No Debate For Lobstermen On Warming; Fishery Is Finished In Southern New England, Heading North

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And as Dave Cousens, longtime president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, told the people in the hotel conference room earlier this month, the recent past shows the future is anything but certain. Speaking at the International Conference & Workshop on Lobster Biology and Management, Cousens said he and other lobstermen watched over the decades as water temperatures rose and predators disappeared, putting the sweet spot for lobster reproduction over the entire Maine coastline. The annual harvest, fairly consistent at around 20 million pounds a year for more than a century, started shooting upward starting in the early 1990s, and last year, lobstermen landed 131 million pounds.

But not all the news is good. Lobsters have disappeared from Long Island Sound, and are all but gone from southern New England. The center of Maine’s lobster industry has moved too, from Casco Bay north to Stonington.

Cousens said that he already this year found “shedders,” or lobsters that have lost their hard shell. “You’re not supposed to get shedders where I fish now,” he said. “The biological clock of lobsters is shifting.”

Clearly, the changes in the Gulf of Maine that brought about the record landings are still churning, and what that means is unclear. Researchers believe a decline is coming, but just when it will come and how severe it will be is up for debate.

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http://www.pressherald.com/2017/06/19/our-view-with-lobsters-and-climate-theres-not-a-debate/