Hatchery Lobsters

BEALS ISLAND, Maine (AP) – Using plastic milk jugs and nylon window screening, a University of Maine-Machias professor is seeking a better way to raise lobsters in a confined environment. Brian Beal, a marine ecology professor who grew up lobstering and clamming in this eastern Maine town, in late August put penny-sized lobsters in gallon and half-gallon containers, placed screening over the openings and tossed them overboard. In all, he submerged 400 containers attached to 20 lines. Early next summer, Beal will retrieve the jugs and see how many lobsters have survived and how much they’ve grown. It’s all part of Beal’s ongoing research to find a better way to raise juvenile lobsters in a hatchery. In case the wild population of lobsters should plunge – as it did in 2000 in New York’s Long Island Sound – the idea is that the hatchery-raised specimens could help replenish the wild stocks." [org pub Nashua Telegraph]