Panel targets sustainable urchin industry
An effort to revitalize Maine's urchin fishery is under way to create jobs while protecting the urchin population.
A Maine Department of Marine Resources advisory panel, made up of scientists, urchin harvesters and government regulators, is trying to develop a management plan that could both support harvesters and grow the fishery. In Maine's peak urchin years in the mid-1990s, the harvest topped 30 million pounds three years straight, according to The Associated Press, and the value exceeded $30 million, with thousands employed in the industry. But in 2010, after urchins were overharvested for their roe, a delicacy in Japan, the catch dwindled to 2.6 million pounds.
Trish De Graaf, a resource management coordinator with the Department of Marine Resources, told the paper, "Our model says the fishery would be sustainable if it was a third of what it was back in the 1990s. We don't have to rebuild to the abnormally large population we had back then, but we'd like to get it to the point where fishermen could make a good livelihoods off it."
Larry Harris, a University of New Hampshire marine scientist who is chairman of the urchin panel, said he'd like to see a plan implemented by next fall.
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