Local Lobsters, Once Thought Lost, Crawling Toward A Comeback

​Two decades ago, many thought that the days of the local Montauk lobster were a thing of the past.

In 1999 and 2000, the lobsters that had long sustained a robust commercial fishery on Long Island began vanishing. In Long Island Sound, the numbers of lobsters declined 90 percent in just one year, and the “offshore” populations that creep along the ocean floor were dwindling and suffering from other signs of environmental stress.

Lobster boats by the hundreds went up for sale or were retooled for other types of fishing. Fishermen blamed the pesticides used to kill mosquitoes during the West Nile virus battle, and sued — winning nearly $15 million from the companies that manufactured the chemicals used.

But now the few fishermen who have kept putting out lobster pots in between fishing for other species to pay the bills, say that lobsters seem to be returning to the waters around Montauk in greater and greater numbers.

Just a couple of Montauk fishermen still dedicate the bulk of their fishing efforts to targeting lobsters, with a few others mixing lobster pots into a wide-ranging collection of other targets to cobble together their incomes. But those ready to take advantage are enjoying a robust harvest and high prices from a market that soared during the pandemic.

“It’s been getting better and better the last four or five years,” said Vinnie Damm, who spends about two-thirds of his year trapping lobsters — interspersed with gill netting for monkfish in the spring — deploying as many as 1,000 box-like lobster traps set on the ocean floor between seven and 25 miles south of Montauk. “I’ve been lobster fishing my whole life. The stock right now is definitely healthier than they’ve been in a long time.”

Fellow lobsterman Al Schaffer purchased a larger boat this year to allow him to move more traps more quickly. He says there may be more lobsters in the deep waters he fishes along the boundary of New York and Rhode Island than there have been in decades — and the future is looking bright.

“The best part is that what we saw last year was a vast amount of eggers,” Schaffer said of female lobsters that bear their fertilized eggs on the underside of their shells before they hatch. “Every pot, 10 to 15 egger lobsters, which is incredible for the future.”

The 1999 die-off of lobsters seemed to materialize in just a matter of weeks in the late summer. Fishermen pointed to mosquito spraying, which was being stepped up in many municipalities over fears of West Nile virus, which had been identified for the first time in the Northeast that year. Then, in late August and September, the region was hit with the remnants of two tropical storms, which brought rainfalls that exceeded an inch per hour.

Fishermen and scientists quickly fingered the flushing effect of the heavy rains on regions that were being sprayed with chemicals intended to kill insects — not-so-distant cousins of lobsters — and the signs of a die-off emerging shortly afterward.

The chemical malathion was blamed, along with labels that were supposed to have been changed years earlier to bear warnings that it should not be sprayed in areas near waterways. The following year, the lobster harvest in Long Island Sound dropped from 6 million pounds to less than 1 million. Within a couple of years, it fell to near zero.

The reason for the rebound is uncertain, but one factor may be found in the carnage of the collapse in 1999 and the flight of lobster fishermen from the region.

“I think the lack of effort — fewer fishermen — has definitely allowed them to come back,” Schaffer said. “Back in the day, there were something like 480 lobstermen in New York. I think there’s maybe 10 of us now doing it basically full time.”

“There’s definitely a lot less pressure,” Damm echoed. “There’s more predators now, more sea bass, more dogfish — but fewer fishermen. There’s only a few of us left.”

Certainly there are hurdles. Pollution remains a concern, and rising sea temperatures are pushing lobster biomass steadily northward along the entire East Coast. Damm also worries about the effect that wind farm development might have on the fishery, citing concerns about electromagnetic fields from the power cables laid on the sea floor driving lobsters away.

Healthier stocks of species that eat lobsters can also tamp down their recovery. Better management of black sea bass has led to huge numbers of the small species of grouper, which love to eat crustaceans.

“Sea bass, we catch them and they are full of baby lobsters — they puke them up, tiny ones, like crickets,” Schaffer, who also works with pots set to target black sea bass and blackfish along his route from Montauk to the lobster grounds, added. “It goes to show, we told them the lobsters were coming back. They wanted to close this whole area down in 2013, and now, last year, we were coming in with 500 pounds a day when it was good.”

Fishermen currently get about $9 or $10 per pound for the lobsters they deliver to wholesalers on the back of a boost during the pandemic. Soaring fuel prices have forced captains to try to economize, primarily by “pulling back” on their boats’ throttle to burn less fuel, but stretching days longer.

Both Schaffer and Damm say they are hopeful for the fishery and thankful that they survived to see it rebound.

“We’ll just keep grinding away and hope it keeps going,” Damm said. “Since COVID, the price has gone way up. Of course, the price of fuel has tripled. So we’re not getting rich, but we’re making a day’s pay. And we’re alive.”