PORTLAND, Maine — Gerry Cushman has seen Maine’s iconic lobster industry survive numerous threats in his three decades on the water, but the latest challenge — which might sound tiny — could be the biggest one yet. Lobster fishing is a game of inches, and the number of inches is about to change. Fishing regulators are instituting a new rule that lobster fishermen must abide by stricter minimum sizes for crustaceans they harvest. The impending change might be only 1/16th of an inch or 1.
Some conservationists support of the changes, which they feel will protect lobsters from depletion from overfishing. That’s especially important “in the face of unprecedented climate change in the Gulf of Maine,” said Erica Fuller, an attorney in the ocean program at Conservation Law Foundation. Scientists say the gulf is warming faster than most of the world’s oceans.