- The lobster fishery saw a significant drop in catch in 2023, down more than 5% compared to the previous year.
- This decline in lobster catches, totaling 93.7 million pounds, is believed to be due to a variety of challenges, including climate change and new regulations.
- Despite slightly lower feed and fuel prices, lobster catches were lower than previous years.
The U.S. lobster fishery has seen its catch decline while grappling with challenges such as a changing ocean environment and new rules to protect rare whales.
The lobster industry, primarily based in Maine, has had an unprecedented decade in terms of the volume and value of lobsters shipped to docks. But industry officials said they also face existential threats from proposed rules aimed at protecting North Atlantic right whales and climate change, which is affecting where lobsters are harvested.
Maine fishermen’s catch in 2023 was down more than 5% from the previous year, with the total lobster catch of 93.7 million pounds, the lowest since 2009, according to data released Friday by the Maine Department of Marine Resources. . The numbers echo the year of ups and downs lobstermen have experienced, said Dave Cousins, a Creehaven Island-based fisherman and past president of the Maine Lobster Association.
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Cousins said feed and fuel prices have come down a bit, but catches don’t seem to match recent years. Although Maine’s lobster catch has declined from a high of 132.6 million pounds in 2016, the 2023 catch will still far exceed what fishermen produced during most of the 2000s. Ta. In 2023, the total catch decreased for the second consecutive year.
Max Oliver moves a lobster to a tag stand in his boat while fishing off the coast of Spruce Head, Maine, on August 31, 2021. The U.S. lobster fishing business grappled with challenges such as a changing marine environment and new rules to protect rare lobsters, while catches slumped. Whale. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bucati, File)
Cousins said lobsters are steadily moving north as ocean temperatures rise, leaving fishermen who participate in Maine’s vital lobster industry uncertain about what the future holds. .
“It’s been a steady decline from 132 million. We’re going back downhill,” Cousins said. “There is no question that climate change is having an impact.”
Fishermen in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and other northeastern states also harvest lobsters using traps from the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean, but in a typical year, about 80 percent of them come to docks in Maine.
The price of lobster at the docks has gone up and down in recent years, but has remained fairly constant for consumers. Prices at the pier soared to more than $6.70 per pound in 2021 and fell to less than $4 per pound in 2022. Last year, prices were just under $5 a pound, and he totaled more than $460 million in port catches. Dock, according to data released Friday. This is the third highest number in the past four years.
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“The prices Maine lobster fishermen received last year reflect continued strong demand for this iconic seafood,” said Patrick Kelliher, Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner.
The state’s fishermen are in a long legal battle with the federal government over rules meant to protect whales that tend to get entangled in fishing gear. Fishermen say the proposed rules are strict enough to put them out of business, but environmentalists say they are essential to save the world’s fewer than 360 whales. A right whale found dead off the coast of Massachusetts this winter had signs of being entangled in its main gear.
How climate change is impacting the industry is the subject of ongoing scientific research. The lobster industry in southern New England is collapsing as ocean temperatures rise, and waters off the coast of Maine recorded the second-warmest year on record in 2022.
