7 ms·

Lobster and snow crab fisheries search for alternative baits

43 points by Petiver 4y ago

blakesterz 4y ago
Interesting, according to this In Canada’s Atlantic provinces, fisheries for lobster and snow crab are booming; in 2022, lobster prices reached record highs, and fisheries managers increased the quota for snow crab in some places by 32 percent. But a couple months ago there was this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33207372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33207372 Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs. Quite a big difference between the 2 oceans for crabs.
- purpleflame1257 4y ago
  There was a big PNW heat bubble which it is suggested triggered a crab migration or die off.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  five hundred miles of old kelp forests off of Northern California coasts, also had a die off in a similar time frame.
- makeitrain 4y ago
  I wondered if the boats that aren't running in the Pacific got moved over to the Atlantic.
AlbertCory 4y ago
> "Using two pounds of bait to catch one pound of lobster just didn’t make any sense." Apparently it made sense to the lobster fishermen. If the price of bait went up enough, then it wouldn't anymore. Or if using mackerel and herring as bait became illegal, it definitely wouldn't make sense.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  In terms of sustainably feeding ~8 billion people in a finite world - "spending" 2 pounds of seafood (bait), plus all the overhead of fishermen / boats / fuel / etc., to get 1 pound of seafood (lobster) - that is far, far beyond mere batsh*t crazy.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    Apparently you don't have Skin In The Game, and the lobster fishermen do.
    - bell-cot 4y ago
      Does "living on the Earth, with no good alternative to that" count as Skin In The Game?
      - AlbertCory 4y ago
        Actually, no, unless you think that everyone's business is your business.
        nerpderp82 4y ago
        We live in a society. That bait (herring) is food to a whole lot of people. It has been overfished to support lobster farming, it was taken at cost from the commons to develop a food that few can consume.
        AlbertCory 4y ago
        Tostino 4y ago
        It also double dips on the pain inflicted, but pushing the market price for that Bair fish higher than it would be if not for the market pressure imposed by this alternative bait use case.
nerpderp82 4y ago
> It’s estimated that fish caught specifically for bait in Atlantic Canada and New England in the United States amounts to hundreds of millions of kilograms, but the catch is poorly tracked. hundreds of millions of kilograms. mind boggling. What a waste of life and food.
- Spivak 4y ago
  The only thing that's wasted is the resources and effort humans spend in the process of doing the catching, the rest is the circle... the circle of life.
- revolvingocelot 4y ago
  It's even worse if you read about the overall effectiveness of lobster traps... ...I thought this was better-studied, but I can only find the one article sourced via wikipedia, so perhaps this isn't as certain as I've made it out to be, but traditional lobster traps are apparently so ineffective that the majority of lobsters that interact with them (to get at the bait!) handily escape. [0] From the lobster's perspective, maybe it's not a waste -- lobsters are fed by those kindly humans and their strange wooden boxes, and the slowest among them are eventually lifted into the heavens to an unknown fate. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20121117011028/http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/040816/16lobster.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20121117011028/http://www.usnews...
  - jandrese 4y ago
    I can only imagine this breeding lobsters that are more effective at evading the traps.
    - Raidion 4y ago
      But any female lobster that's caught with eggs gets their tail notched so that if she's caught in the future they throw her back to grow new lobsters. So you might also be breeding lobsters that get pregnant more often and value traps as food?
  - 4y ago
Mistletoe 4y ago
If we can’t even find the bait…do we need to be fishing for other stuff haha? The ocean food web can’t be right.
killion 4y ago
If we could get the lobsters to eat the purple sea urchins we could solve two problems at once... https://www.npr.org/2021/03/31/975800880/in-hotter-climate-zombie-urchins-are-winning-and-kelp-forests-are-losing https://www.npr.org/2021/03/31/975800880/in-hotter-climate-z...
WillyF 4y ago
There’s a TikTok account that shows up in my feed from a lobster fisherman with a series called “Will It Fish?” where he tests Baird suggested by his audience. I find it quite enjoyable.

