Tag Archives: Penobscot Marine Museum
Painter Susan Tobey White captures a ‘day in the life’ of female lobstermen
First, it’s important to get it straight. She’s not called a ‘lobsterwoman’ if the person lobster fishing is female; the correct term, no matter what the gender is lobsterman. Susan Tobey White’s latest series, “Lobstering Women of Maine” is all about the women who haul traps, bait bags, stern and lobster fish off their own boats. The exhibit is currently hanging at Penobscot Marine Museum until October 2019. At least 300 people showed for her artist’s reception on July 14 and among those in the crowd were several of the women she did the portraits of. “I think most of the people who showed up at the reception were in awe. They had no idea that women even did this line of work,” said White. >click to read< 10:32
Catch Shares? – Researchers Fear Industrialization of Maine Lobster Fleet
Unlike most fisheries in the world, the lobster industry is actually experiencing an unprecedented boom despite centuries of sustained harvesting. Last year, the lobster catch was a record 130 million pounds, marking the fifth straight year the annual catch went over 120 million pounds, and over six times more than the long-term average for the state. The recent lobster boom, according to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, is likely primarily due to warmer ocean temperatures as younger lobsters are reaching sexual maturity faster in warmer waters. But it’s also because, unlike the ground fishery, the state long ago took a proactive approach to conserving the resource. “There are some interesting differences between those two fisheries in terms of the regulations we put in place very early on in the lobster fishery,” said fisheries researcher Patrick Shepard at the Penobscot Marine Museum’s “Our Evolving Fisheries History Conference” in Belfast on April 8, “but there are also some interesting parallels to what might be happening as far as technological advances.” click here to read the article 13:49
