December 19, 2023 — Most experts agree, the decline of Maine’s lobster industry is inevitable. It’s not a matter of if, they say, but when.
Exactly what that decline might look like, however – how quickly it will arrive, how severe the drop off will be, or how it might alter the makeup of Maine’s fleet of fishing vessels – remains, if not a point of contention, an unnerving uncertainty.
Researchers at a variety of Maine institutions are working hard to provide some clarity, but while scientists have more information about the life cycle, movements and distribution of Maine’s lobster population, very little is known about how changes to the lobster fishing industry are impacting Maine’s lobstermen.
“My takeaway from the last two years of doing this work is there remains a huge amount of uncertainty about what’s happening,” said Joshua Stoll, an assistant professor in the School of Marine Sciences at the University of Maine.
Stoll is one of a growing number of researchers who think the key to anticipating the trajectory of the lobster fishery might lie not exclusively in the biological data, but also in a variety of shifting socioeconomic indicators, like changes in the sizes of boats being bought and built or slight adjustments in the risk calculations of lobster fishermen.