May 13, 2016 — It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see one possible future for the Maine lobster industry. All it takes is a look south.
Warming water temperatures, the result of man-made climate change, have for decades been the primary factor in pushing the lobster population farther and farther north, first decimating the industry off the coasts of Rhode Island and Connecticut, then off Cape Cod.
And even though the industry has been booming in Maine, with record landings the last three years, the focal point of the catch has changed through the years, from Casco Bay to Penobscot Bay and, now, Down East, a signal of its vulnerability to change.
One of the state’s iconic industries, indispensable to and inseparable from so many communities, is being disrupted. The question is: How far will it go?
Fortunately, regulators are watching.
TAKING NOTICE
The Maine Department of Marine Resources will soon award contracts for studies exploring not only the full economic impact of the lobster industry, on which there is surprisingly little data, but also the impact of warming ocean temperatures on lobster biology and the ocean ecosystem in the Gulf of Maine.