MAINE, USA — The news was not a surprise, but the reality of the numbers still may have been a shock for Maine’s lobster industry.
Last week, the Department of Marine Resources reported that the 2022 lobster landings were 97,956,667 pounds, roughly 10 million pounds less than the previous year.
The value of that catch was the real attention-getter.
In 2021, Maine saw record-high lobster prices most of the year, and the fishermen hauled in a tremendous amount of money: the catch was worth $724,949,426 to fishermen at the dock—what’s referred to as the “boat price." It was by far the highest Maine lobster value on record.
The 2022 catch brought the industry back to reality. The average price for lobster dropped nearly in half, meaning lobstermen and women earned far less money. The latest landings report shows the value of last year’s catch dropped to $388,589,931.
Marine Resources Commissioner Pat Keliher, in an interview just before the new landings report was released, said the number was a confirmation of all he had heard from fishermen last year and represented a “market correction," although still a painful one.
“We were less than 100 million pounds for the first time in a long time, but we had a low boat price and the behavior of the fishermen changed," Keliher explained. "There were 50,000 less trips last year because of the low boat price and high fuel and bait costs. So they changed their behavior, and we saw at the end of the day less lobsters being caught."
Keliher said the impact of low prices, combined with ongoing worry about new right whale regulations on fishing, made 2022 a gloomy year for the lobster industry.
“The industry as a whole, they were set back. They were on their heels, wondering what's going to come next,” the commissioner said.
That question may not be answered for several years.
In December, over the objections of environmental groups, the Maine congressional delegation was able to get Congress to pass a six-year delay in new right whale protection rules. Those new rules had been scheduled to be imposed this year, and the state and the lobster industry warned the added restrictions could devastate the fishing industry and the thousands of people who depend on it for a living.
“What we did with the governor and congressional delegation and Congress was little shy of a miracle,” Keliher said, adding that it saved Maine’s lobster industry.
That said, Keliher said he reminds fishermen the whale rules are not going away and are just delayed for a few years. He said the court fight against the federal agencies continues and insists the regulators are singling Maine out for unfair treatment, based on bias and lack of scientific data or evidence of an actual threat to right whales.
“I’m not going to disagree that right whales are critically endangered,” he said. “But there’s a better approach here that doesn’t also make the lobster industry become endangered.”
That approach, said Keliher, requires more and better research and data collection to show where right whales actually are in the Gulf of Maine, as well as when they appear. He said Maine will receive tens of millions of dollars from the federal government to help fund data, which he said can allow for more carefully targeted enforcement as opposed to broad closures of fishing territory and sweeping restrictions on fishing gear.
Keliher added that it will still likely come down to a pitched battle with the federal regulators, whom he expects will come back in a few years with even tougher whale protection rules.
That approach could be affected by the ongoing court case between the state, the lobster industry, and the federal government, challenging the scientific underpinnings of the current whale rules. Keliher said at an appeals court hearing in Washington last week the judge appeared somewhat sympathetic to Maine’s arguments.
In the meantime, he said the DMR is trying all the steps it can to gather the data to prove Maine fishermen are not a threat to the whales.
“There are other tools in the toolbox. We have a proposal before the Legislature to buy a new plane for the Marine Patrol," Keliher said. "We have had an airplane for 70 years, but they’ve been small Cessnas. And it's meant for inshore use. So we need to fly farther offshore safely, with crew, to be able to look for these whales.”