October 31, 2025 — A new report says America’s lobsters, which have been in decline since 2018, are now being overfished off New England.
The stock has declined by 34% since that year in its most important fishing grounds, the regulatory Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission said Thursday. The commission said it now considers overfishing of the species to be occurring, and that could bring new management measures that restrict fishermen from catching them in the future.
But the lobster population has shown “rapid declines in abundance in recent years,” the commission said in a statement.
The assessment said the decline and overfishing were taking place in fishing areas off Maine and Massachusetts where most lobster fishing takes place. The assessment also considered the southern New England lobster stock, which it said has been depleted for years and remains so.