Phil Gutis's Blog
Lobster in a Pot
October 6, 2007
Posted by Phil Gutis in Reviving the World's Oceans , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , Solving Global Warming , The Media and the Environment
Hard to believe, but it was almost 25 years ago when my vegetarian voyage started. The journey started in a seafood shop somewhere on the south shore of Long Island. I had just been assigned to cover Long Island for The New York Times and a new colleague had invited me to join him and another new reporter in the bureau for a lobster lunch and insisted that we go to the store with him to pick our own crustaceans.
At that time, I had not ever given a thought to being a vegetarian. I loved hamburgers, hot dogs, bacon, chicken, turkey. And, yes, lobster, shrimp and most other seafood.
But I was stunned that afternoon to learn that lobsters big enough to eat were at least six years old. And many were much older. Somehow it didn't seem quite fair to take a critter that had lived so long on the planet and dump it living and breathing into a pot of boiling water. Giving up lobster soon led to other choices and now I'm a pretty hard core vegetarian. I'm not a vegan, but I won't eat anything that once had a face.
What sent me on this trip down memory lane was a front-page story in today's Washington Post about the death of lobsters in the Long Island Sound.
Over the past decade, the lobster boom here has gone almost completely bust. The die-off has been so severe -- a 70 to 90 percent drop since 1998, according to scientists and state estimates -- that hundreds of lobstermen have been forced out of business. Unable to make a living in waters once as rich as bisque with crustaceans, many have had no choice but to abandon a trade that amounted to more of a cherished lifestyle than a job.
What's killing the lobsters? According to the Post, some point to pesticides that were sprayed in Connecticut and New York to kill mosquitos in 1999. Others, however, point to global warming, a conclusion the Post says is "profoundly controversial on these shores."
One expert, Sylvain De Guise, director of Connecticut's Sea Grant program, told the Post that while a combination of factors has led to the die off, "it's very likely that the impact of warming waters would be seen here first. I'd have to say that global warming, based on common sense, is the strongest argument."
Another expert told the Post that the Sound has been warm before. Lance Stewart, a lobster expert at the University of Connecticut, said: "It's crazy to suggest this is somehow linked to global warming."
Sorry, Lance. I lean toward the common sense expressed by De Guise. Global warming is changing our planet in innumerable ways and, unfortunately, even after we start to deal with the carbon pollution that is poisoning our atmosphere, we're going to see more changes like the lobster die off. The question is how bad we're going to let it get before we take action.
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Comments
John Platt — Oct 10 2007 12:30 PM
Lobsters are also seriously over-harvested in much of the Northeast, except, apparently, here in Maine. (I live in a town whose economy depends on lobstah, so I've got some obvious conflicts about how the industry should work.)
Phil — Oct 10 2007 12:50 PM
Hey John. Thanks for the comment and the regionally appropriate accented typing: Lobstah. Love it. What are your thoughts on how the industry should work? I'm curious. Even as a hard-core vegetarian.
John Platt — Oct 12 2007 11:13 AM
Oh, I'm hardly an expert, but I do know that it's a tough business and many lobstermen are facing tough economic times. I think the biggest problems may be on the retail side -- if prices reflected the true cost of commercial fishing, consumers might not eat as much. (But on the other hand, you should see the outrage people express when offered a $16 lobstah roll.)