Lobstermen’s Town Meeting Covers Ocean Health

By Mike Crowe

The Lobstermen’s Town Meeting had about 80 attendees from Canada and the U.S.
Most fishermen were from Canada. Many could not travel on Friday because of snowy weather.
Both countries had scientists, marketing managers, politicians and
lobstermen in attendance. Fishermen’s Voice photo

Among the topics at the annual Lobstermen’s Town Meeting in St. John’s, New Brunswick, were finding ways to solve labor problems for large-volume lobster processors, ocean health, product quality and marketing. The meetings, organized by the Maine Lobster Institute and held in alternating years in Maine and New Brunswick, bring together the U.S. and Canadian lobster industries to focus on key contemporary issues.

Seasonal demands for labor creates a need for lobster processors to juggle and innovate in order to keep as many employees through slow seasons, which means they have enough help during the surge in lobster harvests. Canadian processors close for one month and the Fair Trade Lobster Company in Gouldsboro closes for three months. The company is working to develop new products that will extend the season. Fair Trade Lobster’s labor problem has been in finding enough local housing for its 125 employees.

The town had sought for a few years to get a new business to reopen on the property that had housed a sardine cannery for a century. Lobster dealer and longtime Gouldsboro selectman Dana Rice said available housing in the area is very tight. “It’s a positive problem to have 125 desperately needed jobs, but not enough housing for these new employees. Many of the former Stinson Cannery employees have retired and still live in the area. New employees either drive long distances to their new job or deal with inadequate or expensive housing.”

Spiros Tourkakis, an owner at Fair Trade Lobster, said housing is a major problem for the company and they had considered building some housing for employees.

In New Brunswick, Tourkakis said, his problem is finding labor and a stable payscale. Canada has labor laws that address seasonal industries demands for temporary employees. The temporary labor pool is supported by immigration laws. The Canadian lobster processing industry is attempting to change regulations that will more effectively enable these companies to tap that labor resource. Minimum wages can also vary from one area to the next.

The participants were asked to give their definition of a healthy ocean and those responses covered a wide range. One audience participant, after hearing descriptions of the problems carbon loading and climate change had on the oceans, likened it to a human who has eaten poorly, getting inadequate sleep and abusing alcohol and drugs for a long time.

Maine Senator Chris Johnson outlined the presentation on ocean health he submitted to the governor and Maine legislature. Johnson said it is important to get policy makers involved. “There are others pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but the U.S. is the bad guys in this and needs to do better with energy policy. We need to be more serious about alternative energy development and working with farmers to control runoff,” said Johnson. (to see all of Senator Johnson’s Ocean Health presentation go to: www.maine.gov/legis/opla/Oceanacidificationreport.pdf OR read or download the PDF here.

After the Ocean Health presentation, lobsterman David Cousens said, “Based on the presentation, it looks like we are at a tipping point. My fear is, we are going to reach a point of no return. We need to do a better job of educating fishermen and the public. When I was a kid, science was king. Now, if you don’t like the science, you can pay someone to say that science isn’t right.”

Scientists pointed out that the northwest Atlantic is warming and becoming more acidic more quickly than any other place on earth. Ocean monitoring and establishing baselines were seen as high priorities.

Scientist Tim Bowden said one of the most troubling facts is the increased rate of climate change in the last 10 years. Bowden said, “One way to bring ocean acidity back to a normal level would be with a 4-billion-pound Alka Seltzer tablet. But even that would not address the other half of of the carbon which is in the atmosphere.” Bowden said that taking action now to mitigate climate change could result in noticeable progress. However, even ceasing use of coal and oil would not address the backlog of atmospheric carbon dioxide, he said.

Acidification is effecting the rate that lobster larvae pass though the early stages of development, which leaves them as prey for a longer period. The acidic saturation point is is know for clams and corals, but not for lobster. Twenty-five years of settlement data showed both a surge lobster and a recent retraction was seen as an “early warning system” marker. This was just one unknown discussed in the context of market growth and development.

New strategies in marketing and handling lobster were factors in developing industry strength through image and value. Marketing efforts by the Maine Lobster Marking Collaborative include focusing efforts on changing the image of early-season lobster by referring to it as “new-shell lobster.” Holden’s company, Luke’s Lobster, of Saco, Maine, has 13 higher-end restaurants on the East Coast and a lobster processing plant. Holden said terms such as “soft-shell,” “shedders” and “bugs” diminish the image of the product. They are contrary to an image of a quality, desirable product that this grade of lobster needs in order to compete in the international marketplace.

Presenters said that leading seafood markets are in Europe, United States and Asia. They said that seafood consumer habits are changing. The trend in China is for people to order dinner online and pick it up on the way home from work. While there remains a large market for hard-shell live lobster in Asia, as markets there expand lobster product types are becoming more varied to serve wider market demands. The Boston Seafood Show in March was an indication that there are large foreign markets that are willing to pay for higher quality, presenters said.

Discussion also centered on the question of handling lobster, with the aim of ensuring the product’s condition. This raised the question of boat price. Careful handling, presenters said, must occur throughout the lobster’s transit. Transit points include the time the lobster is taken from the trap, measured, put in a tank, then a tote, off-loaded to a wharf, stored, then loaded on a truck that may not be refrigerated for what may be a long, rough ride. Careful handling throughout these and any other hazards in the supply chain can reduce stress on an animal that had spent its life before being caught in cold water on the ocean floor, presenters said.

“Show me the money,” was Grand Manan lobsterman Lawrence Cooke’s response. Cooke said to take on additional tasks related to specialized handling would add time and labor to a fishing schedule with none to spare. He said he believed fishermen would get no financial reward for their effort. Cooke said dealers and processors would reap the benefits of fishermen’s efforts in this area.

Spiros Toukakis, said he understood the concerns of lobstermen regarding the demands of additional efforts for financial rewards that they would not soon see. However, he said he was confident that, in time, this effort to create overall better value would result in higher prices for lobstermen. This was a tough sell as the topic resurfaced throughout discussions of improved handling. Speakers noted that stress is a cause of die-off in caught lobster. In addition, they said, poor handling that results in the loss of a leg or claw, or in a cracked shell, can immediately convert a top-grade hard-shell lobster to a bottom-grade product that will go to a processor, not a dinner plate in Hong Kong.

Other threats to lobster health led to a discussion by Lobster Institute Executive Director and marine biologist Bob Bayer, describing current research on the effects of modern, high-speed haulers on lobster survival. Bayer said high-speed ascent through the water column has detectable impacts on lobster. He suggested evidence of this could be seen by hauling lobster at slower and higher speeds, placing them in separate crates and checking on them a week later. Mortality is significantly higher for lobster that came up through the water at high speed, he said.

Bayer said scientists detected a fatal bacteria in some of the lobsters that were dying. Eventually, biopsies discovered a condition they named “jelly heart” in lobster hauled at high speed.The bacteria enters the heart effectively collapsing it. The result is a smaller gelatinous, low functioning heart. He explained that high-speed travel up through the changing pressure in the water column makes the lobster’s gut permeable and the bacteria enters their system eventually killing them.