STONINGTON, Maine โ When Deer Isle lobsterman Jeff Eaton peers into one of his traps, he sees a lot more than snappers and selects, hard-shells and shedders.
The part-time boat builder and avid lobster boat racer sees the heart of a $126 million regional economy that supports an even larger network of trap makers, bait dealers, marine supply shopkeepers and boat builders like himself.
That trickle-down shadow economy has transformed the island, which used to be known best for the granite quarries that built New York and Washington, D.C.โs most iconic buildings, into a thriving lobster economy, now best known as the home to a 300-boat lobster fleet and the town of Stonington, the self-proclaimed lobster capital of the world.
โUp here, the lobster business trickles down a lot further than just us fishermen,โ Eaton said. โIt feeds the whole economy.โ
Although postcard-beautiful, with its neat, century-old houses looking out over its blink-and-youโve-missed-it downtown, Stonington is a fishing village first and a stomping ground for summer people second. Itโs the leader of a regional economy that traps more than a third of all lobsters landed in Maine, and an equal percentage of all the dollars earned from their sale. Last year the value of the stateโs catch reached nearly $500 million. This stretch of coastline, and the lobstering islands of Vinalhaven, Isle au Haut and North Haven, landed more lobsters than any other managed zone, and has done so for the last four years.