LOBSTER INDUSTRY U.S., Canadians claw for space

A new Canadian fishing rule means trouble for American lobstermen.
ATLANTIC OCEAN (AP) -- Out here in the deep, green waters, there aren't any signs marking the border between the United States and Canada.
That's because ownership of 110 square miles of water known as the gray zone is in dispute in this part of the Atlantic Ocean, near the far northeastern corner of the United States.
The discrepancy wouldn't much matter but for one thing: lobster. The sea creatures, after all, fuel the economies and shape the cultures along much of coastal Maine and New Brunswick.
Lobstermen say the two sides have coexisted peacefully for decades because the Canadians fished in the winter and Mainers in the summer. That all changed when the Canadian government began allowing lobstermen from Grand Manan Island to fish at the same time Mainers are out in full force.
Bad results
The results this summer have been tangled and cut trap lines, frayed nerves and short tempers.
"What they're trying to do is drive us out -- that's what it comes down to," said Nick Lemieux, 28, one of 15 or so lobstermen from Cutler, Maine. But, he said, "We ain't got no place to go."
The Canadian lobstermen aren't going anywhere either. Klaus Sonnenberg, general manager of the Grand Manan Fishermen's Association, said the gray zone waters belong as much to Canada as the United States.
"American fishermen need to realize we're not going to leave the area to their exclusive use," Sonnenberg said.
The bulk of the ocean boundary between Canada and New England was decided in 1984 when the World Court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, created what is known as the Hague Line to resolve the dispute over the Georges Bank fishing grounds.
But the U.S. and Canadian governments deliberately passed up the chance to have the World Court determine the line where Maine and New Brunswick come together at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. This is where the gray zone, roughly 40 miles long and a dozen miles at its widest, is located.
Traditionally, Canadian fishermen from Grand Manan Island, which has about 3,000 residents, have lobstered the area from November through June. Mainers from Cutler, and other ports to a lesser extent, fished it from roughly April until late fall.
The arrangement worked well -- until last year when Canadian lobstermen asked the Canadian government to allow Grand Manan fishermen into the gray zone earlier than November.
In response, about 18 Grand Manan lobster boats, Canadian flags flying, began fishing the zone in mid-August last year. This year, 31 boats were permitted to fish the area beginning June 30.
Turf wars
Turf wars have been part of the rough-and-tumble world of lobstering for decades. Maine lobstermen have been known to cut trap lines and, on occasion, even ram other boats or pull out guns.
This time, though, the dispute is international.
In an attempt to resolve the dispute, a panel of industry and government representatives from both countries has been meeting since January, bogged down with different regulations and fishing practices.
One morning earlier this month, Lemieux and his crew hit the water aboard the 610-horsepower Phantom, spending some 11 hours hauling hundreds of traps, banding lobsters' claws with rubber bands, and baiting traps with mesh bags filled with stinky herring.
At one point, a Canadian lobsterman pulled near to haul traps of his own. Lemieux pulled a Canadian lobster trap that had become tangled in his lines on the ocean bottom. Several times Lemieux had to cut his lines with a knife to free them from Canadian lines.
Cutler fishermen say Canadian lobstermen have plenty of other space to put their traps, while those in Cutler are squeezed into a small slice of ocean bottom where the two countries come together.
Without the gray zone, they say the lobstering industry in Cutler, population 628, would be a skeleton of what it is now. It is lobsters that pay for the new pickup trucks that line Cutler's wharves, and the coats of white paint that spruce up the village's tidy houses.