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Sonny Beal is a lobsterman from Jonesport-Beals and chairman of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association.
Maine lobstermen caught about 79 million pounds of lobster last year, less than any year in recent memory. When people see that number, they’ll be tempted to assume the worst for the future of a fishery that’s critical to our state’s economy. But my experience on the water, and the latest science, come to the same conclusion: The fishery that many Maine families and communities have staked our lives on is not slipping away.
Yes, landings were down, but 2025 was an unusual year. Science shows the Gulf of Maine has been warming, but I can tell you that the water was very cold last year. Lobsters are sensitive to temperature, so that meant a late shed and a very slow start to the season. A lot of lobstermen I know didn’t fish more than once a week this summer because catch was slow and expenses were through the roof. Fewer trips overall resulted in lower landings.
Tariff uncertainty didn’t help matters either. It caused all sorts of chaos in the market, yet we still ended up with the third highest price on record — at least before inflation. Inflation drove up the cost of just about everything we use, from bait to fuel, and the dollars we earned just didn’t go as far. It was often too expensive to untie the boat from the dock.
These are policy problems, not fishery problems, and the Maine Lobstermen’s Association is working hard to make sure policymakers in Washington understand the difference.
For the better part of two decades, Maine lobstermen were pulling in numbers nobody in this industry had ever seen before or even thought possible. Average landings historically were around 25 million pounds, but in the 1990s, they started to go up, decade after decade, until it peaked ten years ago at about 130 million pounds. Those were extraordinary catches, the result of decades of stewardship by lobstermen, a decline in groundfish predation, and near-perfect conditions in the Gulf of Maine. We rode that wave, and we’re grateful for it. But nobody in this industry thought it was going to last forever.
I’ve been lobstering since I was old enough to wear boots. My father was a lobsterman, and he taught me the ins and outs. The industry I grew up in never expected to depend on one species to carry us through every season. Historic high lobster landings made it so that some could get by with just lobstering, but things are coming full circle. Lobstermen have always been adaptable people. Come winter, many of us turn to scalloping, clamming, construction, whatever it takes to pay the bills until spring. We do what we need to do to survive. That’s just who we are.
What gives me real confidence looking ahead is all the small lobsters I’m seeing in my traps. Science is saying the same. Recent surveys show that the number of young lobsters coming up through the population is rising. That’s the future of this fishery. That’s the catch of five and 10 years from now, and it deserves to be part of this conversation just as much as last year’s numbers.
There will be people who want to use this year’s landings numbers to push a regulatory agenda or paint a picture of doom that doesn’t match the reality I see on the water. I’d ask anyone who cares about this fishery to be skeptical of that narrative. The lobstermen I know are not panicking. We’re adapting, as we always have.
The Maine lobster fishery is one of the best managed in the world. It got that way because fishermen bought into the importance of conservation and worked with scientists and regulators over generations to protect it. That work continues. And as long as people in this industry keep showing up, and I know they will, this fishery has a bright future.
