This year Canadian lobstermen are holding more lobster than ever before. Dealer Bruce Saunders, of Lunenburg Fish, in Lunenburg, N.S., said of the fishermen he deals with, about 30 percent more than usual are holding rather than selling their catch this year. Canadian dealers estimate that between 5 and 8 million pounds of lobster are being held.
But although most Canadian lobsters have a harder shell than those over the border, increasingly in the last few years, South West Nova Scotian fishermen have trapped lobster with softer shells, which they lack experience in handling.
Holding lobsters is risky: Some fishermen do not understand that soft shell lobster does not have the shelf life of hard shell product. Fishermen often float their catch in crates or “cars” on the water surface. But soft shell lobster, if they don’t get the food they need, start to eat each other. In addition, the water, which, in the summer, is warmer at the surface than on the bottom where the lobster is trapped, can mix with discharge from the engine when the fisherman starts his boat, with fresh water when it rains, and with other pollutants.
Fishermen holding product need to guard against these problems because no restaurant or tourist wants a lobster missing its legs or feelers. A weak lobster doesn’t arch its back, doesn’t fight, is all-but dead, and a single dead lobster in a crate or car will rot within 24 hours, and once rotted, will start affecting others.
Also, during the first days of the season in Canada, catches are monumental. Because fishermen handle so many lobster those opening days, they can’t handle them properly, and many animals end up weak, damaged, or dead. Although processors can pay higher prices than they do for U.S. shedders, because Canadian lobster has a higher meat yield, in the last few years, fishermen have been inclined to hold their catches, hoping to sell at higher prices than dealers offer when landings drop off. Saunders said, “More lobster come in than the market can absorb, so someone has to hold the lobster for later consumption.”
A U.S. dealer said that if a fisherman is holding 10,000 pounds of which 500 are deads or rots, he doesn’t count the lost 500 pounds as part of his catch because he didn’t receive money for them. “It’s like throwing it in the garbage,” the dealer said, adding, “If he had thrown that lobster in the garbage when he came in, he probably wouldn’t have as many dead” Some people think those who waste lobster should be fined. Others who think something should be done about this waste have made both provincial and federal fisheries ministers aware of the problem in Canada.
Stewart Lamont, a Tangier, Nova Scotia dealer, said Canadian product held in tubes averages 2- to 2½ percent shrinkage. Shrinkage of Canadian product held in natural (tidal) pounds averages 6 to 8 percent and could perhaps reach as high as 15 percent. He said Canadian shrinkage rates average about half U.S. rates.
Jonesport poundkeeper Sid Look said, “When processors are buying, we send them all our soft shells,” but admitted that when they are not buying, “then we have to stretch it a bit and put in softer ones we don’t want to,” saying, “Let’s put it that way. We do put a few in,” he admitted. “We try not to, but let’s say that there’s no market on them, things are backed up, and we’re kind of losing our shirt on them, there are some [lobster] that are very soft and won’t travel. And that’s what I end up putting in.”
But a successful poundkeeper, who does not speak to the press, buys all the “dishrags” and “jellies” he can. He even asks his fishermen for them. “He pays attention to every aspect of pounding,” said one of his fishermen: from water temperature to avoiding pounding weak or damaged lobster. The poundkeeper hardens his soft shell lobster by feeding them a good diet of herring and medicated feed for red tail, and then sells the hardened product in four to six weeks. The fisherman said the former jellies “Look just like a hard lobster.”
Another poundkeeper says his shrinkage ranges from zero to 5 or 6 percent, but noted those higher numbers occur only if he does not send his soft lobster to the processor within a day.
Fishermen in the winter lobster fishery are becoming more sophisticated according to Saunders. They now buy wire crates with a tube system inside to hold lobster individually, he said, noting that though poundkeepers have been using these systems for years, fishermen “are employing them in the wild more and more because when you bring them out after holding them for your two, four, six, eight, ten weeks, whatever it is, the lobster still looks pristine.”
To avoid losing and wasting soft shell lobster, fishermen can care for their lobster by renting tank room space from a dealer (dealers often have space available because of the poor economy.) For fishermen who want hold their catches themselves, G. A. Amirault, executive director of the Lobster Science Centre, and his team at the University of Prince Edward Island, have published a one-page sheet of suggestions to help fishermen understand how to handle and hold soft shelled lobster.
For more information, go to www.lobsterscience.ca or call (902) 894-2884.