Lobstermen along much of the coast have voluntarily stopped hauling in an effort to offset a glut of lobsters in the market. A combination of an unusually early season and large catches of shedders before peak demand has driven prices down to their lowest levels in decades.
On Tuesday, July 10, fishing stoppages were either underway or being discussed Downeast, along the Midcoast and in Casco Bay. It’s unclear how long or how widespread the stoppage will be.
“It’s a new situation ecologically, and a new situation in terms of the market,” says Robin Alden, executive director of the Penobscot East Resource Center, a non-profit in Deer Isle concerned with the future of Maine fishing communities.
Known as a “tie-up,” the decision by lobstermen not to fish is an attempt to cut supplies and force higher prices on the wholesale market. As independent business operators, lobstermen are prohibited by anti-trust laws from organizing large-scale strikes to stop fishing. Word of the informal “tie-ups” (where the fisherman leaves his boat tied up and doesn’t catch anything) spreads by word-of-mouth, across radio transmissions and through online media like Facebook. After approximately a dozen calls to individual lobstermen, it is clear that very few are willing to go on record to discuss this issue.
On Monday, Maine Department of Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher warned fishermen that an organized work stoppage may be illegal. He also said the state would take enforcement action against anyone trying to prevent the harvesting of lobsters or interfering with traps or equipment. The state has no plans to close the fishery despite low prices, Keliher said in a press release.
Lobsters are fetching as little as $1.50 a pound this week. Local fishermen say they need about a dollar more to break even due to high bait and fuel costs.
The falling wholesale price of lobster is not a new phenomenon. After record low prices in 2008, the Department of Marine Resources published a strategic plan for Maine’s lobster industry the following year. The study discusses problems like “shrinkage,” the 20 percent mortality rate of lobsters (mostly shedders) between the dock and the consumer, costing the industry an estimated $50 million. The study also looked at increasing lobster yields and changing demographics of consumption.
Twenty years ago, Maine’s lobster catch was about 20 million pounds and it was mostly consumed by tourists who boiled them for dinner. Last year, the catch of more than 100 million pounds set a record that broke a previous record of almost 95 million pounds the year before, according to state fisheries officials. Now, according to Alden, only about 15 percent of the total catch is eaten by individual consumers, leaving a lot of lobster to be sold, processed and shipped elsewhere.
In order to compensate for recent record-high catches, the Maine Lobstermen’s Association and Maine Lobster Council are making an effort to build demand for the lobsters being caught. This means finding new ways to market lobster meat. Alden of Penobscot East Resource Center describes how the town of Stonington is currently exploring ways to take care of shedders better and improve their survival, hopefully decreasing that 20 percent shrinkage.
Philip Conkling, president of the Island Institute, was a member of the governor’s lobster’s lobster task force, which issued a series of recommendations three years ago to address the depressed lobster prices that occurred as a result of the financial crisis in 2008-09. According to Conkling, “The lobster industry faces long term structural problems. The supply of lobsters has increased fivefold, while fewer and fewer consumers want to boil and dismember their dinners.” Conkling suggested that for the lobstering to remain viable, “industry leaders must either invest in more value added processing of lobster convenience foods or reduce supply in the summer when prices are lowest. Probably a bit of both.”
Many are saying that the unusually warm winter is responsible for the current surplus. Higher ocean temperatures caused the crustaceans to shed their shells six weeks early. The process of shedding is exhausting and forces hungry lobsters from their hiding places and into the bait-laden traps. Early shedders means a lot of lobsters being caught early in the season.
Although shedders are plentiful this year, they are fragile and more difficult to transport long distances. Dealers typically send them to Canada for processing rather than selling them at live markets. But the large amount of Maine lobsters arrived at the tail end of a successful Canadian season, according to Alden. The processing plants there don’t usually open until the third week in July, leaving dealers with a lot of shellfish and nowhere to send it.
“We don’t have a home for them,” Dave Cousens, president of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, says of the early catch.
Despite the low prices, the kind of tie-up that is happening along the coast is difficult to organize. The lobster co-op on Chebeague Island attempted to organize a tie-up at the end of June that was supposed to last a week, until the fourth of July. Co-ops aren’t limited by the same laws as individual fishermen, and the members met and agreed not to fish. But in less than 48 hours, boats were back out on the water.
“Guys decide individually if they’re going to slow down,” says Jeff Putnam, manager of the Chebeague Island co-op, Dropping Springs.
Alden, who was the Commissioner of Marine Resources in the mid-90s and founder, editor and publisher of Commercial Fisheries News, says it’s not easy to stop fishing. In the short term, it’s tempting to make up for lower prices by simply catching more lobsters, since it’s easy to catch the shedders.
“You might want to wait for the lobsters to become more robust, but if they’re not caught now by you they may be caught by somebody else.”
Anna Maine is a freelance contributor and a resident of Chebeague Island.
Corrected to update low price.