Apr 28, 2009 7:23 pm US/Eastern
High-Tech Lobster Traps Take Ocean's Temperature
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
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These special lobster traps can gouge the temperatures of water.
WBZ
The lobster industry is considered our state's greatest marine resource, valued in the billions, and now this age old industry is helping do modern science.
"What we are concerned most about is the movement of lobsters. It is the most unpredictable animal that anyone could go after," said lobsterman Dave Cassoni, in the industry for 35 years.
Lobster movements depend on ocean temperatures at the bottom.
"Around 40 degrees, that is their happy time -- it's their beach. All of a sudden they are active, they are moving around," said Cassoni.
And when lobsters are on the move, they can be caught, but temperatures at the bottom of the ocean have eluded lobstermen.
"Every lobsterman for generations has probably done something to try to figure out what the bottom temperature is," added Cassoni.
A research program called
eMOLT (environmental monitors on lobster traps) is trying to change that.
"The variables we are measuring are temperature, salinity, and current," said NOAA oceanographer Jim Manning.
Over 100 lobstermen from Canada down the coast to Rhode Island are attaching sensors to their lobster traps to collect data on conditions at the bottom of the water column.
"The lobstermen are very organized. They are really scientists themselves. They are very interested in documenting their resource to explain the catch. It is logical, they have the most at stake," stated Manning.
The research program has been going on for several years and already Manning has many interesting findings.
"The warmest time of year at the bottom of Mass Bay is not the summer, it happens in November. Lobstermen thought they knew this and now the data confirms it," said Manning.
According to the data, the catch also seems to spike around the time bottom temperatures peak. Each lobsterman has his own Web site where the data collected from year to year is displayed and analyzed by Manning.
"When we put this all together, it provides a great deal of information to us harvesters," said Cassoni. "We hope to see any kind of long range impacts of the bottom temps on lobsters, on lobster density, and migration. This will help us maximize the catch and better manage the resource."
Mannings sees this data as a small piece of much larger goals in ocean science.
"There is a nationwide effort now to build an integrated ocean observing system and this is just a small local component to that," he said. The goal is to eventually model and forecast ocean currents just like weather in the atmosphere.
"This data has implications for many ocean interests including
red tide, marine mammals, and invasive species," added Manning.
Right now the temperature data is downloaded at the end of every season after collecting hourly data from April to November.
This allows Manning to correlate the catch with temperature trends looking back over time. The next phase of research includes the implementation of temperature sensors that transmit real time data so that lobstermen can get instant feedback on bottom temperatures to help maximize the catch.
"We have not figured out what triggers these animals. Like I say, they are brighter than us. I am not sure I like that," chuckled Cassoni.
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