Maine Lobster Industry: Challenges and Kelp Farming Solutions

Maine lobstermen diversify into kelp farming as lobster populations shift due to warming waters.

### Adapting to Change: The Future of Maine's Lobster Industry and Kelp Farming
* 🦞 Maine traps **90% of America's lobsters**, catching about **100 million pounds annually**, but rising water temperatures are pushing the lobster population **northward**, leading to concerns about **potential collapse**.
* 🌊 As lobstermen face challenges, many are diversifying their catch by turning to kelp farming, which offers a **less risky investment** and **complements the lobster fishing season**.
* 🚤 Steve and Dan, seasoned lobstermen, haul over **300 traps daily**, adhering to strict regulations that protect the lobster population, including **size limits** and the release of **egg-bearing females**.
* 📉 Despite a surge in lobster landings in 2016, the population is now **shifting offshore**, prompting scientists to predict a **continued decline**, though they maintain that the population will not **completely collapse**.
* 💵 The cost of operating a lobster fishing business is high, with new investments in **larger boats** necessary to reach the **shifting lobster population**, raising concerns about the **future for younger fishermen**.
* 🌱 Atlantic Sea Farms has emerged as a leader in kelp farming, helping fishermen transition to seaweed cultivation, which has seen a **dramatic increase from 53,000 pounds to 1.3 million pounds** harvested in just a few years.
* 🥗 Kelp farming not only provides an **alternative income stream for fishermen** but also addresses environmental issues by **sequestering carbon and reducing nitrogen in the water**.
* 🌍 While kelp may not replace lobster, the integration of both industries, along with other seafood options, is seen as a **hopeful future for Maine's fishing community** amidst climate change.

Narrator: Shelling a lobster claw takes quick hands and a good knife. Maine traps 90% of America's lobsters, about 100 million pounds every year. Steve: That one right there is going to look real good on somebody's dinner plate.

Narrator: But for decades, lobsters along the East Coast have been shifting north as waters get hotter. Twenty-five years ago, this time of year, this bay would have been full of boats and traps. I'm the only boat hauling here today.

The population of lobsters up in here has definitely changed. Narrator: That's a problem because many of the fishermen here only catch lobsters. I think there's always risk associated with putting all of your eggs in one basket. Narrator: Now, lobstermen are betting on something

with a little less pinch: seaweed. So, is America's lobster supply really headed for collapse? And can kelp help the industry adapt? For seven months of the year, Steve and his brother, Dan, set sail in the dark to pick up bait.

Steve: I'm 57, he's 55. Basically, every dollar I've made has come out of the water right here since I was 12 years old. Narrator: As they motor out to their first set of traps, Dan preps the bait.

Just as dawn sets in, the work takes off. And it doesn't stop. Steve and Dan will empty over 300 lobster traps today. Six traps are strung along one line, or trawl. Color-coded buoys, like Steve's orange and blue ones,

Mark either end. A winch pulls in the line, and Steve hauls the 40-pound traps on board. We get pinched pulling them out of the traps. What hurts is when you slam your elbow on something when you're moving your arm out of there.

Narrator: The team throws back any bycatch, or species that aren't lobsters, like these crabs. Steve: We don't keep anything we can't sell. Narrator: They also toss back any lobsters that are too big

or too small to be legally harvested. Steve: It has to be at least 3.25 inches from the back of the eye to the back of the shell. That's legal. That's big enough. If it's larger than 5 inches, it has to go back.

Narrator: If they come across a female with eggs, like this one, that's also protected by law and has to be thrown back. They clip a V-shaped notch into the tail to let other fishers know this lobster had eggs.

If you don't leave enough in the water for the future, you won't have a fishery. Narrator: Dan fills the empty traps with bait: Acadian redfish, menhaden, and pork fat. Steve: What we're giving them is their junk food.

It'd be like walking by a doughnut shop and smelling the doughnuts cooking, so you go in. Narrator: Then they push the first trap back into the water to catch some more. They have to be careful not to get caught up.

in that line as it whips by. That rope is one of the most dangerous parts of lobstering. It's why these guys carry a knife — in case the rope pulls them overboard, they can cut themselves free. He could fall off the stern.

