Your Questions, Answered: What Eats Lobsters, Besides Us?

It was a brave soul who first decided to eat a lobster. With a formidable shell, spikes jutting out all over and two powerful claws, that long-ago diner must have been pretty hungry to even think about munching on such a fierce looking creature.

Despite its rugged shell as an adult, young lobsters are on the menu of many

other Gulf of Maine species. BDN photo.

When a lobster is young, however, it is on the menu of many other creatures in the wild. As newly hatched lobster larvae ride Gulf of Maine currents at the surface, they are food for everything from sea birds to fish. When they finally settle to the seafloor, lobsters spend many years hiding from various hungry predators as they bulk up and build their hardy shell.

Once cod and other groundfish were the dominant diners on juvenile lobsters. As groundfish populations shrank, the predation pressure on lobsters lessened. Meanwhile, however, the Gulf of Maine temperature began to change because of warming waters. It is now considered one of the fastest warming marine regions in the world.

With warmer water north of Cape Cod, new marine species have entered and settled in the Gulf of Maine, including black sea bass and blue crab. Migratory fish, such as striped bass, are thriving in the warmer Gulf. These species are potential food web disruptors because they prey on and compete with lobsters and other local species.

Between July 2023 and March 2024, scientists working with Manomet Conservation Sciences conducted surveys and in-depth interviews with 45 lobstermen from Maine and northern Massachusetts to document what the lobstermen were seeing in their traps and what species they thought were affecting lobster populations.

The lobstermen identified seven key lobster predators, including striped bass, Atlantic cod, black sea bass, seals, blue crabs, and green crabs. Striped bass were seen as the top predator in Maine, while seals were more significant in Massachusetts. The lobstermen reported what is well-known: lobsters are preyed on at every stage of their lives — larval, juvenile, and adult — by multiple species, including seals and crabs.

The Department of Marine Resources conducted a study in 2021 to find out which species in the Gulf prey on juvenile lobsters the most. Atlantic cod, red hake, white hake, Atlantic halibut, and Atlantic mackerel are known to eat young lobsters, but it was unclear just how much. To find out, DMR scientists examined the stomach contents to look for juvenile lobster remains. They extracted 860 stomachs from fish caught during the spring and fall Maine-New Hampshire inshore trawl survey and Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries sentinel survey. Remarkably, juvenile lobster remains were found only in two white hake stomachs and two red hake stomachs.

Lobstermen report that cunner, a fish similar to tautog which often visit lobster traps, will eat the eggs extruded onto her underside by a female lobster if the two are caught in the trap together.

It’s a tough world out there in the Gulf of Maine for the average lobster, no matter how rugged its armor is!