Fate of a species versus an N.B region's lifeblood June 26, 2018

Luc Richard tosses a buoy from the Jean Cristelle in the Chaleur Bay.

Tom Bateman/Times and Transcript

CARAQUET • It's three hours into the first day of summer, and the only sound breaking the heavy nighttime silence is the chopping of frozen mackerel. By day's end, they will be used to bait 300 lobster traps.

There's silence onboard the 'Jean Cristelle' as the four crew members prepare for the day – everyone knows their role in the routine as soon as they meet up under the amber-orange glow of the wharf lights. Overalls on, bait prepared, gear ready.

Gilles Lanteigne, the captain of the lobster boat, emerges from the now- roaring engine room just before 4 a.m. His son Luc Richard, 26, and wife Patricia Richard continue cutting bait alongside longtime deckhand Charles Mainville.

It's hours before first light and the vessel is now allowed to set off.

Lanteigne flicks a switch and the familiar sounds of Top 40 hits break the silence.

"It's party time," Lanteigne grins. It's still pitch black and five degrees above zero.

'Like a police state'

For an industry built on routine, this year's fishery has been anything but normal for fishermen up and down the Acadian Peninsula.

Patricia Richard said the first inkling she had that the season would be different was in early spring when Fisheries and Oceans Canada barred snow crab vessels from a large, static zone where scientists believe the critically endangered North Atlantic right whales were going to spend the summer.

A month before the first whale had been spotted in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the zone was closed. Patricia said it was a forewarning of the summer to come and an overreaction by the government.

The year before, 12 right whales were found dead in Canadian waters. Experts estimate there are less than 450 right whales remaining, and have raised alarm that females seem to by dying in greater numbers.

After the sighting of several right whales off the Acadian Peninsula, DFO shut down much the Baie des Chaleurs between 's and 's Gaspe Peninsula. Some expected fishermen from ports cut off by the ban would flood into the still-open zones farther down the coast. Fisheries officers "were everywhere" immediately following the closure, Luc said. He saw three or four government boats in the water.

Several planes and a helicopter overhead felt “like a police state” to the crew aboard the Jean Cristelle, he said.

Luc said the message from federal Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc was clear - obey the new regulations or risk your licence.

With their livelihoods under threat, Luc said many assumed the closures would create tension in the fishing areas that remained open, as more fishermen pushed into the area.

That would have meant that fishermen like him, in a still-open portion of the gulf, could be inundated with lobster boats from more northern communities, desperate to land their catch by the closure of the season.

But it didn't happen. Luc said an unwritten "fishermen's code," unofficial boundaries between fishing communities, remained intact: the Caraquet fishermen wouldn't go near Miscou Island's waters, and the Miscou fishermen – now shut out of their own water – wouldn't push towards Caraquet.

"The fishermen from Miscou didn’t come here because they respect what we’ve established for years and years. They know that’s the right way,” Luc said. The federal government seemed to catch on to the code, and offered the Miscou fishermen an autumn fishery to make up their lost days, he said.

Luc said it's that 'code' that most people don't understand when they talk about the massive, multi-national effort to save the right whale and the role of the lobster fishery.

Fishermen up and down the coast of New Brunswick dispute government claims that whales come as close to shore as where they fish. “If by any circumstances we were to become a threat [to the whales], we’ll take the measures. That’s something everybody will respect. Universal,” Richard said.

'We are the green ones'

Lanteigne and his family can see their house from much of the area they fish, often in less than 30 feet of water.

Sometimes, they can see the sea floor in the areas where they drop traps.

"There's no whales here," said Patricia, who by her count is one of five women who work aboard a lobster boat at the Caraquet wharf.

Luc maintains the absence of whales, despite scientific information touted by Fisheries and Oceans when it defends its decision to close the shallow areas. Charles Mainville, sets aside freshly-caught lobster to be measured aboard the Jean Cristelle in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption

