New Lab to Study Death of Lobsters

Most days, just before dawn, Bill Skidmore climbs into his white boat and motors out to his 1,600 lobster pots on the Long Island Sound.

For a year, when the lobster die-off hit, Skidmore--a lobsterman for 24 years--has barely eked out enough to survive. This month the state took a step toward changing that.

“No one seems to know what happened,” Skidmore, 60, of East Setauket, said as he stood on the rugged shoreline of Port Jefferson harbor with state legislators and five other lobstermen.

They announced the creation of a lab, at the Marine Sciences Research Center at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, to study the die-off and other diseases plaguing shellfish and finfish.

“We are anxious to get started,” said Shirley Kenny, the university president.

For the first time, New York, which is providing $1 million, will not have to look elsewhere for the study of fish diseases. The lab is expected to be in full operation by early next year, but testing on the lobsters has already begun.

“This is an enormous problem for our lobstermen,” said state Sen. Ken LaValle, who spoke against a backdrop of hundreds of bobbing boats in this quaint fishing village.

“Now we will be able to begin to attack the problem at home without waiting to ship specimens out of state. Fishing and lobstering are a way of life in this area.”

The lab will share information with Connecticut, which plans to issue $3.5 million in state and federal grants to study the lobster die-off.

Until last year, the sound was the nation’s No. 3 lobster market, behind Maine and Massachusetts, with an estimated annual haul of 11 million pounds that generated about $15 million in revenue.

Catches were down as much as 90% last fall, forcing many of the sound’s more than 300 lobstermen into dry dock. There has been some improvement since then.

Skidmore and the lobstermen who joined him said they were no longer bringing up pots with dead lobsters, although the numbers of live lobsters were still down from before the die-off.

Skidmore said he used to haul in 1,000 pounds of lobsters in the month of August, the height of the season. This August, he brought in only about 350 pounds.

The lobstermen theorize that record warm water temperatures of the last two seasons may have weakened the lobsters’ immune systems. They also think pesticide spraying for mosquitoes, sewage spills or some parasite could be factors.

Glenn Lopez, a professor at the research center, agreed that warm water, caused by recent mild winters, could be the culprit. Lobsters are cold-water shellfish that “become stressed in warm water.” Long Island Sound is the southernmost point where lobsters can live.

Lobsterman Edward Rodman said many small lobsters have been seen over the last few months--a sign that they are coming back. Lobsters must live about seven years, or weigh about one pound, before they can be legally harvested.

But the crisis is not yet over.

“On my best day last winter, I brought in only 90 pounds of lobster,” said Jim McGuinness of Mount Sinai. “That paid for my [boat] fuel, bait and one helper. I put only $20 in my pocket that day.”

“We used to go out every three days,” said Skidmore. “We now leave the pots in the water for seven to 10 days” before harvesting them. “I’m not giving up. The lobsters are survivors. They are very hardy, and so am I.”