A federal appeals court has upheld the Maine Department of Marine Resource's right to continue monitoring the movements of federally-permitted lobster boats using electronic vessel tracking devices.
According to the DMR, the collection of this spatial data helps regulators improve their understanding of fishing effort in federal waters and make better management decisions and enforcement actions. Those decisions are becoming increasingly complex in the face of a changing lobster stock, the need to protect endangered whales, and emerging ocean uses, like offshore wind development.
But a small group of Maine lobsterman challenged the tracking requirement, implemented in 2023, on grounds that it amounts to unreasonable search and seizure. When their case was dismissed by a federal judge in U.S. district court in 2024, one of the five fishermen appealed.
Erica Fuller is a Senior Counsel with the Conservation Law Foundation's ocean program. The non-profit environmental advocacy group supports the First Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that the tracking is not a violation of the lobsterman's Fourth Amendment rights. And, she says, both the industry and conservation efforts can benefit from it, because the spatial data being collected show the "fishing footprint" — exactly where and when fishing is happening.
"There have been times in the historical past where lack of reliable data has led to fisheries collapses. We've seen that in the menhaden fishery a long time ago, and the mackerel fishery, the halibut fishery, and even in the lobster fishery," Fuller said. "So always, I think good data makes for better science."
Fuller says the appellant, Frank Thompson of Vinalhaven, now has 60 days to appeal to the Supreme Court, or ask for the entire panel of U.S. First Circuit judges to review his case.
