Lobster season opens today

By Tina Comeau

NovaNewsNow.com

The lobster fishery off southwestern Nova Scotia opened on Monday morning as fishermen headed out to sea with their lobster traps and gear on dumping day.

One again, the price lobster fishermen will receive for their lobsters was weighing heavily on their minds as they departed their wharves at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m., depending on which lobster fishing area they fish out of.

In a meeting held couple of weeks prior to the opening of the season between fishing port reps and lobster buyers, the buyers at the table said they would set a price on the first day lobsters are hauled to remove any guesswork.

Fishermen are worried the price won’t be high enough, particularly due to what happened last year when prices were low.

This is the largest lobster fishery in Canada.

Resources are in place Monday to make sure the season opens smoothly, but to also react in cases of emergencies or vessel breakdowns.

Donnie Billard, Maritime coordinator for the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre, says every year there is a heightened focus on resources for the opening of the lobster season off southwestern Nova Scotia.

Resources employed during the first day of the season include the larger Canadian Coast Guard ships the Edward Cornwallis and the Sir William Alexander. There are cutters deployed in the region, including the Clarks Harbour, Sambro and Westport. DFO patrol boats will also be employed. There is aircraft on standby in Greenwood which can be airborne within a half hour should the need arise.

Fishermen can contact the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre if they run into trouble. But heading to season fishermen were being cautioned that part of their safety on the water also depends on how they get the word out if they are in an emergency or distress situation. “If you’ve got a problem on you boat, you’re taking on water, lost someone overboard, you should call Coast Guard radio,” said Billard, warning fishermen that if they make emergency phone calls solely on their cellphones the response might not be the same since other nearby vessels won’t be aware of the situation and therefore can’t come to their aid. Often these other fishing vessels are the closest ones in terms of a response.

Search and rescue officials were also once again urging all fishermen to make sure the EPIRBs on their fishing vessels are registered.

Because if they’re not registered than fishermen in an emergency situation could find out things are even more dire.

Not having a registered EPIRB – an emergency position indicating radio beacon – could waste valuable time and resources if it is activated in a distress situation. Without the device being registered, it could take search and rescue officials hours to track it down. “We get a lot of problems down here in southwest Nova with EPIRBS that are not registered,” sais Billard. “If I say to you, ‘Is it registered?’ and you say ‘I think it is,’ that’s not the answer I’m looking for.”

Part of the problem behind an unregistered EPIRB is fishermen who have bought a vessel and had equipment installed on it may presume that their EPIRB has been registered for them. But unless a fisherman has directly taken steps to register their own EPIRB then it isn’t registered because this isn’t something that is automatically done at the time of purchase.

Registered EPIRBs provide search and rescue officials with contact information – the name of the vessel, telephone numbers, the location a vessel fishes in, the number of crew, and so on. Conversely, unregistered EPRIBs can cause delays in locating a vessel in distress and they can tie up resources to locate a vessel that isn’t in distress.

Every time an EPIRB is activated it has to be treated as a distress situation unless there is information to the contrary. That means as soon as the EPIRB goes off, search and rescue resources are being tasked. “It’s unreal, you wouldn’t believe the goose chases we get on this stuff,” said Billard.

But if it can quickly be discovered there is no emergency situation through the contact information available from a registered EPIRB – something as simple as a phone call – emergency resources can stand down.

And given the abuse EPIRBs take from the weather conditions fishermen are fishing in, there are equipment malfunctions and false alarms.

And just like it important to register the EPIRB on a vessel, it is equally important to update any changes like a contact telephone number, crew and fishing location changes, and vessel ownership changes.

Fishermen will spend today dumping their lobster traps at sea. They are permitted to start hauling up their traps one minute past midnight.