IN THE SPOTLIGHT
100 million pounds for the first time in 2011. The total value of the catch at the dock leaped from less than $240 million in 2009 to more than $315 million in 2010 and has continued to climb since.
But David Cousens, a South Thomaston lobsterman and the president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, cautions that the trend is unlikely to continue and says “we need to prepare for the future.”
Cousens notes that Maine’s lobster population is dependent on baby lobster settlement, which is the process by which young lobsters reach the ocean floor and grow. Some recent years have shown poor settlement off Maine, according to data compiled by Rick Wahle, a marine ecologist with the University of Maine.
All told, Maine’s commercially harvested marine resources topped $700 million in 2016, an all-time record buoyed by the lobster industry, state regulators said.
Keliher said the lobster catch has raised the value of the Atlantic herring fishery, which supplies bait fish used by lobster fishermen. While the Atlantic herring catch dipped by about 10 percent last year, its value grew about 40 percent to more than $19 million, an all-time record. Maine’s softshell clams, scallops and haddock, which are popular food species, were worth only about $4 million more combined.
American lobsters are also caught off of other coastal New England states and New York, but Maine accounts for the bulk of the catch.