The lobster industry has suffered from a disease that causes the shellfish to become unattractive, in some cases to the point of being unmarketable, for many years and the disease is making a comeback this year, creeping its way north to Maine, according to the Associated Press.
Only a small number of lobsters are afflicted with the last sample showing three out of every 1,000 lobsters having the disease. However, the number of afflicted lobsters has increased five times during the period from 2010 to 2012, concerning fishermen.
The disease first showed up in lobsters in the 1990s. Today the disease, which doesn't spread to humans, is present in three or four lobsters caught off the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
People should be concerned, but not alarmed, by the numbers, according to Carl Wilson, a state lobster biologist with the Department of Marine Resources. People are concerned about what appears to be a substantial increase in the number of diseased lobsters.
"But it's not, considering all the sampling we have and all the caveats of our sampling design," Wilson said. "But it's something we are watching."
Lobster is a $400 million industry in New England. Some of the waters have already suffered from the disease, which eats away at the lobster's shell, leaving behind a less than attractive appearance.
Tracy Pugh isn't worried about the lobster population. She works as a fisheries biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries.
"It's certainly something to keep an eye on," Pugh said. "But in terms of our perspective of Gulf of Maine shell disease, we don't see it as something to get particularly concerned about.
"The rates are pretty low," she continued. "We don't see a pattern."
Other scientists disagree and say it's a concerning pattern that should be observed.
"Keep an eye on it," Jeffrey Shields, a marine science professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, said. "Keep monitoring it.
"Lobby federal and state agencies to fund research to understand more about it," he continued.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
