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At the height of the Long Island Sound's lobster die-off, individual fishermen there were hauling up as many as 400 dead lobsters a day. Still, many within Maine's industry and regulatory agency shrugged it off as an isolated incident. Nothing like that could ever happen in the cleaner, cooler waters of the Gulf of Maine. Then, another strange lobster shell disease, this time in Rhode Island, caught our attention. In 1997, only 5% of the takeable lobsters there had this particular shell disease. In 1998, that number jumped to 20%. By 2002, it had climbed to 30%.
Just how little we actually understand about lobster health has slowly become crystal clear. Pat White, CEO of the Maine Lobstermen's Association, saw the rapid rise of the Rhode Island problem as a wake-up call
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Maine's lobster catch is worth over $253 million. It provides the income for some 7,400 commercial lobster harvesters, as well as their sternmen. Those fishermen own a combined total of more than 3.2 million traps (approximately $256 million worth of gear). These fishermen all have boats, support their local infrastructure, and, as Maine's top fishery, provide a sizable trickle-down economy for our state.
For lobster fishermen south of the Maine border, times are still tough and the light at the end of the tunnel is barely a speck of hope. In 2002, the Long Island Sound fishery was declared a federal disaster and almost $8 million in federal and state funds were made available for research into the cause of their die-off. Nick Crismale is the president of the Connecticut Lobstermen's Association. He thinks that most of the scientists involved in the feeding frenzy over the $8 million are barking up the wrong tree. He's bitter, but who wouldn't be, leading a lobster organization where, last season, almost 75% of its members' traps were rotting or rusting away in storage.
Crismale is convinced that the die-off was caused by pollution. He blames pesticides, laced with a stuff called malathion and resmethrin, that were meant to kill mosquitoes potentially carrying West Nile virus. Crismale and others claim that the pesticides that were sprayed eventually washed into the Sound and accidentally just about eradicated their entire lobster population. "Malathion and resmethrin are extremely deadly to lobsters," Crismale explains. So deadly that just a microscopic amount, 33 parts per billion, can kill a bunch of lobsters. Before this environmental disaster, the Long Island Sound lobster fishery ranked within the top three with Maine and Massachusetts, and was worth about $40 million. "We produced between seven and nine million pounds," Crismale says. "Now, I don't even think we're at 750,000 pounds. I don't think we have 100 active fishermen left between New York and Connecticut."
Here in Maine, Carl Wilson, head lobster scientist for the Department of Marine Resources (DMR), will tell you that everything is just fine. Results from the DMR's lobster sampling over the last two years turned up a minuscule number of lobsters with diseased shells and not even one limp lobster. "We're talking a couple of dozen lobsters out of 100,000 that we measure each year," Wilson says. The phrase "Lobster shell disease is naturally occurring in Maine waters" has become the mantra of Wilson's office. "We always see a background level of lobster shell disease in Maine lobsters," Wilson says. "There are well-documented cases over the last 20 years of periodic outbreaks in Maine, southern New England, and Nova Scotia."
Crismale shakes his head in disgust. He sees urban sprawl, pollutant discharge from wastewater plants, and weak links within the environmental regulatory agencies as the root of the problem for all lobstermen. "Where was the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] when they were first considering spraying for the West Nile virus in this coastal area?" he asks. "Where were the environmental checks and balances to proactively protect our fishery?"
The question now, for those of us concerned about the lobster fishery and other fisheries in Maine, is whether we'll hear Crismale's message and respond proactively. Or, if the true weight of his words will only reveal themselves to us in hindsight.
Jeff Della Penna is staff writer for the Fisherman's Voice, a monthly newspaper based in Gouldsboro, Maine.
