Connecticut Lobster Season Cut Short

Connecticut lobstermen coping with first seasonal closure

Connecticut lobstermen have survived storms and struggled with poor prices, die-offs and a prolonged plunge in the population they count on for a livelihood. Now the state’s dwindling ranks of aging, full-time lobstermen are removing their traps to comply with the first seasonal shutdown on Long Island Sound.

The closure, which begins Sunday and lasts through Nov. 28, aims to reduce the harvest by 10 percent this year to give the sound’s depleted lobster population a chance to rebuild. Amid skepticism that it will reverse their fortunes, lobstermen are tightening their belts, shifting to other fishing, laying off crews, thinking about jobs onshore and wondering how they’ll survive the latest challenge.

I would be skeptical that a 10% reduction in harvest would have much effect on the lobster population; that's well within the range of natural population  swings in fisheries. But still, it's in the right direction; when fishing gets tough, the fisherman's instinct is to fish harder.  Unfortunately, that is the recipe for a fisheries disaster.  Fishing harder on  a depleted fishery simply drives it into ruin.

This is a little ironic, since Maine is undergoing a lobster boom, and is glutting the market, driving prices down. And frankly, I don't know (or care) whether the lobster in my local stores are from Connecticut or Maine.

Glut Of Lobster Brings Price To A 20-Year Low In Maine

Global warming and other factors are causing an oversupply of lobsters in Maine. Canada, which is the largest importer of Maine lobster meat, experienced an early season and its own glut of lobsters due to warming waters. Maine lobstermen have seen an 80 percent increase in their own bounty over the past few years.

The result is that prices have dropped to about half since 2007, says eighth generation lobsterman Jason Joyce of Swan’s Island Maine.

This year, Maine state legislators passed a bill allowing the industry to tax itself so it can market its overabundance of lobster.

 Damn that global warming for making lobster cheap enough for poor people to eat it!