December 13, 2019 — A sixteenth of an inch doesn’t seem like much. But it added up to a whole lot for Nova Scotia lobstermen in December 1989.
A new law had been passed in the United States that increased the minimum allowable size of lobsters for import, by that seemingly insignificant margin.
The CBC camera showed a live lobster being measured using a specialized device.
But as Halifax reporter Paul Barr explained, the difference was anything but insignificant.
“That might not sound like much of a change to a non-fisherman,” he explained. “But in reality, it means as much as a quarter-pound increase in weight.”
That meant that fishermen were spending time catching lobsters they couldn’t export.