Steaming Ahead

This year is turning out to be a difficult one. Most lobstermen I speak with are upset that landings have been slow and the price has been even lower than expected. The price has been particularly frustrating given the sluggish pace of landings. Add to that the ever-increasing cost of bait and higher fuel prices and lobstermen are genuinely worried.

We’ve been talking for many years about when and if lobster landings will take a downturn. As that old saying goes, what goes up must come down. Lobster landings have defied all predictions and experienced seemingly unending historic highs — year after year and beyond anyone’s expectations.

The rise of the Maine lobster fishery has been staggering. The historic annual average of lobster landings for the 40 years between 1950 and 1990 was a meager 25 million pounds. Landings doubled in the 1990s from 28 million to 57 million pounds. During the 2000s, landings jumped another 70%, reaching 96 million pounds in 2010, and then continued to grow by another 30%, peaking at 130 million pounds in 2016. That is a more than six-fold increase over 30 years.

Patrick Keliher, Department of Marine Resources Commissioner, held meetings a few years ago to talk to lobstermen about what Maine could or should do if lobster landings were to decline. According to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) lobster management plan, a management action will not be triggered until landings plummet down to 25 million pounds. That trigger point is based on the median landings over a 30-year reference period, from 1982 to 2013. When the Commissioner talked to lobstermen about that trigger point, most agreed that Maine’s coastal economy would already be deep in a crisis if we ever hit an annual harvest of 25 million pounds. Yet few agreed on how we might deal with such a decline before we got to that level. There was talk of removing latent licenses and strategies on how the industry might cope in a decline. Many simply said that “survival of the fittest” would take care of things.

So here we are in 2017. Cash flow is down and most agree that the fishery will not see the strong run of lobsters needed to catch up during the final months of this year. My sense is that plenty of lobstermen are genuinely worried about what the dual blows of lower landings and weaker price mean for their business. And established lobstermen are worried about what will happen to those who have extremely large boat payments.

Regardless of what the final results of this season are, we likely will be well below on total landings and total value compared to 2016. It’s important to remember that 2016 was a record year for both landings and value and, for that reason, is not the best year to use as a comparison. 2017 may be the year that reminds us that it is no longer realistic to think that we will continue to set new records year after year.

How far off we will be this year is anyone’s guess. Given the year-round season, fleet diversity and varying reports from throughout the coast, it is very difficult to translate what we hear from individual lobstermen to the fishery. There are some lobstermen who report that they are having a decent 2017, and many others who say that their landings are down anywhere from 20% to 40% compared to last year. If that were to translate directly to statewide landings (which is unlikely), a 20% decline would put us around 100 million pounds; a 40% decline would put us closer to 80 million pounds.

No one wants to see landings decline, especially without a bump in price to absorb the loss. But none of these scenarios are anywhere near the drop to 25 million pounds that it would take to trigger some sort of management action. While we may have slipped this year, we have not yet fallen down. ASMFC voted at its October meeting to put forward a draft Addendum to collect more information from the lobster industry. The addendum seeks to expand lobster eff ort data collection, increase spatial resolution of lobster harvester reporting, and advance collection of biological data, particularly off shore. The lobster fishery has changed tremendously in the past decade and in the absence of good data, researchers are struggling to explain what is going on.

ASMFC is also undertaking a review of the Area 1 and Area 3 lobster management plans to assess whether differing management approaches undermine the overall conservation benefit to the resource. That would be good to know if we are at the beginning of a landings decline.

Regardless of whether lobster landings are trending up or down, our industry must be able to weather changes and remain economically viable. We need lobstermen to be successful in order for our coastal economy to remain stable. We need a sound fishery we can pass on to the next generation.

I wonder what it takes to be a successful lobsterman in 2017 and beyond. A love of the ocean, boats and fishing, and a strong family tradition may no longer be enough to sustain a successful lobstering business. Fishing is an inherently risky way to make a living. We need to think about how we will cope with economic ups and downs in an increasingly unpredictable marine environment. Thankfully, Maine’s lobster conservation measures are excellent and have rewarded this fishery over the years. But in this new era of unknowns, it is not clear how much those measures will temper any downturn coming in the future.

Lobstermen must have a business strategy that not only relies on hard work, but is flexible and responsive to the changing environment, fishery and market that you work in. This is the new reality for the Maine fleet. That new reality includes the challenge of availability and affordability of bait and pressure from the science and conservation communities to implement ever stricter regulations to protect whales.

Every lobsterman must think about his or her own strategy to remain successful, and all players in the lobster industry must be prepared to make changes to keep their businesses viable. As a fleet of small businesses, each must find its own strategy to succeed. The success of the lobster industry as a whole depends on the success of the thousands of small businesses which comprise it.

We have been lucky that the changes in the Maine lobster industry have been largely positive for the past forty years. We must now prepare for the potential of leaner, more challenging times. There’s that other old saying, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I would love to hear your thoughts on how we can all grow stronger and more strategic as the industry and the world around us continue to change.

As always, stay safe on the water.