Acadia Partners Blog

I live in a one species town (it’s a one horse town too, but that’s a different story). The species is lobster and it is estimated to account for about half of all income earned in Winter Harbor and the surrounding community – when you take into account support services such as bait sales, boat repairs, etc… It wasn’t always this way, even 20-30 years ago folks fished for scallops, shrimp, sea urchins, and groundfish. Not anymore. It is all about lobster.

And lobster is booming. According to the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) in 2004 Maine fishermen caught 70 million pounds of lobster worth a total of $285 million. In 1990, the DMR recorded that 28 million pounds of lobster worth $61 million was caught in Maine.

But this economic boom hides a scary reality. The groundfish are gone, so are the sea urchins, and every year more red tides taint the clams. As UMaine Professor of Marine Sciences Bob Steneck is quoted saying in the minutes of the Downeast Initiative Workshop held at SERC last October [my emphasis added]:

“Whereas fishing in the 1920s landed primarily groundfish (the lobster ranked 6th), in recent years most of the value in Maine’s fisheries is found in lobsters. For example, in 1996, 2002 and 2004 lobsters accounted for 60, 70 and 80% of Maine’s fisheries value, respectively. Today, the economic and ecological diversity of Downeast Maine’s coastal ecosystem is dangerously low. Such low diversity is unstable and very risky for those who depend on marine resources.”

As if the ecological implication weren’t bad enough, the economics of a community dependant on one species is very, very scary. As Fisherman/Researcher (and recent MacArthur Award Recipient) Ted Ames said during the workshop, “No fish, no fishermen, one fundamental reality that academia doesn’t really get,” and he went on to give an example “in Stonington only 2 part-time ground fishermen remain, where there was once about 20.”

Everybody that’s left is a lobsterman. And you CAN make big money. According to one fisherman with over 50 years experience, a sternman (someone who helps pull and bait lobster pots) on a good boat can make more than $50,000 in a good year. And many, especially the younger fishermen, are investing in fishing big time — going into big debt to do it — building very big and expensive boats ($350,000 to $400,000 for a 40 plus foot boat). There better not be a hiccup.

In Downeast parlance I’m “from away,” meaning I wasn’t born here (and sometimes can even mean your parents weren’t born here), and that means I have a limited right to hold certain opinions (or at least express them). Still, I’m worried about the future of my new home – its beauty and its unique culture. As Carl Wilson, senior lobster scientist for MDR said recently in a Bangor Daily News article “You can’t be going up all the time.”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006 at 11:47 am and is filed under Coastal Resources, Fisheries, Local Economy, Ecosystem-based management, Community, Acadia Partners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.