October 1, 2021 — Scientists think they’ve found the chief culprit in the collapse of Maine’s prized shrimp fishery. They’re pointing the finger at a voracious species of squid that rode in on warming waters almost ten years ago.
Maine shrimp were long a regional delicacy fishermen and diners alike looked forward to each fall, with 10 million pounds and more harvested annually earlier in this century. While they’re small compared to other commercially-harvested shrimp, fans say they are sweeter too.
But in 2012, their population collapsed, federal regulators closed the fishery, and they haven’t recovered since.
Their latin name is Pandalus borealis, which gives a nod to their preference for cold arctic waters. Maine was always at the southern edge of their range, and the crash coincided with an extreme marine heat wave that warmed the Gulf of Maine’s waters to the highest temperatures since the 1950s.
But some thought there had to be more to the shrimp’s disappearance than just heat-sensitivity.
“After I saw this I remembered a fisherman saying to me ‘it’s the damn squid.’ He was saying there had been squid all over the place that spring,” Richards said.