The wind is whipping the sides of the dock on this bright, cold afternoon in Jonesport.
"I think my fingers are too frozen."
Brooke Hachey of the Sunrise County Economic Council is leading a demonstration of a kind of "on demand," sometimes called "ropeless" lobster fishing gear.
In a bid to protect North Atlantic right whales from extinction, many scientists are promoting this kind of alternative lobster fishing gear that minimizes the risks of entanglement.
While some lobstermen in Massachusetts have agreed to use this new gear in exchange for accessing closed areas of Cape Cod Bay, most Maine lobstermen have been reluctant — if not outright resistant — to the new technology.
The state, along with a coalition of other partners, have launched a new gear testing and lending program in effort to — at least — change the conversation.
Hachey and a helper maneuver the trap near the edge of the dock and toss it into the water.
These wire traps will sink to the ocean bottom just like traditional ones. But they're not connected to a buoy at the surface via a long vertical line that might entangle a right whale.
Instead, an acoustic signal is sent down to the trap, which releases a buoy that brings the stowed line to the surface.
"Once you hit the acoustic signal, this cam just turns and releases that line, and so the buoy and the mesh just open, and you get your end line up," said Briony Donahue, a marine resources scientist for the Maine Department of Marine Resources.
Using an app on a tablet, a team member presses a button on an app. After a few seconds, the buoy floats to the surface, bringing the line with it. And the group hauls the trap up to the surface.
Commercial lobsterman Chris Urquhart watches as the group tosses two more traps into the frigid water. These models are slightly different but also rely on acoustic signals that release the trap to the surface.
Urquhart has been fishing for nearly 40 years. He said he's seen some of the gear before in videos online and decided to come see the equipment himself.
"It's just so dang expensive," Urquhart said. "That's the problem. It's going to be very, very expensive."
A 2023 study found that the Massachusetts lobster fishery could be headed for deep economic trouble if it fully converted to on demand gear. Some of the units run around $10,000 to get started, plus more for each trap. That's compared to about $150 to $200 for a traditional trap.
The Maine Department of Marine Resources has purchased several different varieties of on-demand fishing gear through grant money and donations. And the department is paying fishermen $400 to $500 a day to test it and provide feedback.
So far, eight people have signed up.
"It might be worth it just to try some of it out to see; I don't know," Urquhart said. "Then it's like they look at you and go, yeah, you're just doing that and all it's going to do is encourage them to push it further. Yeah, well there's a point too, I suppose."
Down the road from the outdoor demonstration, fishermen who gathered inside a local church meeting room echoed Urquhart's concerns. They worried that federal regulators would take their participation in the gear trials as an endorsement of the equipment itself — and that the Maine fishery could eventually be forced to use on-demand gear all the time.
"I don't think that's realistic, but that is a concern," said Tora Johnson with the Sunrise County Economic Council, which is partnering with Maine DMR to raise awareness about the alternative gear and solicit feedback from fishermen. "And as long as that's a kind of common misconception, it's going to be risky for the folks who have the courage to step up and test the gear."
Jonesport fisherman Dean Faulkingham, 38, is one of the eight people who has agreed to participate.
He fishes offshore and has been trying out a few types of gear over the last two months.
Faulkingham said he knows that most other fishermen do not look kindly on the alternative gear.
But after years of feeling like his voice wasn't heard at federal regulatory hearings, he said he viewed the gear testing program as a rare forum to provide real feedback. And while most Maine gear testers have remained anonymous, Faulkingham is one of the few who is willing to talk about it publicly.
“Maybe I can get through and make people understand a little bit more it's not as bad as everybody thinks it is, or the rumors have made it out to be,” he said. “And in anything, it's adapt or die. At some point either way — and we've done plenty of it over the last few years — it's either our industry dies, or we make adaptations — whether we agree with them or not — to meet in the middle.”
Some gear types, Faulkingham said, are better than others. Those that rely on an acoustic signal to trigger the release of stowed up to the surface are less cumbersome than the other varieties.
But he said he still doesn’t believe the alternative gear is a viable, permanent replacement to what he uses now. But he said if the fishery ever faced temporary closures because right whales were spotted in the area — as Massachusetts lobstermen have experienced — the gear could be made to work.
“We can't afford to be shut down for a month or two months, especially in the fall, which is our biggest time of the year,” Faulkingham said. “If we have a solution that keeps us at least working, it's better than being shut down and told that I can't provide for my family.”
As for veteran lobsterman Chris Urquhart, he still appears skeptical after watching the demonstration in Jonesport.
"I don't know," Urquhart said, when asked whether he'd ever consider testing the alternative gear. "Some of them looked like they might be alright. But some of them looked like they're a lot more complicated than they probably need to be. I guess they're just trying to figure this stuff out. I'm not sure we really need it."
Urquhart pointed to the temporary regulatory reprieve, championed by Maine's congressional delegation, that places a moratorium on new right whale regulations for the industry through 2028.
And many fishermen maintain that they've never seen a right whale in Maine waters, though marine scientists say the individuals are notoriously difficult to spot, especially from a lobster boat.
Earlier this winter, nearly one-fifth of the population was spotted by plane near Jeffreys Ledge, a busy fishing area in the Gulf of Maine.
Back at the Jonesport dock, demonstration organizers said they're pleased with how the event has gone.
"It's been much more positive than I thought it would be," said Hachey of the Sunrise County Economic Council. "A lot of the guys just want to be heard, which is why we wanted them to come here."
About two dozen fishermen stopped by the demonstration, the organizers said. In the meantime, another 10 Maine fishermen are in the queue to take part in using the state's new gear library.
