Dan's Papers - March 7, 2008

Nineteenth century Massachusetts law stated that you couldn't feed lobster to the hired help more than twice a week. So readily available, it was considered trash fish. Lobster fishing only became a viable way to make a living in the Northeast after World War II when increased demand changed the market.

Long Island Sound has its own history of lobstering, beginning after the war. But a massive die-off in 1999 has raised questions on environmental conditions and developments in the area. More recently, there are reports that a secondary disease is on the rise, and lobster numbers are on the decline. Some local lobstermen think that predation by finfish, whose numbers are rising now after a low in the '80s and '90s, may be affecting larval lobsters in the Sound.

You can't talk about the Long Island lobster industry without talking to Southampton resident George Skellinger, whose family has been wed to the sea for over 300 years. In the early '50s, Skellinger would set 1,000 pots at a time in Shinnecock Bay. Empty pots were moved farther east, until over the years they finally rounded the point in Montauk. One January thaw, lobsters were found in New Haven Harbor, and began the year-round cycle of lobstering that was aided by wire cages instead of the old wooden pots. George's sons Tom and Dan, and nephew Walter have followed his footsteps. The younger generation of Skellingers still goes lobstering on Block Island Sound, but sees it as a seasonal occupation.

George Skellinger calls the lobstering job "very beautiful." He said, "You went out and did your thing out in the ocean, no noise or confusion, you didn't make much money but you did it anyway. Get there before the daylight, the sun is just coming up and the gulls are screaming. Other than that, it's nice and quiet." In his day, Skellinger could catch 10-12 pound lobsters out in the ocean, although they never got that big in the Sound. The biggest lobster the younger Skellingers caught was a five pounder off of Gardiner's Island.

Last year immature lobsters, sometimes 30-40 at a time, got caught in the pots. When Walter and Dan Skellinger returned to see if they were up to the legal size limits, the lobsters had disappeared. "Lobsters migrate," Walter observed. "I suspect that the Bay was a nursery. It was like a herd came through. We started on the west side of the pond and as the season progressed they moved east and then they disappeared." Walter and Dan also tend fish traps in Peconic Bay. Last year they found 12 lobsters in the trap, a very unusual but pleasant surprise, since lobsters aren't typically found in the Bay. Walter doesn't care much about the numbers. "Any day is a good day," he said. "You lift those traps up and open 'em up and see what's in there and it's just like Christmas. I wake up at three in the morning. I can't wait to get out there."

Richie Miller of East Quogue is a politically savvy, experienced and erudite lobsterman who didn't give up easily in the early days. The species of lobster we get here is called Homarus americanus, and Long Island is the southern end of its range, which extends north into Canada. It wasn't thought possible for this species to survive so far south. But Miller laid traps for 20 years, starting in the '50s. Leaving early in the morning from Port Jefferson, he experimented, putting out traps where no one else did, in places lobsters were not supposed to exist. Knowing when and where to set the pots, trial and error, and a gut feeling would lead to the lowering of the pots. The biggest ocean lobster that he ever caught was with a net off of Bellport in the early '60s. It weighed 42 pounds. It took Miller half a day to sell it because no one could figure out how to get it out of the shell. Indian Cove once paid Miller $75 for a blue lobster. They kept it in a tank to see if it would molt true to color, which it did three times.

Now retired, Miller claims that, unless you've paid your bills and don't have a mortgage, you can't really be a lobsterman. He said, "Just being out there with my sons and my being free and independent," was the lure for him. Miller believes that Mother Nature is always in flux and there is no constant for any natural resource including lobster. In the '60s the industry boomed and up until the '90s it seemed like an endless resource - "undepletable," he recalled. Was there an increase in the lobsters' death rate or simply more lobstermen who were becoming more efficient at it? No one can definitively say. Most lobstermen point to water quality and increased water temperature as overt causes of death - even 2 degrees can alter lobsters' spawning habits. Runoff from rivers and sewage treatment plants around Long Island Sound and pesticides, which affect larval stages, all were questioned. But there's no single smoking gun.

Scientists agree with lobstermen that environmental change is an issue. Antoinette Clemetson, fisheries specialist at New York Sea Grant, confirmed the scientific community's consensus: Lobsters were under tremendous stress from an increase in temperature that compromised their health and made them susceptible to disease. But dead lobsters, like dead trees, don't succumb from the first thing that affects them or the last thing to attack. Insufficient water, nutrients or root damage create stress in trees. While not fatal, those things expose a tree to predation. Sap sucking insects can transmit a fungus that affects the tree's ability to take up water. The combination of predation and infection kill the stressed tree. Remedying the first signs of stress can save a tree, but how do we readjust the seas?

Bassam Allam studies shell disease, a separate problem, at the Marine Animal Disease Lab in Stony Brook. Fishermen originally noticed the mottled shells on lobsters from greater depths, but it is now widespread in the Sound. Several species of bacteria colonize the lobsters' shell and corrode it like rust. The disease isn't fatal and affected lobsters are still edible, but the holes it creates in the shells allow other bacteria to infect the sensitive body of the lobster, like bacteria in a wound, and lead to their death. Bassam sees the bacteria's presence as a symptom, not a cause, and raises the question of a solution. If the problem is a result of the alteration in the environment, like water temperature, how is that changed?

In the colder waters off the coast of Maine, these diseases and die-offs are practically nonexistent. Many lobsterman think the issue even more complex. Will this tasty crustacean go from being a delicacy to a luxury? Tim Spellman of Schmidt's seafood market buys locally when they are in season, but imports lobsters from Canada when the local supply runs out or starts to molt.

Sam Respoli of Hampton Bays bought his lobster boat from Richie Miller. He used to lobster year round but now he switches from lobsterman to bayman - clamming, scalloping or catching conch in the lobster off-season, "when they're out laying eggs in the late summer," he said. He sees the lobster populations as cyclical, like the foxes and rabbits, and that a combination of complex environmental and biological factors created the 1999 crash. It may be that, like gypsy moths, lobsters reached a certain population density that couldn't be supported by the environment and so were killed off by disease.

Despite the scientific theories, Respoli used his own barometer to know when to go out in the boat. "Lobsters are a lot like ants," he said. "When I see the ants coming out of the ground I am going to start lobstering."