The value of Maine’s lobster fishery and the money lobstermen earn on the docks have hit new highs in the last five years. But the state Department of Marine Resources is highlighting a blind spot in that understanding of the lobstering economy.

Adjusting dollar values and earnings to account for inflation dramatically shifts the outlook for the industry. And it challenges perceptions from the general public that lobstermen are financially thriving.

“They’re catching less lobsters, but when (lobstermen) look at their books, they are potentially making more money with a good price, but is that price in comparison to the past really as good as they think it is?” said Kathleen Reardon, lead lobster fishery biologist with the Maine Department of Marine Resources. “It’s important to put it in context and make people aware.”

Over the last several years, the U.S. recorded some of its highest inflation rates in decades. While lobstermen are not the only ones feeling the pinch, many have said rising costs of bait, fuel, gear and labor are leading to fewer trips on the water — and pose a threat to one of the state’s biggest economic engines.

RETHINKING RECORDS

Maine’s commercial lobstering industry, which dates to the 1840s, began to soar in the 1990s as fishermen brought more and more lobsters ashore. The weight of lobstermen’s catch hit a high of 132.6 million pounds in 2016. In terms of value, Maine’s record-setting year was 2021, when lobstermen rebounded from the pandemic to haul in about $725 million worth of lobster, earning approximately $6.71 per pound on the docks.

Last year, the value of the fishery reached third place in recorded history at $528.4 million, leading to the second-highest dock prices at $6.14 per pound.

After calculating what past years’ figures equate to in 2024 dollars, 2021 remains the record breaker for the fishery’s value. The rest of the script, however, flips.

The fishery’s value in 2024 drops from No. 3 to No. 11.

And how large were lobstermen’s wallets? Their earnings per pound plunge from second-highest to No. 59 on a list of 75. And 2021, the highest dock price on record, drops to No. 53.

Instead, 1965 emerges as the year with the highest dock price, equivalent to $14.94 per pound in 2024 dollars. More than 20 of the fishery’s most lucrative years were before 1970.

WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Lobstermen have been sounding the alarm that their industry feels much less profitable than in years past.

“It already costs a lot to go out on the water every day. Prices going up makes it hard to decide whether you can even go on,” Stonington lobsterman Ethan Turner said about the 2023 fishing season. That’s when the number of trips lobstermen took out on the water significantly dropped.

“Fishermen are now very strategic about how they fish. Expenses are through the roof, so you can’t afford to be out if you’re not making money,” Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, said last year.

And lobstermen fear that approved and potential regulations could decimate their industry.

“We might mistakenly think that fishermen can just deal with increased costs if we do ‘X, Y, or Z,’ because the harvest will be better eventually,” said Amanda Lindsay, a fisheries economist who teaches at Bates College. “If their profit margins are getting squeezed, maybe it’s not the case that they can deal with costs from other policy changes.”

But many in the general public have dismissed those concerns, saying that as dock prices continually soar, lobstermen are ungrateful about the profit they are making and overdramatic about what these potential regulations could cost them.

Lindsay and Reardon, with the marine resources department, believe those views are reductive.

“We can see a really high number of value, but that is not telling us what is leftover after the fisherman is paying their bills,” Lindsay said. “Everyone likes to eat the lobster roll and and celebrate the big harvest, but it doesn’t really account for what is going in to that catch.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect that Patrice McCarron is executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.