LOBSTEUR PROVOCATEUR

BY COLIN S. SARGENT

Maine lobster has become a political football in trade wars with China, COVID politics, and saving the right whale. We can expect it to continue to be targeted as an international symbol of luxury consumption in the future.

“On November 11, 2019, at 4:04 a.m., China Eastern Airlines ight MU298 landed at Shanghai Pudong International Airport. A batch of U.S. cold chain cargo on board was unloaded from the cabin of the North Cargo Terminal of the airport and transported to the international cargo entry area for customs clearance. Among them were 55 boxes of chilled American [Maine] lobsters totaling 823.4 kilograms...From July to the end of October 2019, the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, local media, and residents’ personal social accounts repeatedly reported ‘e-cigarette pneumonia,’ which is the ‘suspected new coronavirus pneumonia’ case that has been hidden in the United States...I am afraid it is this batch of American lobsters that opened the Pandora's box of the epidemic in the South China seafood market.”

So states an article from Sina News, which cites “Red Net” as its source. In November 2020, the Chinese government banned Maine lobster a er having increased its tari s during the trade dispute which began in 2017. Funnily enough, at about the same time, the Chinese government also banned Australian lobster because COVID was supposedly detected— right in the middle of a series of retaliatory tari s being imposed by the Australian and Chinese governments.

But according to the National Fisheries Institute, “Simply stated, people cannot get COVID-19 from eating seafood. NFI’s Seafood Safety & COVID-19 website demonstrates over and over that the coronavirus is not related to seafood. Seafood is a safe and wholesome food with nutritional bene ts that contribute to a strong immune system.”

It’s clear that the COVID-related bans on Maine lobster had far more to do with attacking an imported luxury product during a tari dispute. COVID protocol was a way to confuse the issue in order to carry on an economic disagreement over unrelated matters. e Chinese government ban, however, is not the only politicized accusation of Maine lobster grounded on an uncertain premise. Seafood Watch put Maine lobster on its “red list” in September in order to save the right whale, which had been hunted nearly to extinction. How many right whales had become fouled in crab pots and lobster pots? Zero, but apparently “current Canadian and U.S. management measures do not go far enough to mitigate entanglement risks and promote recovery of the North Atlantic right whale.”

More could always be done to protect endangered species, but according to GovernorJanet Mills, “ ere has not been a right whale entanglement attributed to Maine lobster gear in eighteen years. is designation is at out wrong. It sends the wrong message about Maine lobster, and it insults thousands of hardworking lobstermen who risk their lives to put food on the table while practicing responsible stewardship and taking action to protect whales. Consumers

and businesses must see through this list and recognize that lobstermen are partners in conservation and sustainability and that the delicious Maine lobster can and should continue to be enjoyed.”

Whether there’s been not one in eighteen years is not quite certain. According to Bill McWeeny in e Ellsworth American, June 18, 2021, “Innovation can save whales and lobstermen. e Consortium for Wildlife Bycatch Reduction website clearly shows that the right whale named King sher was undoubtedly entangled in Maine lobster gear in 2004, and another right whale was entangled in what was described as New England lobster gear in 2012 that matched gear from near-shore Maine shing grounds. e 2012 whale was found dead in three sets of lobster gear, and King sher is presumed dead a er carrying the Maine gear for 11 years and disappearing in 2015 with the rope deeply embedded in his ipper.”

at’s three. ree out of the 16 entanglements of known origin—out of 1,617 documented, untraced entanglements. If Seafood Watch were asked what is their ideal number of operating, well-regulated commercial shing vessels, my bet is that it would be a global zero. Seafood Watch is targeting Maine lobster as a high-pro le luxury product so it can make a public case about entanglement and raise its public pro le and social media reach. It’s not responding to a recorded rise in right whale incidents, but rather on a given day its board felt that not enough was being done. e old saying is, the tallest nail is the rst to be struck. While there may never be an end to the politicization of Maine lobster, Maine’s shing and regulatory communities can at least have con dence that their conservation e orts have helped Maine lobster become the world’s premier luxury seafood product to propagandize for the cause of the moment. For English noblemen, it may once have been eels. You have to do a lot more to an eel to make it palatable than you do to a lobster. n