The Last Lobster
Boom or Bust for Maine's Greatest Fishery?
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the author of Skipjack & The Melting World comes a mystery: the curious boom in America’s beloved lobster industry and its probable crash
Maine lobstermen have happened upon a bonanza along their rugged, picturesque coast. For the past five years, the lobster population along the coast of Maine has boomed, resulting in a lobster harvest six times the size of the record catch from the 1980s—an event unheard of in fisheries. In a detective story, scientists and fishermen explore various theories for the glut. Leading contenders are a sudden lack of predators and a recent wedge of warming waters, which may disrupt the reproductive cycle, a consequence of climate change.
Christopher White's The Last Lobster follows three lobster captains—Frank, Jason, and Julie (one the few female skippers in Maine)—as they haul and set thousands of traps. Unexpectedly, boom may turn to bust, as the captains must fight a warming ocean, volatile prices, and rough weather to keep their livelihood afloat. The three captains work longer hours, trying to make up in volume what they lack in price. As a result, there are 3 million lobster traps on the bottom of the Gulf of Maine, while Frank, Jason, and others call for a reduction of traps, which may boost prices. The Maine lobstering towns are among the first American communities to confront global warming, and the survival of the Maine Coast depends upon their efforts.
It may be an uphill battle to create a sustainable catch as high temperatures are already displacing lobsters northward toward Canadian waters—out of reach of American fishermen. The last lobster may be just ahead.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this illuminating volume, White (The Melting World: A Journey Across America's Vanishing Glaciers) sets out to capture the look and feel of traditional Maine lobster villages. According to White, a climate-affected fluctuation in lobster populations may be endangering the industry and the Maine culture it supports. Early chapters introduce locals such as Frank Gotwals and Julie Eaton. The former is a 60-year-old self-taught boat captain who chose the fishing life "because his ancestors had." On the water, he is "solitary self-reliant... Sherlock Holmes without a Watson." The latter, a boat captain and nature photographer who describes herself as "addicted to the water," is among the few women in a male-dominated business; she says that her marriage to a fellow lobster captain has been saved by having separate boats. White talks at length with lobster boat captains, resource managers, and scientists about what caused the extreme growth of the lobster population (and the subsequent lowering of prices), how long it might last, and the industry's future. He affectionately observes the sights and sounds on the water, the relationships between the boat captains and their "sternmen" (both male and female), the idiosyncratic techniques they use to decide where to place traps, the norms and customs of the fishery (for example, marking and returning to the water pregnant lobsters, called "eggers"), the fluctuations of bait and lobster prices, and discussions between fishers about global warming, regulations, and whether or not to unionize. White conveys the significance of lobsters to people all over the world in this enjoyable sojourn with the lobster folk.
