Territorial Dispute in Maine’s Lobster Industry

On July 9, 2009, Chris Young was shot in the neck with a .22 caliber pistol. Surprisingly, in a nation plagued by urban violence, this story comes from rural Matinicus, Maine, a small island home to all-too-frequent lobster gang turf wars. Young, a victim of such a dispute, was shot by Vance Bunker in the culmination of a weeks-long dispute over whether Bunker’s son-in-law, Alan Miller, could lobster off the coast of Matinicus Island, despite being a mainlander. For several days following the shooting, the waters surrounding Matinicus were closed to lobstering in an attempt to relieve tensions and prevent further retaliation, but the shock of the violence still resonates today. When examined further, incidents of territorial violence date back as far as the modern practice of lobstering itself.  Click here to read the article 11:59

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