It would be three minutes before I realized he went overboard, and that's not like I was ignoring him. It's just, I'm doing other things. Narrator: Once the traps are safely back in the water, Steve and Dan slide rubber bands around the claws

of their latest catch. Steve: We try to band the hard-shells first sometimes because they'll bite the other ones. I have to pay for everything except for the bands. The dealers give us the bands. Narrator: Steve drops them into the tank below

so they'll stay kicking. You want a lobster to stay alive all the way until it's cooked, so bacteria doesn't grow. Because they get paid by the lobster, the team keeps a tally from each buoy line. Steve: Two? Going to be a long day, Dan.

Narrator: They want to catch at least 10 lobsters from one trawl, or about 2 pounds a trap. Steve: Anything under a pound is real bad. Even though we're having a bad day and we're not catching much, look where we are.

I'd much rather be here than stuck in an office somewhere. Narrator: But for the last decade or so, rumors have swirled that Maine's lobster population could be at risk. Scientists track the East Coast lobster stock

by the total weight of the population — what's called the biomass. If you were to pinpoint a location where you could sort of balance that biomass on your fingertip, that would be the center of gravity. Narrator: In the 1970s, lobsters' center of gravity

was actually right off Long Island, New York. Because of warming water, the population collapsed there. The center shifted north, towards the stronger population off southern New England. But soon, the same thing happened there, and that population collapsed.

By the late 2000s, the center had shifted all the way to the Gulf of Maine. Fishermen here experienced a surge in the lobster population. By 2016, lobster landings had hit a record high of 132 million pounds

and made up almost half of what was caught in Maine. Before this boom, fishermen here caught everything from herring and mussels to scallops. Lobster became such a financially productive activity during the boom in landings

that most fishermen focused exclusively on lobster. Narrator: In the 2010s, going all in on lobster seemed like a safe bet for fishermen. They could earn more than with any other species, and lobster's price was stable, despite soaring supply.

I think there's always risk associated with putting all of your eggs in one basket, and that's essentially the situation we've created. Narrator: But now the population is shifting again, farther offshore. Lobster eggs in warming waters inshore aren't surviving

at the rates that ones in cooler waters are. Because the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99% of the world's oceans, people have been worried what happened in New York and New England would happen here. But scientist Kathy Mills says there's still hope.

We have conservation measures in place that are buffering some of the effects of warming temperatures. Narrator: Measures like maximum size limits introduced in the 1930s and V-notching in the 1940s. The conservation measure to protect egg-bearing females is almost a century old.

Narrator: These have helped slow lobsters' decline off Maine. See how in the last few decades, the center of gravity hasn't moved as far as it did in the '70s, '80s, and '90s?

Not only does Steve throw back lady lobsters, but his traps are also set up so small ones can escape. Steve: So, the kitchen is where the food is. You've got two doorways in, and then this is the parlor back here,

where they're all hanging out after they eat. Every trap has three, sometimes four vents. These vents are designed to let the lobsters out that aren't legal size. Narrator: While these catch limits in Maine have helped,

they probably won't stop the population from shifting completely. The population will not collapse. It will decline, but to levels that we've experienced in the past. Narrator: Like most scientists here, Kathy's team predicts the center of gravity

will keep shifting north in the future. And as lobsters move offshore, so too do the lobstermen. Small boats like Steve's that stay close to the coastline are increasingly being replaced with big ones that go lobstering 30 miles out

for days at a time. But big boats are an investment most young lobstermen can't afford. Even a small rig like this takes a lot of money to operate. Steve: The traps and the buoys and the rope, probably looking at about $160,000 if everything was brand new.

Am I worried about the younger generation? I am, because we've done everything we can to keep a fishery for them. The stuff that we can't control, we can't control. Radio: Yeah, I'm inbound. Over. Radio: Yep, roger that. Just checking.

Narrator: On small boats, lobstermen like Steve and Dan will go out for just the morning and pull into the Portland dock around noon. They sell their catch to Luke's Lobster at $6.50 a pound for hard-shell

and $5.50 for soft-shell, or ones that have recently molted. Ward Peck runs the tank room. His team grades the lobsters based on weight and quality as they come off the boats. Ones with two full-grown claws get a higher grade.

