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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 36 Number 9
May 2009
Maine ’08 lobster landings up; value plummets
WEST BOOTHBAY HARBOR, ME – The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) announced on April 15 that preliminary statewide lobster landings for 2008 totaled almost 67.4 million pounds, reflecting a 3-million-pound increase over 2007 landings.
Despite this up-tick in poundage, the bottom line was grim, which came as no surprise to anyone involved in the industry. The value of the 2008 catch – roughly $235.58 million – represented a staggering $49.72 million drop in landed value compared to 2007.
As a result, far fewer dollars circulated through Maine’s coastal communities, which financially devastated thousands of lobster-dependent fishing families.
“We knew that landings were doing OK,” said Maine DMR Commissioner George Lapointe. “But price-wise, people took it right on the chin, especially in the fall, and that’s when people put away their mattress money.”
According to DMR statistics, the value of Maine’s lobster catch during October, November, and December – the three most critical lobster harvesting months for many fishermen, especially Downeast – dropped $44 million compared to 2007. Landed value from October through December was $104.57 million in 2007. In 2008, it was only $60.54 million.
Depressed market
The steep decline in landed value was directly tied to last season’s market upheaval, when global demand dried up and boat prices tanked to as low as $2 per pound, leaving lobstermen coastwide first numbed with shock and then filled with anxiety.
Almost every county in Maine took a hit. The state’s two biggest lobster producing regions – Hancock and Knox/Waldo counties – experienced economic losses of $15.9 million and $16.8 million respectively compared to 2007.
But even smaller-volume counties were hit hard. Lincoln County, which held steady with landings in the 5-million-pound range, suffered a $4.2 million drop in value.
The only county that didn’t backslide was York, which extends to the New Hampshire border.
Lobstermen in the southern end of the state were able to land lobsters earlier in the year and had a steady run during July, August, and September – before the fall’s precipitous price drop. As a result, many York County harvesters had a chance to squeeze in a fair season.
However, the industry overall, even in York County, felt the economic bite from the very start of 2008, according to Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA).
“We had been below average all year,” she recalled. “We were down 25 cents per pound, 50 cents per pound. So people were hurting. Fuel was up, and the price was off just enough that it was pushing some people over the edge.”
And then came fall’s $2 prices.
“The Downeast part of the coast got hit the hardest because they were getting their first big catches coinciding with the huge price-drop in October,” she said.
Lobster dependent
According to Robin Alden of Stonington, lobstermen in her area were shaken to the core when prices took such a sharp and unexpected nosedive.
Alden is the executive director of the Penobscot East Resource Center (PERC) and chairman of the Stonington Lobster Working Group – a subgroup of the town’s Economic Development Committee.
“The whole community was just in shock,” she said. “In a fishing-dependent community like ours, it isn’t just the fishermen who are affected. Everyone feels the loss of this money, down to the hairdressers and the grocery store.”
Stonington and Deer Isle – both on the island of Deer Isle – accounted for 40% of Hancock Country’s lobster landings in 2007. Roughly 300-350 lobster boats work from the island, which has a year-round population of not much more than 3,000 people.
Alden said Hancock County is one of the two Maine counties most heavily dependent on fishing and few other employment options exist there for fishermen.
“It’s not as though they can come ashore and find a job,” she said.
Stonington was so rocked by the market crash that the community, led by PERC, staged lobster-buying events in mid-October and December on the town’s commercial pier.
“We felt we had to do something,” said Alden.
Hundreds turned out for the sale, and the community accomplished its primary goal – to draw public attention to the price situation and promote Maine lobster as an affordable, good-for-you food.
Following those events, the Stonington Lobster Working Group was formed. Its mission has been two-fold: to determine what can be done to improve the price situation this summer; and to figure out solutions for the long term to ensure “this never happens again,” said Alden.
“As bad as it was for this community to absorb last year’s prices, we haven’t felt the full impact of that yet,” she continued. “If this season starts out as bad as last, then we will be in terrible shape. We are really, really worried that this is going to happen again this year.”
Alden found the crushing economic crisis to be, in a way, ironic.
“I’ve always assumed the fragility of the lobster industry would show up through the resource – in the stock itself,” she said. “But here, in one stroke, we have it show up through the market.”
The problem has been especially shattering for a town like Stonington, where fishermen are 90% dependent on lobsters, she said.
“We’ve watched our rights to other fisheries disappear – groundfish, scallops, access to shrimp markets – so lobsters are everything,” Alden said.
Strong resource
Despite the crippling price problems, the fact that the stock itself appeared to be holding its own came as welcome relief to everyone, including Commissioner Lapointe.
“We are solidly in the ‘green light’ territory,” he said of the lobster resource.
Patrice McCarron concurred and added, “I think there’s a lot of reason for optimism on the landings side. People are seeing tons of shorts and lots of juveniles.”
She expressed further hope that Maine’s strong summer tourist trade and increased efforts to sell more lobster locally might keep prices in the $3 range during the height of the season this year.
“That’s not great, but it might let more people get by,” she said. “Given the economy we’re in, consumer demand just hasn’t turned around yet.”
Lapointe agreed that people were still “hunkering down.”
He pointed to the combined state/industry effort to improve prices by pursuing Marine Stewardship Certification and working with the governor’s lobster task force.
Nonetheless, the commissioner acknowledged that whatever comes out of those efforts most likely will be medium-to-long-term solutions – not immediate ones.
“We’re still in for some rocky road here,” he said. “But we will weather this. It’s just that there’s no magic wand or silver bullet.”
Janice M. Plante
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