Lobster shortage in Conn. is a warning

[jpak]

http://bangordailynews.com/2012/07/28/opinion/lobster-shortage-in-conn-is-a-warning/

If lobster is your thing, there’s never been a better time to splurge. Prices are at 30-year lows — below what lobstermen need to charge just to break even.

But they’re not coming from Connecticut. Aside from that 17-pounder liberated from a Niantic restaurant last week, the lobster situation in Long Island Sound is dire. After a spate of die-offs, the haul is about 1 percent of what it was just over a decade ago.

Lobstering is, or was, big business around here. And there have been all sorts of studies and efforts aimed at figuring out what happened, most focused on pesticides that find their way into the Sound. But there’s been nothing conclusive, so more studies are in order.

But there is a more plausible explanation that is for some reason considered controversial: Long Island Sound, like oceans and seas around the world, is heating up because of global climate change. What was once a hospitable habitat for lobsters is now, for the most part, too warm to support them in large numbers.

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[elleng]

1. SORRY!

Going to Long Island next month!


Really is too bad.

[jpak]

3. Warm water this spring caused Gulf of Maine lobsters to "shed" too early this summer.

It's raised hell with the lobster industry - too many low priced shedders.

Lobster is $3.99 a pound for chick shedders right now.

[xchrom]

2. I just hate hearing these stories about lobsters or oysters.

We're not just losing the animals - we're losing our history.

These are things that go past the founding of our country.

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Old folks tell stories about how _their_ old folk's old folks

came to Maine and could just scoop lobstahs off the beach for dinner. Back then, though, they were considered poor folk's food.

[tk2kewl]

5. on Long Island they say you could pick flounder off the bottom like pancakes with a pitch fork

Last edited Wed Aug 1, 2012, 10:45 AM - Edit history (1)

in the day

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. I believe it!