July 18, 2018 — The Maine Department of Marine Resources is using $340,000 from the sale of specialty license plates to bankroll lobster research.
The state agency is using lobster license plate profits to fund six research projects, including five run by the University of Maine and one by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, and give $5,000 mini-grants to four other researchers. Project data will be shared through a research collaborative created to address the impact of a changing ocean environment on Maine’s lobster industry.
“Maine’s lobster industry is our most valuable and is a critical piece of the economy of nearly every community along the coast,” Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher said in a prepared statement Tuesday. “We know that change is happening in the Gulf of Maine and we want to be positioned with improved science to adapt to those changes.”
The agency in charge of regulating the state’s $1.5 billion industry is trying to up its own scientific efforts with these grants, which will be shared and shaped by a research collaborative made up of state officials, scientists and industry leaders. At the centerpiece of the new emphasis is research to support Maine’s most valuable fishery. The plan was to fund $500,000 in lobster science projects.