In late October, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) issued its determinations on lobster stock in the Gulf of Maine, recommending NOAA keep management of the stock the same in 2026.
Included within that decision was a stock assessment, which indicated that the population was experiencing minor overfishing.
Maine Lobstermen Association President Patrice McCarron told SeafoodSource that soon after the ASMFC meeting, she thought things would proceed as normal based on the discussions – which largely centered on management decision-making. Then, she started to get phone calls from media.
“I started immediately getting calls for our response on the lobster fishery overfishing the resource,” McCarron said. “I was driving around thinking, 'What are people talking about?’”
The ASMFC puts out regular post-meeting press releases, and the most recent release on lobster mentioned that the lobster fishery in the Gulf of Maine experienced minor overfishing in 2025, with the stock assessment showing a 34 percent decline in population. The word “overfishing” and the high percentage of population decline quickly caught national attention, as local television news channels and the Associated Press picked up the story – which was then republished in the New York Times, The Seattle Times, and other national outlets.
“I just started calling people back one at a time, and it was really that overfishing headline had caught their eye,” McCarron said.
The ASMFC press release headline said the stock was not depleted but was “experiencing overfishing,” which in fisheries management is a technical term meaning a fishery has a harvest rate higher than the rate that would produce its maximum sustainable yield. McCarron said that the term "experiencing overfishing" and the term “overfished” – which is when a stock is depleted to the point that it can’t reach the maximum sustainable yield regardless of fishing pressure – are often confusing for those not used to the complexity of fisheries assessments.
Making the situation more difficult, she said, is trying to explain those differences without painting the lobster industry in a negative light, she said.
“I have to call people back and say, ‘We don’t agree with this, but I don’t want it to be misinterpreted that we’re trashing the stock assessment,’” McCarron said.
As McCarron tried to respond, some companies began media campaigns claiming Maine lobster is unsustainable and that the state’s fishing practices are putting the stock in jeopardy – adding the caveat that customers should buy Canadian lobster they have instead.
McCarron said she’s seen those advertising campaigns and feels portraying lobster negatively undermines the fisheries in both countries.
“It’s just an example of slicing an issue down to one little piece and exploiting it for all the wrong reasons,” McCarron said. “I found that to be really really frustrating and doing a disservice to Canada and the U.S.”
McCarron said the reality for the fishery is that there are fewer lobsters in the ocean, but that’s fewer lobsters from an all-time peak population and the industry is not concerned about any issues with abundance in the future. The lobster industry uses passive gear, and many factors leading to the declines are environmental – as was acknowledged in the ASMFC report.
“When you break it down, the lobster fishery is designed to have maximum effort on the lobsters that we are allowed to remove from the ocean because we leave so many in the ocean,” McCarron said.
In the U.S. state of Maine, several rules help maintain the sustainability of the stock. Undersized lobsters must be thrown back into the ocean to ensure that the stock continues to grow, and “eggers” – female lobsters with eggs present on their tail – must be V-notched to indicate a breeding female and be thrown back. That female is then protected into the future as it is illegal to land a V-notched lobster in several management areas.
Oversized lobsters are also thrown back, as the larger females produce much more eggs and, thus, have a larger impact on the fishery. A lobster that’s 4 pounds, for example, produces as much as 4.6 times more eggs than a lobster that is 1 pound – a fact that has led neighboring Canada to adopt similar rules.
McCarron acknowledged there will still be “growing pains” from the decline in lobsters, but the ASMFC also had positive news: There are more juvenile lobsters in the water than in years past. She said the assessment is a reflection of what fishermen have been seeing on the water for years.
“I can tell you I’ve talked to many many lobstermen and made sure we’ve talked to all areas of the coast, and people are seeing so many small lobsters in their traps I’m telling you they’re genuinely not worried,” McCarron said.
