February 11, 2019 — Climate change is hitting the lobster industry in two ways, Beth Casoni, the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association’s executive director, told the US House of Representatives’ Natural Resources Committee’s Water, Oceans and Wildlife – or WOW — panel on Thursday.
The Gulf of Maine is warming at a faster pace than 99% of other bodies of water and, by 2050, could lose 62% of its lobsters as a result, she said. Meanwhile, ocean acidification is making it harder for juvenile lobsters to grow shells, leaving them open to predators and disease.
“These threats from climate change are intensified by the other challenges lobstermen are facing,” said Casoni, one of seven witnesses at the two-hour hearing. “We do not have the luxury of looking at any one of these impacts on its own – all of them collectively are causing declines in the resource, hurting our bottom line, and our communities.
The event on Thursay was the second hearing called by the Natural Resources Committee on climate change since Democrats took control of the lower chamber in the 2018 election. The day before representative Raul Grijalva, the Arizona Democrat who now chairs the main committee, held a more general discussion.