Tag Archives: changes in regulations
From boat sizes to waitlists, what lobster industry changes say about where fishery is headed
Wait times for a lobster fishing license, especially for those not born into a family of fishermen, used to exceed a decade in some parts of Maine, but the queues are getting shorter as fewer young people enter the fishery. Lobster boat captains often struggle to find enough sternmen to help and used lobster boats are taking longer to sell than they used to. The threat of climate change and more restrictive right whale protections, as well as several years of more modest landing totals, have some in the lobster industry second-guessing their future in the business, yielding subtle, but real, changes in the makeup of the fishery. In conversations with fishermen, a sense of uncertainty permeates. “It’s such an unstable way of life and it’s not getting any better,” said Nick Perreault, a fifth generation fisherman who captains a lobster boat out of Jonesport. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 06:25
Warming Waters Heat Summer’s Feast Well Before It Gets to the Kitchen
An ever-warming planet is playing havoc with the intricately interconnected web of marine life. Just as climate has long stressed human populations and driven migration, marine populations are stressed and in search of survivable climates too. In New England, scientists and lobstermen alike are studying and living the impacts. Tim Alley has been lobstering in Maine’s coastal waters for 40 years. “There’s been a trend in recent years related to temperatures,” he says. Alley is steeped in the traditions of his home state’s biggest industry and recently dusted off a short film from 1972 in which he starred at age 12, “Alone in My Lobster Boat,” filmed in South Bristol and New Harbor, Maine. Like most lobstermen, he would call himself an environmentalist: they live on the water, they live from the water, they thrive on the water. But they reject the notion that a species – the right whale – is failing because of them. Over 40 years, he says, he has seen exactly one right whale. Photos, Video, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 14:50
