A city fishing captain and his two crewmen face criminal charges of forcibly removing eggs from female lobsters and trying to sell the "scrubbed" crustaceans at a local fish house, according to court documents.
Massachusetts Environmental Police boarded the 74-foot dragger Sea Explorer during a routine inspection at Northern Wind Inc. on April 7. They found an illegal catch consisting of 169 scrubbed lobsters, eight egg-bearing lobsters, one V-notch lobster and five mutilated, V-notch lobsters, according to court documents.
State and federal lobster regulations prohibit fishermen from landing or mutilating lobsters that are V-notched — marked with a man-made incision on the tail of a mature female lobster, signifying that it should be thrown back in the ocean for conservation purposes. Regulations also prohibit fishermen from removing eggs from a female lobster.