October 31, 2019 — Early numbers show Maine’s lobster catch has declined as much as 40 percent this year; equaling roughly 50 million pounds.
State officials calculated these results using data gathered from September 2018 to September 2019. However, there are still a few months worth of data from lobster landings left out of these results.
The Maine Department of Marine Resources says that some locations had an uptick in catches after September, but as the season wraps up, lobstermen have reported that the pickings this year were substantially reduced.
Gene Robinson, a lobster captain off of Chebeague Island, has been fishing in Maine for the past 50 years.
“It was a wet, cold spring and the lobsters just never showed up,” said Robinson.
The cold spring may have stalled the shedding process in the early summer months when lobsters move toward the coast.