Abegweit and Lennox Island First Nations recently joined the AVC Lobster Science Centre to take part in a research project off PEI's north shore. The information collected will benefit the Island lobster fishery and will be used to build predictive models of landed lobster quality, based on envioronmental and biological data.

The First Nations will provide boats, traps, and fishers, while the AVC Lobster Science Centre will provide technicians to do the sampling. Each sampling session will measure and examine 125 lobsters. A small blood sample will be taken and a part of a swimmeret removed for moult stage analysis. The process is harmless to the lobster, while providing useful information to researchers. The project continues into the fall of 2009 and resumes in spring 2010.

The Atlantic Veterinary College's Lobster Science Centre is the only lobster research centre in the world that is part of a veterinary college. Here, specialized lobster scientists with veterinary backgrounds work to apply the basic principles of veterinary medicine to the lobster fishery. Their efforts to provide the science needed to protect and grow Canada's most valuable seafood product involves thousands of individuals from fishery organizations, producer groups, industry, government and academic institutions throughout Atlantic Canada and parts of the United States. In 2008, the landed value of lobster in Atlantic Canada was more than three-quarters of a billion dollars with over 9,000 people working as lobster fishers in the region.