BET Students Work with
DEP on Saving the Lobster Population
The
students came prepared: pencils and data sheets on waterproof paper;
dial calipers to measure the length of each lobster from its eye
socket to the top of its tail; and something that looked like a
hand-held paper hole punch, but with a V-shaped notch. The 10 Grasso
Tech Bio-Science Environmental Technology students came to the State
of CT DEP site in
Old Lyme with their matching Grasso Tech sweatshirts and orange life
vests, ready to be trained for the front lines of the state's lobster-restoration
effort.
These students, along with groups from regional aquaculture high
schools in New Haven and Bridgeport, will provide the skilled
hands to carry out a new program intended to help rebuild the depleted
lobster population in Long Island Sound without
threatening the livelihood of the state's 60 or so remaining fulltime
lobstermen.
A bill approved by the legislature last session provides $1 million
for equipment and other expenses, including payment to the
participating lobstermen for female lobsters the students will throw
back. The V-Notch Program will put teams of two students
on the boats with up to 30 lobstermen who have agreed thus far to
participate, starting as soon as the end of the month and
continuing through the end of the school year.
The students, all seniors who will earn school credit and be paid
$10 an hour, will record the size, shell condition and sex of each
lobster trapped, and then make a V-shaped cutout in the tails of
legal-sized females. Only females not laden with eggs will be notched,
to ensure that the handling and notching doesn’t disturb the
eggs.
If the notched females are trapped again in the next two years while
the notch is still visible, they cannot be kept. Any notched
lobsters that find their way outside of Connecticut waters would
also have to be thrown back. Since lobsters molt yearly, by the
third year the shells are expected to be notch-free.
While Maine
and parts of New York also have V-notch programs, Connecticut is
unique in employing high school students to collect the data and
do the notching through the Work Based Learning
Program previously known as CWE. But getting the program going has
been an arduous journey for all involved. Insurance had to be purchased
to cover the students working on the lobster boats. Lobstermen had
to agree to submit to background checks on themselves and their crews,
purchase life rafts and have a special safety check of their boat.
Survival suits for each student had to be ordered.
Once the suits
arrive, the Coast Guard will train students in water safety and survival.
The V-notch program helps lobstermen avoid another size-limit increase,
which lowers the number of legal lobsters that can be caught. The
program not only benefits the lobsterman, but also the students.
