A Plan to Increase the Sound's Lobster Population

A Connecticut legislator has a plan, modelled on other New England states' programs, to have lobstermen cut a notch in the tails of females lobsters they would normally keep and sell, throw the females back into the Sound, and turn the notches into the state for payment, like bottles being returned for their deposits. The idea is to increase the Sound's lobster population by increasing the number of breeding females.

Presumably conservation officers would be on the lookout for lobstermen keeping lobsters with notched tails, just as they patrol for illegally-kept short lobsters or egg-bearing females.

The New London Day has the story here. There's some information from Sea Grant about the lobster die-off of recent years here.