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Fisheries:
Lobster Fishing in Maine |
Homarus americanus is the Latin species name for the American lobster.
When Europeans arrived in Maine, lobsters were large (averaging over 5 pounds) and plentiful—they could be gaffed aboard small boats in shallow water. Lobsters must be cooked immediately after they die, so without plentiful ice or fast transport to markets, lobsters weren’t important economically. In colonial times, they were most frequently used for bait or fertilizer.
In the 1820s fishermen developed the smack, a boat with a wet well for carrying live lobsters. The smack allowed fresh lobsters to be delivered to Boston or New York, and the market grew.
The 1840s saw the beginning of the lobster meat canning industry by the same Underwood Company that now makes deviled ham. Canned lobster stimulated the fishery and resulted in a tremendous decline in the lobster population. In those years most lobstering was done from pulling boats or small sloops, using open hoop pots.
By the 1880s lobsters were being overfished. Twenty-three canneries processed over 9 million lobsters, and many said the fishery had peaked in the 1870s. Maine imposed strict regulations limiting the catching of female lobsters, shortening the fishing season, and limiting allowable size range. By 1895 all lobster canning had moved to Canada. Similar restrictions today have preserved the lobster fishery while supporting record catches.
Modern lobster traps are about three feet long and made of plastic-coated wire mesh. Two large openings are on opposite sides, and inside the openings are side heads, or net funnels, that lead the lobster into the kitchen, where the bait bag is placed. After eating the bait the lobster often can’t exit the way it came in, so it crawls through an internal head into the parlor.
Surprisingly, lobster traps allow about 90% of their catch to escape!
Traps are set on the bottom tied to lines called pot warp. There may be two or more pots on one warp. A buoy, painted in a lobsterman’s distinct colors, marks the location of the warp, and a matching buoy is mounted on the lobster boat’s cabin.
Today, a lobsterman is allowed to work up to 800 traps. To protect the breed stock, he may not keep egg-bearing females or lobsters with a carapace less than 3 ¼ inches and more than 5 inches long. If a lobsterman catches an egg-bearing female, he must V-notch the tail so other lobstermen can easily tell it is a breeding female even if it is not then carrying eggs. Most marketable lobsters are at least 6 years old.
When the lobsterman hauls his traps, he uses a gauge to measure the lobster. He then places strong rubber bands around the lobsters’ claws to keep them from attacking each other. The lobsterman then refills the bait bag and resets the trap.
Caught lobsters are kept cool, often in a seawater tank, until the boat returns to the dock, where they are put into a lobster car until sold. Large lobster pounds allow merchants to keep the lobsters alive until sold to stores, restaurants, or the public.
In 2004 Maine lobstermen caught almost 71 million pounds of lobsters worth about $285 million; catch dropped to 64 million pounds in 2005 worth about $291 million dollars.
Maine’s Department of Marine Resources is the regulatory agency that enforces fisheries law in state waters and maintains a biologist that specializes in lobsters.
Other research organizations like the Lobster Conservancy and Lobster Institute provide primary research into Maine’s most valuable fishery. One of the objectives is to monitor the health of the fishery to prevent crashes which have decimated other fisheries.
Maine is working hard to get neighbors like Canada and Massachusetts and the Federal government which has jurisdiction outside of three miles off shore to adopt the stricter conservation standards such as sizes limits and V-notching.
The fishery is now highly productive, more so than it has ever been. Will it last?
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