysis scientist with the BigelowLaboratory for Ocean Sciences in Boothbay Harbor, Me. Mr. Wahle and his awesome colleaguesmade this discovery by collecting young lobsters from your ocean floor to observe their populationtrends. "You might have survival rates of 70 to 90 %, that was an unexpected to everyone."

Such work raised the possibility that by surveying juveniles, scientists could possibly predict betterwhat the commercial lobster stock may be like five or six years in the future.

"We've got this reasonably well nailed down, so that we must be able to make use of this like a goodindicator of population tendencies," says Robert S. Steneck in the University of Maine's DarlingMarine Center, in Walpole.

Mr. Steneck, Mr. Wahle, Ms. Cowan, as well as other scientists are tracking the juveniles since theybecome adolescents, the period of time between when they leave their shelters at age 3 along withthe time, two to five years later, when they get to the minimum legal carapace duration of 31/4inches and begin landing in lobster pounds. Mr. Steneck says they're already going to a "nicecorrelation" between the quantity of bottom settlers they've recorded in the given year's "class" andthe number of undersized lobsters appearing in lobster traps many years later. Further confirmation

can come from new trawl surveys through the Maine Department of Marine Resources, and datafrom Ms. Cowan's intertidal surveys.

If you find a correlation between larvae future and settlement lobster landings, the fishery could beset for a downturn. Since 1996, Mr. Wahle with his fantastic Bigelow colleague, oceanographerLewis S. Incze, have seen a drop in the amount of larvae and newly settled lobsters at two siteswithin the western Gulf of Maine. If similar trends are occurring at other areas around the coast, thelobster industry might visit a decline in the following couple of years.

"The major mystery is why there's this modification in larvae and post-larvae," Mr. Incze says. "Willit be the transport? The egg hatching? The result of overfishing? We have no idea."

Scientists agree that early detection of changing population trends is less difficult than identifyingwhy the alterations are occurring. Understanding in which the larvae result from -- and whatconditions improve their survival -- has become a focus of research with this direction.

A tremendous proportion of larvae travel great distances on coastal currents before coming tonursery grounds. That's one theory.

Last year, larval surveys by Eric Annis, a graduate student on the Darling Marine Center, suggestedthat this Eastern Maine Coastal Current might work as a larvaehttp://www.srh.noaa.gov/key/?n=marine superhighway. The current, which flows from east to westdown Maine's coast, may deliver huge quantities of larvae into Maine's highly productive PenobscotBay lobster fishery from as a long way away as New Brunswick, Canada. "If this proves correct,then, from the big picture, which means how this fishery gets managed by other states and countriesis vital," says Mr. Incze, who supervised the research.

Earlier sampling of newly settled lobsters by Mr. Wahle also showed few larvae in eastern Maine(where lobster catches are small) and enormous quantities in western Penobscot Bay (whichcontains record landings). Mr. Steneck says it's possible that a warm ocean-temperature front offPenobscot Bay may prompt many larvae to settle on the bottom, building a veritable snowfall of tinylobsters.

They caution they will not yet understand the relative significance of larvae that are hatched locallyand those transported along the coastal current. However if the latter are an important force,natural variations in currents, wind patterns, and ocean temperature could considerably influencethe lobster fishery. A slight change could deposit commuting larvae in deep water (where they maynot survive) or on sand or mud bottoms (where they can make a brief meal for zander).

"It's possible that oceanographic factors are playing a significantly larger role in lobster demographythan are definitely the lobster catches," Mr. Steneck says. "That's almost heresy to express within aworld that's so seriously overfished, where numerous stocks happen to be entirely extracted. Butlobsters have demostrated themselves to become highly resilient."

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