This year’s disappointing lobster season is winding down. The lobsters have started their annual winter migration to deeper waters and the fishermen (male and female) are bringing in traps for winter storage:
The fishermen also are working fewer days, which gives us more opportunities to view their handsome vessels in late-fall light:
However, the potential long-term effects of Climate Change on lobsters, the immediate effects of inflation on fishing costs, and pending regulations that will require expensive new equipment that may or may not protect endangered North Atlantic Right Whales make the future of sustainable lobster fishing increasingly uncertain. These are troubling times.
Lobster fishing is more than a job to most fishermen and more than a tourist attraction to many of us who live on the Maine coast; it’s a cultural heritage. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 31 and November 1, 2022.)