Month: June 2014

Update6/25/14

Joey,

This is great information, I appreciate your continued support of the tagging program, thanks to many of you this tagging project has been a great success, we’ve obtained recapture information on 24% of the lobsters that were tagged.  This is a very good reporting rate, and although we have yet to analyze all the data we’ve collected, we do have some preliminary results to share.  Out of the 2,200 lobsters we’ve tagged, lobstermen have provided recapture information on 525 lobsters.  Though finer scale movements within the state of NH are extremely important to this study so that we can properly assess seasonal migrations, perhaps the most interesting tag returns have come from Massachusetts.  Since tagging began in 2012, approximately 50 lobsters have been reported in Massachusetts waters, four of which were caught off of Cape Cod and traveled nearly 100 miles.

The lobster that you reported was tagged on 6/16/2013 near the Isles of Shoals and it was a female.  At the time the lobster was tagged it measured 79mm which is sublegal.  Approximately a year later the lobster you reported moved approximately 45 miles (straight line distance), molted and was legal size when caught.  The majority of tagging for this project has been completed; however, we’re very interested in receiving recapture information as long as lobstermen are observing these lobsters.  Thanks again for your support and let me know if you have any additional questions.  I’ve attached a map from Google Earth so you can see where the lobster was tagged and recaptured.

Thanks,

Josh

Joshua T. Carloni

Lobster Biologist

Marine Fisheries Division

NH Fish and Game…connecting you to life outdoors

www.wildnh.com, www.facebook.com/nhfishandgame

Matt Cooney Landed This Tagged Lobster A Couple of Days Ago

A couple of years ago Dave Jewell caught one and when we contacted the NH Fish and Game authority who was responsible for the tagging program they gave us all the information about where it was released, when it was released and how far it had travelled.  Hoping to get the same feedback on this one.

This was the one Dave caught two years ago-

NEW HAMPSHIRE FISH AND GAME LOBSTER TAGGED AND RELEASED ON 9/21/12, CAUGHT BY OUR LOBSTERMAN DAVE JEWELL IN GLOUCESTER ON 11/12/12

Dave Jewell skipper of the Lady J came in a couple of nights ago and handed me this tag which was attached to a lobster and the coordinates of where he caught it off Gloucester MA on November 12, 2012.

There was a telephone number on the other side of the tag which I plugged into Google and it came up as the number to New Hampshire Fish and Game.  So I then Googled New Hampshire Fish and Game Lobster Tag and came up with this result

So then contacting Josh Carloni from New Hampshire Fish and Game’s Lobster Tag program I asked him more about the program and if there was any info he could give as to where the lobster that Dave caught was released or if we could put together a google map to show how far it traveled from September 21st to November 12th-

tag 247

If you have a press release about it or a google map of where certain lobsters were released and where they have been reported, that would be something that would get people excited.  anything visual has great impact.

an interactive google map would be really fun.

especially if you can put this particular lobster on there from where it was released to where it was caught.

Dave caught the lobster at Lat/Long 42.41.8/ 70.25.4

This was the info from Joshua about when it was released and the program itself-

Joey,
That lobster was tagged on 9/21 near the Isles of Shoals (42 57.186, 70 35.823), it was a female spent egger with a v-notch and it was 93.8mm.  I just had someone put your coordinates into google earth and it appears that lobster moved 20 miles.  If you would like to add something to your blog that would be great.

We’re trying to identify areas in New Hampshire with aggregations of large reproductive females and then track their movement.  It appears the Isles of Shoals area has a large number of large females with eggs and we would like to know why they are there and their associated movement.  Though we’ll be looking a variety of other information from this study, this is the major objective.  We’ll also be tagging smaller females and some males so that we can compare their movements with the larger animals and identify if they’re undertaking seasonal migrations.

We hope to tag a total of 2400 lobsters by November of  2013.  So far we’ve tagged approximately 550 lobsters and we have recapture information from approximately 70 lobsters.  A couple of lobsters have been reported travelling to the Gloucester area and two more lobsters were reported in the Portland ME area.  We really want to spread the word so that fishermen will report tags when the catch them.  There will be a raffle held in 2012, 2013 and 2014 and winners of the raffles (three winners each year) will win a 50 dollar gift certificate to New England Marine Industrial or a Grundens sweatshirt

Dana Johnson Created This Google Map Showing Where The Lobster Was Tagged and Released and Where Dave Caught It 7 Weeks Later After Traveling 20 Miles-

Click Map For Larger View-

My suggestion to Josh is instead of simply having a page where the fishermen can report lobsters caught with tags that he create a page with maps and info of every lobster released and caught with the names of the fishermen that caught them so they can generate more interest in the results with the fishermen as well as the general public and the people who are funding the studies.