As Fish Stocks Collapse, Overpopulated Lobsters Resort to Cannibalism 231
The Maine lobster population is booming, but it turns out that's bad news if you're a little lobster: "'We've got the lobsters feeding back on themselves just because they're so abundant,' said Richard Wahle, a marine sciences professor at the University of Maine, who is supervising the research. 'It's never been observed just out in the open like this,' he said."
Abundance caused by populations of their predators collapsing.
Re:Of course, (Score:5, Informative)
There actually is pretty cheap lobster in Maine in the right season. Absurdly cheap, really.
Re:So then... (Score:1, Informative)
actually home slice, its really cheap in the grand scheme. The shit produces a lot of waste in every way and isn't healthy when consumed like most americans do. The factory farming is disgusting by the way.
And from a market/industry perspective it is also cheap. Heavily subsidized. Why don't you raise some chickens if you need that meat so bad, boy.
Re:Of course, (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, most lobster is shipped packed with dry ice, watere is not necessary, and weight is not the issue. It;s nearly impossible to keep lobsters alive in shipping for more than 24 hours (read that as, 25+ hours), so they go by air if the truck can;t get there in time. And nothing quite matches the odor of dead lobster, even packed. Most airlines I know that take them do so with the caveat that if they are not picked up nearly immediately, they go in the trash.
Nothing flies cheap any more.
Re:So then... (Score:5, Informative)
Aren't tasty? what? Lobster is the ultimate white meat.
preparation? A live lobster and a pot of boiling water. This is not hard, people. If you can;t tell if your lobster is alive, it probably isn't, and never cook dead (or dying) lobster.
Quick primer. Boil until the shell is bright red, plunging the lobster in headfirst. It never realized it was dead.
Serve with baked potato, corn on the cob or greeen geans, plenty of melted butter available. Crack the claws off and open, pull out the meat, drop it in the butter. inCrack off the tail, tear off the tail fins and suck on them like candy :). take a cunck of claw meat and eat that, making room for the tail in the butter. If you're lazy, this is it. Otherwise, the knuckles above the claw have meat, each leg has a thread of meat, those tail fins usually do also. there is meat all through the body (carapace), and a little work nearly doubles your haul. Or give it to someone who knows how to get in there. Avoid the tomalley if you don't know what it is.
How to tell if yo got a Maine lobster? Measure the carapace, which had better measure between 3 1/2 and 5 inches from the end of the carapace to the edge of the eye socket. Cheating is very rare in Maine waters, lobstermen will send each other to jail over this... If it is shorter, good chance it came from Canada, or possibly Massachussetts. Those big spots the tail when raw/live? That is not a Maine lobster, probably a Longostino, which is not a lobster. Most are actually shrimp.
Sorry, I love lobster, and miss it so.
Re:So then... (Score:4, Informative)
Lobster doesn't freeze well.
Re:This shouldn't be on Idle (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, it is being done, and is being enforced [noaa.gov].
Problem is, often the cost of fines and such are lower than the potential profits.
Re:Of course, (Score:4, Informative)
In one of Peter Lynch's books he noted that the pilgrims had a clause in their contracts that they could not be fed lobster more than 3 times a week.
They are not "resorting" to anything. (Score:5, Informative)
Lobsters do this anyway.
Source: my degree in Marine Biology.
Re:First lobster cannibal's thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting fact about lobsters, they haven't always been considered delicious. In colonial times, lobsters were considered "poverty food." They were harvested from tidal pools and served to children, to prisoners, and to indentured servants. In Massachusetts, some of the servants rebelled and demanded that they would not be forced to eat lobster more than three times a week.
In fact I met a old woman who told me that, when she was young, she would hide and eat her school lunch- her family was too poor to afford anything other than lobster and the other kids would tease her.
I just goes to show you how society, culture and advertising controls our behaviour, beliefs and taste buds.
As far as this lobster "overpopulated" lobster nonsense- call me when you can walk along the shore at low tide and just pick them up by the dozens (as was common in years past). That would be the natural equilibrium population before we started commercially harvesting.
This whole "overpopulated" is clearly perpetuated by someone who wants increased quotas.