Ward: So, you can tell this one lost this claw. So you wouldn't want to pay $50 for this on your plate. Narrator: They also sort them by the hardness of their shells. If you squeeze a soft-shell, you can feel water inside.

because there's still room
for the lobster to grow. That also means there's less meat. Those can only be sold to local
markets before they spoil. A hard-shell, though — Ward: It's like a bullet.
There's no water in here.

The higher proportion of meat to shell in a hard-shell lobster. Narrator: Hard-shell lobsters
will fetch a bit more because they survive longer and they can be exported out of state. Ward: Here's something that
you would pay good money for

at a Manhattan restaurant. It has a crusher claw.
It has a pincher claw. The crusher claw is bigger. The pincher claw is more narrow. A 3-pound lobster — I would not want to get my
finger in their crusher claw,

that's for sure. Narrator: He's seen some pretty interesting lobsters through all his years of grading. Ward: This guy's more of an albino, and this guy is the calico. He's albino in spots. When they're this color,
they look prehistoric to me.

Apparently, no matter what color they are when they're alive, once you boil them, they all turn red. Narrator: From here,
Ward will drop them off at Luke's Lobster restaurant next door or send them to the
company's processing facility

about 20 minutes away. The first step is running
it through a stunner. Narrator: Luke's Lobster
wouldn't show us its stunner, but the machine could
look something like this. It uses a lethal electric shock,

marketed as a quicker and more humane way to kill lobsters than boiling them alive. At the processing facility, we were able to catch up with the lobsters just after steaming. They go straight into a chiller to stop the cooking

and bring them to a food-safe temperature of below 40 degrees. We then break the lobster down into parts. Narrator: That's Luke Holden, a third-generation lobsterman and the founder of Luke's Lobster. Because of rising utilities and PPE costs,

he says this processing facility actually loses him money. It's definitely a really tough industry to make ends meet. There are fewer and fewer processors in the state of Maine every year. Narrator: He offsets the losses with the money he makes from his restaurants.

Luke: I'm a little bit stubborn by nature. This is the business that I love. I find so much energy just being a seafood processor. Narrator: Workers dump out buckets of claws and knuckles onto these tables. These shellers move at lightning speed,

cracking open the claws and swiping out the meat. Luke: It's amazing how competent those pickers are and how fast they can go. Narrator: In one shift, these pickers can shell 40,000 pounds of lobsters.

This machine removes the small legs from the body. The company pulverizes the body meat into mince for its lobster bisque. But they don't waste those legs; they send them through this roller. The leg meat is used for our lobster ravioli.

our lobster cakes, our lobster mac and cheese. Narrator: All the shells get crushed into a powder that can then be used in fertilizer. At the back of the room, workers do a quality check of knuckle and claw meat.

Luke: To make sure that there's no shell or cartilage before it ultimately gets packed up. Narrator: If it passes the check, the staff packs them into 2-pound bags. This machine vacuum seals them. Then they get a slow trip down this flash-freezing machine,

which can take less than 10 minutes to cool them down to negative 10 degrees. The majority of the state's lobsters are processed into parts like this. Some of these packs will go to partners like Whole Foods and Benihana.

The rest head to Luke's Lobster's restaurants, where they're seeing a surge in demand. When there's more demand for the finished goods, that trickles up to the fishermen, and that creates more economic value for the industry.

Narrator: But this meat hasn't always been valuable. For most of recorded history, there were so many lobsters up and down the East Coast of the US, they were considered a food of the poor. And they held that reputation for centuries.

But legend goes in the 1900s at a party hosted by the wealthy Rockefeller family, a lobster meant for the servants was served to the guests — and they loved it. Soon, overfishing made lobster scarce and expensive,

cementing it as a luxury food in the US. The tail meat was especially popular. Luke's dad, Jeff, was the first licensed lobster processor in Maine. But in the 2000s, he couldn't sell the cooked knuckle and claw meat.

He had a freezer full of hundreds of thousands of pounds of cooked lobster meat that ultimately there was no strong market for. Narrator: When Luke moved to New York City for a job in banking, he couldn't find a good lobster roll.