43 points by Petiver 4y ago

Interesting, according to this In Canada’s Atlantic provinces, fisheries for lobster and snow crab are booming; in 2022, lobster prices reached record highs, and fisheries managers increased the quota for snow crab in some places by 32 percent. But a couple months ago there was this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33207372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33207372 Alaska snow crab season canceled after disappearance of an estimated 1B crabs. Quite a big difference between the 2 oceans for crabs.

purpleflame1257 4y ago
There was a big PNW heat bubble which it is suggested triggered a crab migration or die off.
mistrial9 4y ago
five hundred miles of old kelp forests off of Northern California coasts, also had a die off in a similar time frame.
makeitrain 4y ago
I wondered if the boats that aren't running in the Pacific got moved over to the Atlantic.

AlbertCory 4y ago

> "Using two pounds of bait to catch one pound of lobster just didn’t make any sense." Apparently it made sense to the lobster fishermen. If the price of bait went up enough, then it wouldn't anymore. Or if using mackerel and herring as bait became illegal, it definitely wouldn't make sense.

bell-cot 4y ago
In terms of sustainably feeding ~8 billion people in a finite world - "spending" 2 pounds of seafood (bait), plus all the overhead of fishermen / boats / fuel / etc., to get 1 pound of seafood (lobster) - that is far, far beyond mere batsh*t crazy.
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  Apparently you don't have Skin In The Game, and the lobster fishermen do.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    Does "living on the Earth, with no good alternative to that" count as Skin In The Game?
    - AlbertCory 4y ago
      Actually, no, unless you think that everyone's business is your business.
      - nerpderp82 4y ago
        We live in a society. That bait (herring) is food to a whole lot of people. It has been overfished to support lobster farming, it was taken at cost from the commons to develop a food that few can consume.
        AlbertCory 4y ago
        Tostino 4y ago
        It also double dips on the pain inflicted, but pushing the market price for that Bair fish higher than it would be if not for the market pressure imposed by this alternative bait use case.

nerpderp82 4y ago

> It’s estimated that fish caught specifically for bait in Atlantic Canada and New England in the United States amounts to hundreds of millions of kilograms, but the catch is poorly tracked. hundreds of millions of kilograms. mind boggling. What a waste of life and food.

Spivak 4y ago
The only thing that's wasted is the resources and effort humans spend in the process of doing the catching, the rest is the circle... the circle of life.
revolvingocelot 4y ago
It's even worse if you read about the overall effectiveness of lobster traps... ...I thought this was better-studied, but I can only find the one article sourced via wikipedia, so perhaps this isn't as certain as I've made it out to be, but traditional lobster traps are apparently so ineffective that the majority of lobsters that interact with them (to get at the bait!) handily escape. [0] From the lobster's perspective, maybe it's not a waste -- lobsters are fed by those kindly humans and their strange wooden boxes, and the slowest among them are eventually lifted into the heavens to an unknown fate. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20121117011028/http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/040816/16lobster.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20121117011028/http://www.usnews...
- jandrese 4y ago
  I can only imagine this breeding lobsters that are more effective at evading the traps.
  - Raidion 4y ago
    But any female lobster that's caught with eggs gets their tail notched so that if she's caught in the future they throw her back to grow new lobsters. So you might also be breeding lobsters that get pregnant more often and value traps as food?
- 4y ago

Mistletoe 4y ago

If we can’t even find the bait…do we need to be fishing for other stuff haha? The ocean food web can’t be right.

killion 4y ago

If we could get the lobsters to eat the purple sea urchins we could solve two problems at once... https://www.npr.org/2021/03/31/975800880/in-hotter-climate-zombie-urchins-are-winning-and-kelp-forests-are-losing https://www.npr.org/2021/03/31/975800880/in-hotter-climate-z...

WillyF 4y ago

There’s a TikTok account that shows up in my feed from a lobster fisherman with a series called “Will It Fish?” where he tests Baird suggested by his audience. I find it quite enjoyable.