Seafood News Aquaculture

Lobster aquaculture breakthrough in Maine

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By SeafoodSource staff
05 June, 2012 - Though there is no shortage of lobsters in the Gulf of Maine, some scientists and lobster fishery officials have been trying to learn how to reproduce the crustaceans in captivity.

As other commercial fisheries in Maine have dwindled or nearly vanished, the amount of lobster caught in the gulf each year has shot up dramatically over the past two decades. Last year, for the first time ever, more than 100 million pounds of lobster were brought ashore by Maine fishermen, who earned an estimated total of more than USD 330 million for their catch.

But as the lobster industry has come to dominate commercial fishing in the state, some scientists have expressed concern about what might happen to Maine’s coastal economy if the gulf’s lobster population were to collapse. As a precautionary measure, some fishermen, scientists and industry officials have tried hatching millions of tiny juvenile lobsters and then letting them loose in the ocean.

But according to Brian Beal, there have been some serious scientific shortcomings to those efforts. Producing millions of tiny lobsters, each as long as a dime is wide, and setting them afloat in the gulf is well and good, but what happens to them after that? Have any of them ever grown big enough to be legally sold in Maine? Do they ever settle to the bottom? Are they all eaten by fish as they swim around in the water column?

Click here to read the full story from the Bangor Daily News >

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