FILE - Lobsters sit in a crate at a shipping facility on Nov. 18, 2020, in Arundel, Maine. FILE - Lobsters sit in a crate at a shipping facility on Nov. 18, 2020, in Arundel, Maine. FILE - Lobsters sit in a crate at a shipping facility on Nov. 18, 2020, in Arundel, Maine. 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..
In addition to causing a dispute between fishermen and regulators, the change has led to confusion about the ramifications for international trade in one of the world’sTakeaways from AP’s story on Alabama’s ecologically important Mobile-Tensaw Delta and its watershed“We don’t need any more, really, on our plate. It’s just a lot going on, one fight after another,” Cushman, 55, a boat captain who fishes out of Port Clyde, said.
“We’re seeing a decline in recruits that will probably result in a decline in adults later on,” said Caitlin Starks, a senior fishery management plan coordinator with the commission. Nonetheless, regulators say the minimum size on the gauges fishermen use to measure lobsters will increase to 3 5/16 inches on July 1 and grow another 1/16th of an inch two years later.
The changes do not apply in Canada, which has an even larger lobster fishing industry than the U.S. Some fishing grounds there already allow smaller lobsters to be caught than U.S. rules allow.This month, the Atlantic States commission approved new rules to prevent the U.S. from importing sub-legal lobsters from Canada.
The changes will likely have a major impact on the lobster industry but might not trickle down to U.S. consumers, said John Sackton, a longtime seafood industry analyst. Prices this summer have been down compared to recent years, according to trade data. Whether that continues depends in part on how large the catch is for the rest of the year, Sackton said.