So he called up his dad asking to buy the claw meat to start a lobster roll shop in Manhattan. Luke: He was like, "That's great!" And he even offered us 90-day terms to get the business financing, because it was just going to sit in his freezer anyway.

Narrator: The first shack was a huge success, and they've since expanded to 35 locations worldwide. Fast-forward 15 years, the market is completely inversed. When we started Luke's in 2009, we were paying $14 a pound for cooked lobster meat.

In the last three years, we've seen as high as $50 a pound, and I would say on average it's in the high 30s. Producer: Why? Luke: More demand. Narrator: The company opened its Portland, Maine,

restaurant in 2019. I usually pack this cooler with about 120 pounds, and before lunch is even over, they will have gone through all 120 pounds. Narrator: Michael Tibbetts is the assistant kitchen manager,

and he says the most popular dish is the lobster roll, loaded with knuckle and claw meat. It's become a real iconic thing. We sell over 800 lobster rolls a day. It's just a regular New England split-top roll.

This is our butter wheel right here. We do three swipes of butter on both sides. Put it on the flat top, weigh out four ounces of fresh lobster meat. A drizzle of butter. A little bit of secret seasoning.

And that is the Luke's Lobster roll. Narrator: As popularity for lobster dishes has jumped nationwide, so has Maine's dependency on this one crustacean. Our overdependence on one fishery is always going to be scary, and it's always tenuous.

Narrator: That's why Bri Warner launched Atlantic Sea Farms, a company that helps fishermen get into a different kind of business: kelp farming. Not only is seaweed getting more popular stateside, its harvest season is the opposite of lobster's.

We have all of this coastline. It's so protected. It's so nutrient-dense. It's a perfect place to grow kelp. We have 4,000 boats that in the winter aren't doing a whole lot. Narrator: Kelp thrives in Maine's cold water.

So, this is really good, healthy kelp right now. What you want to see is a nice, dark olive color to it. You don't see any bare spots. You're getting several pounds each foot of line. You obviously don't need to water them.

No herbicides, no pesticides. Narrator: Atlantic Sea Farms grows the kelp seeds at this nursery. Bri: Then we give them to our partner farmers for free. We help them find their lease. We help them with site selection.

We help them with farm setup. Narrator: When Atlantic Sea Farms started out in 2018, the entire state of Maine harvested 53,000 pounds of farmed seaweed. In the first year of Atlantic Sea Farms,

we had three brave souls take on the risk of starting their own farms. Narrator: Flash forward to today: its 40 partner farmers harvested a record-breaking 1.3 million pounds in 2024, just in time to meet booming demand

in the global seaweed market. We haven't had to recruit anyone in years. The proof is in the pudding. The fishermen don't do things that don't make money for them. Narrator: Many are lobstermen, like Justin Papkee.

Just looking at things we could do to diversify. Take a couple of eggs out of the lobster basket. Narrator: He considered oyster and mussel farming, but found kelp was a cheaper investment because he could use the same boat, ropes,

and buoys as lobstering. I had all these buoys just stacked up on the shore. It's like, well, they don't need to be on the shore. Maybe they could be making me money in the water.

And kelp seemed to fit really well with lobstering and our season and our slow times. Narrator: It took Justin three years to get the license for his 8-acre farm. The way we're set up, it kind of looks like an Olympic swimming pool.

The kelp is on, like, a lane, except it's 7 feet below the surface. Narrator: Debris like trees can tangle in these lines, and big waves can move them. We're not growing things on land in nice rows.

We're putting our nice rows in the water, and then Mother Nature throws hurricanes at you. Narrator: Justin's biggest expense were these moorings, or anchors that hold down the kelp lines. They can cost a farmer as much as $50,000

for a 4-acre site. Once the kelp starts to grow, it gets really heavy, so it's better to spend a little bit more and get something that won't move. Narrator: Justin can harvest 10,000 pounds a day

on average during the season. Slowly, as we're getting better at it, it's become more dependable, and now it's a part of our income stream. Narrator: For the past five years, Steve has also been harvesting kelp in the spring.

