Latest news with #lobstermen
Bloomberg
2 days ago
- General
- Bloomberg
Are We Approaching Peak Lobster?
I recently spent two weeks in Maine, where I ate lobster, was asked if I wanted to eat more lobster (no!), slept on lobster sheets, watched lobstermen fish, judged otherwise fashionable women for their 'lobstah' sweaters, and even dropped a half-dozen live lobsters into a pot, causing their death. I was also reading Canadian journalist Greg Mercer's The Lobster Trap (Random House, Aug. 12), on the $7 billion lobster industry in the US and Canada. When I recited facts from the book — becoming a Maine-splaining lobster windbag — the summer people and lobster enthusiasts I spoke to were often surprised, coming as we all were from a place of incuriosity. Part of this may be the timelessness of our impressions of lobsters: as a luxury food for special occasions, or to lure us to vacations in places where the beaches are rocky and the water is cold. But another reason for people's soft-shelled impressions on the state of the industry is what Mercer describes as its objectively mixed state: collapsed in some places and facing challenges from climate change, regulation and increased fishing; yet booming elsewhere on the back of high prices and Chinese demand.
E&E News
28-05-2025
- Business
- E&E News
Cooler water bottom temperatures could aid New England fisheries
Cold water flowing into the the Gulf of Maine from Canada's Maritimes region this spring and summer could have a positive impact on key seafood species whose U.S. populations have plummeted due to climate change-induced warming waters, according to new NOAA research. Data shows that since late 2023, a shift in the eastern Gulf Stream has helped chill bottom-water temperatures in the Northwest Atlantic, which could result in an influx of cold water into northernmost New England. Researchers from the agency's Northeast Fisheries Science Center say flows from Canada's Labrador Slope and Scotian Shelf could result in the Gulf of Maine being 0.9 to 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the summer average. The Gulf of Maine is one of the fastest-warming ocean regions in the world, according to NOAA, where rising water temperatures have spurred migration of lobster and other fish species toward Canadian waters in the Bay of Fundy. The result has been a steep dropoff in southern New England's lobster economy to the benefit of lobstermen in the Gulf of Maine. Advertisement Scientists say other species critical to the region's fisheries economy — including cod, haddock, pollock and some flounder species — also prefer cooler bottom water.
