There was good news and bad news in the annual report on the Maine lobster harvest earlier this month. The good news is that the catch brought in $485.4 million, the fourth highest amount ever. The bad news was that the catch itself was down 17 percent.
According to the annual report from the Maine Department of Marine Resources, the state’s lobster fisherman hauled in 100.7 million pounds of lobster in 2019. That was the smallest catch since 2010, although it was the ninth year in a row that the catch was over 100 million pounds.
But lobster fishermen ended up with a profitable year, because of a 20 percent increase in the price per pound. Last year the average price per pound was $4.82, the highest since the state started keeping records in 1880.
The fishermen were happy. “We don’t fish for pounds, we fish for dollars,” Kristan Porter, the president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association told the Press Herald.
Patrick Keliher, the commissioner of the department, said the smaller catch was due to a cold spring and a “late shed,” when lobsters shed their old shells and reach legal size. He also said the state’s lobstermen faced challenges due to climate change and the loss of working waterfront space.
The warming waters of the Gulf of Maine have already caused the lobster population in Southern New England to move farther up into Maine. If the warming continues, they may move farther up into Canadian waters. Read more:
https://www.pressherald.com/2020/03/06/lobster-harvest-smallest-in-9-years-but-value-increased/
