How are Recruitment Trap Data Used in Lobster Assessments?
What we need to know is how the lobster population responds to fishing, ecosystem changes (temperature), and management actions. Understanding the population response requires indicators. Three main indicators used to understand lobster populations are: • Abundance • Distribution • Exploitation The FSRSs recruitment data provides information for all of these indicators. By using the recruitment data one can look at abundance trends by area and size, distribution by size, and exploitation rate by area and size. Greater than 50% of the data used in the recent LFA 33 lobster stock assessment conducted by DFO was provided by the FSRS in the form of lobster recruitment data. • To assess lobster abundance through recruitment data we are looking at trends in the catch rate of specific size groupings of lobsters over the seasons. We are actively encouraging increased participation in the lobster recruitment project to help reduce uncertainty in these estimates of lobster abundance. To account
