BloombergQuint cites Wahle, settlement index in report on Maine’s lobster industry
Rick Wahle, a research professor at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center, was quoted in the BloombergQuint article, “Maine’s booming lobster industry starts feeling some heat.” Lobster harvests already have collapsed in several states farther down the Atlantic coast, providing evidence for the warming-ocean-temperatures theory of the lobster boom, according to the article. The American Lobster Settlement Index readings made by the University of Maine School of Marine Sciences along with fisheries agencies in the U.S. and Canada may offer a clue as to when the oceans off Maine will get too warm as well, the article states. The settlement index, led by Wahle, measures the density of baby lobsters in quadrants of rocky seafloor, and its readings started declining off the coast of Maine about a decade ago. It takes five to 10 years for a lobster to reach harvestable size, so “the downturn in Maine’s landings is indeed consistent with our ALSI-based forecast,” Wahle wrote in an email.