F R O M   T H E   C R O W E ’ S   N E S T

Price of Sustained Admission



As the lobster season begins it seems that compounding unresolved issues the industry is facing are being rolled over in a kind of default fisheries deficit account. The account imbalance sheet shows a lobster bait shortage rolled over for the last few years, declining landings, the costs of whale regulations being rewritten yet again, shrinking bottom access from energy and aquaculture leases and finally the pending balloon mortgage payments on global ocean warming and acidity. Suspending fishing to deal with all these issues is a nonstarter.

This all may lead to a sigh of relief for some retiring fishermen. But those starting out with a new mortgage on a boat could be feeling the strain.

For the most part fishing has never been a sure thing. With the exception of the mid-1990s to the middle of this decade’s boom in lobster fishing, it has often been a struggle to beat the odds. Many lobstermen have grand or great grandparents who fished lobster seasonally. They also fished other fisheries, worked at farming, carpentry, boat building or other occupations to round out a year’s income.

Many of those alternate fisheries are no longer viable and the off season occupations less accessible. As recent economic policies have shown, going backwards in a world that has always gone forward is problematic.

Lobster fishing’s future is not in the past. Not entirely. Fishing practices, gear, bait and boats may need to adapt to changing economic and climate realities. The demand for the unique product that Maine lobster is, marketed to new more valuable U.S. markets and developing Asian markets can deliver boat prices that offset new and higher costs of fishing.

The new world of higher market values will not fix all the issues currently being rolled over, but it could help keep fishermen in the business. The part of the past that is fishing’s future is in attempting to deal with ocean temperatures and acidity.

Aside from supporting changes to the obvious global causes, adaptation may be the keyword on the ground. Adapting to the use of resources altered by temperature and acidity may be required. Restoring and protecting species habitat for alewives, groundfish, clams, eels, lobster and the other marine organisms whose existence is interdependent and that make the system sustainable may the price of sustained admission.