The crew harvest a lobster trap line aboard Jean Cristelle in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption First mate Patricia Richard holds a freshly-caught lobster up against the Chaleur Bay sunrise aboard the Jean Cristelle. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption A lobster boat in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption A lobster vessel works in the Chaleur Bay, near the line where fishing has been banned for fear of danger to the endangered right whale. Fishermen on Lameque Island, in the background, are unable to fish to the end of their season. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption Traps sit on a lobster boat in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption From right, Patricia Richard, Charles Mainville and Luc Richard wait for to pull a trap aboard the Jean Cristelle in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption Gilles Lanteigne, the captain of the Jean Cristelle, navigates the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption The Jean Cristelle sits docked at the Caraquet wharf. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption Luc Richard tosses a buoy from a lobster boat in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption Charles Mainville, shows off an impressive catch aboard the Jean Cristelle in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption Lobster boats work near a right whale dynamic closure zone in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption A lobster harvested by a lobster boat in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption Snow crab fishermen at the wharf in Caraquet.Hide Caption Lobster boats dock at the Caraquet wharf. Tom Bateman/Times & TranscriptHide Caption Luc Richard and Gilles Lanteigne repair a line aboard the Jean Cristelle in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption A lobster vessel in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption Frozen mackerel used as lobster bait is chopped in half aboard the Jean Cristelle before setting out to the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption Pecheries Baie Chaleurs LNC near Caraquet. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption Lobsters on a lobster boat in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption The Ti-Francis lobster boat in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption The Vicky 1 lobster boat in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption A buoy and trap on a lobster boat in the Chaleur Bay. Tom Bateman/Times and TranscriptHide Caption

He has been on both sides of an environmental protest. In 2015, he was involved in the protest to protect the environment from shale gas development in southeastern New Brunswick. This month, he joined hundreds of fishermen in throwing lobster traps on the steps of MP Serge Cormier's Caraquet office, in the hopes he'd relax the tight fishing restrictions.

Luc said it's a profound misunderstanding to link his livelihood to the fate of the whales.

On a recent trip to Moncton, he recalled speaking to someone who was "really engaged with the protection of the right whales." "He saw the fishermen as a threat because he didn't know how we fish. There is a big misunderstanding between what they think we are doing and what we are actually doing," he said. "We are really careful for the environment, careful with the resources. We are the green ones, because we make a living from it."

Elbow games

Lanteigne's licence is for 300 traps, and the blue-and-white hull of the Jean Cristelle visits each one daily.

The captain pilots to his 60 blue buoys, all marked with his number and connected to lines tied to five traps each.

At every stop, Luc is posted at the back of the boat, waiting to hook the buoy and attach its line to a powerful winch that pulls the line up from the seafloor. Once the large rectangular traps are onboard, the four crew members immediately get to work

The side of the boat becomes an assembly line: big lobster out, small lobsters back in the water, old bait out, fresh bait in. Then Luc waits for his father, who is watching the floor for the best place to lay the traps - the deep, rocky areas lobsters love. At his signal, the traps go overboard and the process is repeated.

With repetition comes strategy or "elbow games," as Luc describes it, among fishermen.

Early on Friday's trip, with only a sliver of sunlight on the horizon, Luc pulls up a line and then quickly pushes it back overboard - without harvesting its contents.

Luc said his trap position, a deep “hole” on the seafloor, is a coveted spot by the fishermen lurking nearby. Lantaigne decided to keep moving and harvest the trap line on his way back to the wharf in the afternoon, away from the gaze of his competition.

'Exchanging a parachute for an umbrella'

One of the main ideas from scientists to reduce the number of ropes in the sea is to attach inflatable buoys to traps that would sink to the seafloor and rise on the command of a fisherman.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has said it's working with fishermen and unions to test such ideas, but Luc hasn't heard of anyone in Caraquet getting their hands on one.

He's not optimistic it will work.

Harvesting a line of five traps can only take mere minutes so the boat can get to all 300 traps in a day. Luc can't see how a new system will be as efficient.

The prototypes he's heard of would be the equivalent of "exchanging a parachute for an umbrella – jumping from a table will work, but not from an airplane," he said. The gear fishermen use is literally their lifeline: it must be reliable and durable.

Another measure proposed, an autumn fishery for those who missed time at sea this spring, will stress the lobster stock, Luc said – a conclusion DFO disputes.

Next year

Luc had plans to begin purchasing a second boat, buying a licence and collecting a crew that he would captain.

But his mother has applied the brakes to any investment in the fishery.

"I have to wait because we don't know what's going to happen next year," Patricia said. Her criteria for taking on the major financial burden of another boat is simple: "Leave the lobster fishermen to fish, from 50 feet and less. There is no whale there."

Luc said he's scared of one thing when the fishery concludes on June 30.

"It’s easy to say ‘no whales died’ when you close everything," Luc said. “Every lobster fisherman you can see will assure you they’re not a threat. That’s the main message.”

The Jean Cristelle's haul on Friday was "just average," Patrica said with a shrug – the lobster weren't as mobile because of the previous day's high winds.

The tails of the lobster brought to a buyer waiting at the wharf will be frozen and delivered to Red Lobster restaurants. The rest will become canning meat.

But thanks to Friday's calm seas, she's confident in promising that "tomorrow will be better."

She said she can only hope the same can be said about next season.