He spent about $22,000 starting up his farm, but he says the investment was worth it. There's a lot less expense with the kelp once you set the farm up. You haven't got nearly as much fuel burned,

and you haven't got a $600 or $800 a day bait bill. I don't find myself nearly as tired at the end of the day harvesting kelp as I do at the end of the day hauling traps. Narrator: After fishermen like Steve harvest their kelp,

Atlantic Sea Farms buys it. We design all of the products, and we turn it into value-added products for grocery stores. Narrator: From this factory, the company makes seaweed salad, burgers, smoothie cubes, and kimchi.

I got here some skinny kelp. It was harvested by one of our partner farmers yesterday. These blades, clearly, are taller than I am. It's really good. We wash, shred it, and we'll blanch it. And then from there, that product will go

to our fermentation room, and we use that as an ingredient. Narrator: The kelp ferments in gochujang, tamari, and gochugaru for 10 days and comes out looking like this. That's the spicy seaweed salad.

Casey: Here, they're just trying to make sure everything's mixed really well together. Some of that liquid would have settled while the product was sitting. Narrator: Finally, workers scoop the salad into 15-ounce jars. This machine makes sure the lid is airtight.

Casey: We want to get those lids on there really secure. Because it is a live product, there still can be fermentation that's happening, so we don't want any air getting into those jars. Narrator: Each of these jars is traceable

back to the exact farm it was pulled from. And at about $10 apiece, they can be more valuable than raw kelp. The company makes over 75,000 jars of fermented seaweed salad every year and sells them in thousands of stores across the US.

Our food system is so broken. It's making farmers poorer, the environment worse, and consumers less healthy. And what we're doing here on the coast of Maine, to work with fishermen to diversify in the face of climate change with the most climate-friendly food on the planet,

for me, that's very hopeful. Narrator: Studies show kelp sucks harmful nutrients like nitrogen out of the water, sequesters carbon dioxide from the air, and protects against coastal erosion. Even at Luke's Lobster, they're frying up these kelp burgers.

Luke: We're shifting all the time. Shifting doesn't scare me at all. If they can sell the product, we should be encouraging more fishermen to go out and harvest kelp. Narrator: So, will kelp ever replace lobster?

Probably not. Bri: So, kelp is not a silver bullet. Lobster's always going to be part of the fabric of Maine. We're very optimistic about a future that includes lobster and kelp and oysters and mussels

and ways that we can create a future where we can always be working on the water for generations to come. Videographer: What does it taste like? It tastes like kelp. Of course! Videographer: That's true.

No, it's—I don't know how to describe it. It'd be like describing lobster. What does—well, lobster tastes like lobster. I don't know. Videographer: Chicken? Like...

Maine Traps $1 Billion Of Lobsters A Year. But Is That At Risk? | Big Business | Business Insider

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Business Insider

The lobster industry in Maine faces challenges due to warming waters causing lobsters to shift north.

Lobster populations in traditional fishing grounds are declining due to warming waters.

Fishermen, traditionally reliant on lobster, are exploring alternative income sources like seaweed farming.

The decline in lobster populations raises concerns about the future of the industry.

A day in the life of Maine lobstermen involves traditional fishing practices and conservation efforts.

Lobstermen use traps, bait, and buoys to catch lobsters.

They adhere to size regulations and protect egg-bearing females.

Bycatch and undersized or oversized lobsters are returned to the sea.

Lobster fishing can be dangerous, requiring precautions like carrying a knife.

The lobster population's center of gravity has shifted north over decades due to warming waters.

The center has moved from Long Island to the Gulf of Maine.

Warming waters have caused collapses in southern lobster populations.

Conservation measures have helped slow the decline but may not prevent further shifts.

The shift offshore necessitates larger boats, creating financial barriers for young lobstermen.

Seaweed farming offers a sustainable alternative income source for Maine fishermen.

Kelp farming complements lobstering with its opposite harvest season.

Kelp is environmentally friendly, requiring no watering, herbicides, or pesticides.

Atlantic Sea Farms supports fishermen in starting kelp farms.

Kelp farming has experienced significant growth in Maine.

Atlantic Sea Farms processes kelp into value-added products for a growing market.

Products include seaweed salad, burgers, smoothie cubes, and kimchi.

The company processes and ferments kelp, creating products like spicy seaweed salad.

Value-added kelp products can be more profitable than raw kelp.

Kelp farming is seen as a sustainable and environmentally beneficial practice.