Something Is Happening to the American Lobster in Maine. If It Continues, It Could Send Waves Through the U.S. Fishing Industry

In the U.S., the lobster is king. Lobsters are the most valuable species in the country, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars every year. But something strange is happening with lobsters in the Gulf of Maine, the place where 80% of lobsters in the U.S. are harvested.

The role of the lobster. It’s hard to underestimate the importance of the lobster to U.S. fisheries. According to the University of Maine, marine commercial activities generated more than $890 million in 2021. That year, the top five species were lobster, representing 82% of the value generated, or $730 million. Lobster was followed by softshell clam, which generated $27 million, and American eel elvers, which brought in $18 million.

Overall, the lobster is the most valuable species in the country for U.S. fisheries, and 80% of it is harvested in Maine. On a state level, Maine’s fisheries-based economy and the communities it supports produces a value of more than $1.2 billion annually.

Something’s fishy with the lobsters. Not everything is sunny in lobster country, though. As reported in the outlet bioGraphic, scientists have been worried about the young lobster population since 2012. It was the year something strange happened. When divers carried out an annual survey of juvenile lobsters, they found hardly any. Subsequent surveys have produced the same dismal results.

“It kind of had everybody scratching their heads as to what was going on,” Joshua Carloni, a marine biologist at the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, told bioGraphic in an interview.

After analyzing the situation, Carloni and his team found something interesting. A tiny copepod called Calanus finmarchicus, a critter rich in protein and fat, was disappearing earlier in the year. As such, C. finmarchicus wasn’t around to help lobsters transform from plankton into juvenile lobsters.

The match-mismatch hypothesis. The finding was the key they had been looking for and led them to believe that the problem may be related to timings of predators and prey. This is known as the match-mismatch hypothesis, which states that the survival of the predator depends on the availability of the prey. When the prey isn’t available because of a “mismatch” in timing, the predator can’t survive.

In this case, warming oceans have led lobsters in the Gulf of Maine to hatch earlier than they used to. At the same time, C. finmarchicus is disappearing sooner.

“The entire season of Calanus has been truncated,” Carloni said. “They’re coming out and then disappearing early.”

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Something Is Happening to the American Lobster in Maine. If It Continues, It Could Send Waves Through the U.S. Fishing Industry

Lobster is the most valuable species in U.S. fishery and 80% of it is harvested in Maine.

While adult lobsters are thriving, scientists are baffled over where all the young lobsters have gone.

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