Maine Wraps Up Another Pretty Good Lobster Season 
SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [Portland Press Herald] - December 8, 2003 - Lobstermen along the Maine coast are hauling their traps back to shore, selling their last lobsters of the season - and counting their blessings, one more time. Lobstermen and scientists say the string of lucrative lobster catches that has sustained Maine's fishing communities for the past decade continued in 2003.

A slow start to the season in June and July is expected to result in an overall drop of up to 15 percent in the weight of Maine's annual catch from the year before. But lobstermen enjoyed unusually high prices that should make up for the drop in volume.

And despite dire warnings and widespread fears, researchers say Maine's lobster population has so far stayed relatively free of a shell disease that continues to devastate the lobster industry in southern Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Final numbers on this season won't be compiled for months. And there is no reliable way to predict what will happen next year. But for thousands of lobstermen, as well as their families and communities, lobster has provided one more year of financial security.

'I think we'll have a better year this year than last year, because of the price,' said Dick Bridges, a lifelong lobsterman in Stonington Harbor.

A lot has been riding on Maine's lobster catch in recent years, and the stakes were never higher than in 2003.

While virtually all other major fisheries have collapsed, the lobster population has exploded along Maine's coast and catches have been double or triple the size of the typical landings between 1950 and 1990. By last year, lobster had become essentially the state's single major fishery, with the $207.3 million catch accounting for 70 percent of all fishing revenue statewide.

Bridges began the lobster season worried that a bad year lobstering would devastate Stonington's fishing community, force families to sell out and quickly change the character of the village.

While he's still worried, Bridges is ending the 2003 season encouraged by large catches during the fall that continued right through November, when each trap came up with about three legal lobsters and others that were too small or carried eggs.

He shrugs off the smaller catches in June and July, blaming the cold winter and water temperatures that took a while to warm up. 'It was a little later coming, that's all,' Bridges said.

The slow start meant supplies of lobster never could catch up to demand. Lobstermen up and down the coast got high prices for their catches - nearly $4 per pound for most of the year. Last year, the average price was a record-high $3.30.

Given the high price and strong catches late in the season, the boom shows no signs of ending in Stonington, said George 'Penny' Trundle, manager of the Stonington Lobster Co-op. Younger lobstermen continue to build bigger, faster boats.

'There are three or four (boats) that I can think of that joined the fleet this year, and there's more in the making right now,' he said.

It's a far different situation in southern New England, where record-high lobster catches have collapsed because of a mysterious disease that eats away lobsters' shells.

Richard Baker started the 2003 season in Point Judith, R.I., hoping to sell his hand-built wooden lobster boat and find another career to support his young family. Instead, he kept going far offshore, sometimes hauling three traps just to get one legal lobster, and barely paying for fuel and bait.

'I had no offers on (the boat),' he said.

Now he's going to give up and tie up the boat, at least for the winter. Last month, he started a new job installing water meters. Baker says he feels lucky he found something to get his family of four through the winter.

'At least it pays the bills,' he said.

The shell disease that struck southern New England was seen by many as a warning for Maine, where such a collapse would be even more devastating because of the absence of other job opportunities in the state's remote fishing villages.

State officials, private scientists and lobstermen watched closely for signs of the disease here all summer. Charles O'Kelly, a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratories in Boothbay, examined sick lobsters, including several from the Kittery area, that appeared to have the same disease that spread in southern New England.

But O'Kelly and others said limited cases of disease may have been present in Maine all along and are not cause for alarm. They said warmer waters to the south may have played a role in the outbreaks there.

'We didn't see it, and we watched for it intensely,' said Lyman Kennedy, a lobsterman from Falmouth.

Other scientists watched for signs of a population decline, something that was predicted to happen around 2003 or 2004. There still are no clear signs that the population boom is about to end, however, and some research suggests that a large number of baby lobsters are settling into rocky areas in some parts of the coast.

'Given the real strong settlement we've now had over the past three years, that bodes well, barring any other circumstances such as an increase in shell disease or higher predation rates,' said Rick Wahle, a scientist at Bigelow who monitors baby lobster populations in the midcoast area.

The expected drop in the catch volume for 2003 is widely blamed on last winter's cold air, which kept ocean temperatures from rising until August, rather than a population decline. 

'There's a consensus that a small drop (in the catch) is absolutely consistent with the kinds of weather we had in the winter and spring and is no cause for alarm,' said Robert Steneck, a biologist at the University of Maine's Darling Marine Center.

A solid year for the industry doesn't mean everyone made money, and the slow catches in June and July hurt some businesses more than others.

Many dealers and processors struggled financially because of the reduced volume and the higher prices they were forced to pay lobstermen.

Workers at New Meadows Lobster in Portland never got enough lobsters to the fill the large tanks that hold lobsters to be shipped overseas.

'We'd just bring them in and get rid of 'em real quick,' said owner Peter McAleney. The company never made up for the slow start, he said, and didn't hire extra helpers this summer as it has in past years.

Some individual lobstermen also struggled, depending on where they set traps and how much experience they had. Those who could not move traps farther offshore or fish hard in the fall saw their catches drop by 30 percent or more.

The average lobstermen, however, is expected to end up earning about as much as last year. A typical boat last year had sales of $130,000 to $200,000, with many captains earning $70,000 to $120,000.

Mark Rand brought a load of lobsters and traps back to Portland Harbor last week aboard the Audrey B. Rand. He finished the year catching about as many lobsters as he did in 2002, and said he was thankful the string of good catches is still going.

But, like many long-timers who remember both ups and downs, Rand said there's always next season to worry about.

'When you've had so many good years, you're always wondering if you're going into a down cycle,' he said. 'That's the nature of this business. You just never know.'

(C) 2003 Portland Press Herald. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved