Not too long ago, when banks asked Billy Milliken to evaluate a lobster impoundment, the Jonesport real estate broker would say it was worth $5 for every pound of lobster it could hold. Now, he doesn’t even know anyone using one.
Lobster pounds, which are typically formed by closing off a small cove, keep live lobsters corralled to grow, live through winter and wait out market fluctuations. They were once a major part of Maine’s lobster industry — until lobsters held in them started dying off in the early 2000s at such high levels pound owners couldn’t make a profit.
Now, as the pounds become obsolete, people are repurposing the waterfront properties. The new uses demonstrate how activity on Maine’s coast is shifting as demand remains high for coastal real estate while pressures mount on traditional uses.
“You just can’t do it. They just don’t live anymore,” Milliken said, saying the reason is somewhat of a mystery.
Scientists have attributed the die-offs to warming water from climate change in the Gulf of Maine that lowered saturated oxygen levels. That can be fixed by aeration systems, said Brian Beal, a researcher at the Downeast Institute in Beals. He believes die-offs are downstream of rough handling that damages lobsters as catch sizes have increased.
New developments in distribution and tank storage also reduced the need for the pounds, along with a longer fishing season, and their use has largely died out in the last decade.
Their disappearance has also marked a change in resources for lobstermen.
Lobsters harvested during the main season have shed their shells. That means they can’t survive for long out of the water, so options to sell them are generally limited to the New England market or processors in Canada.
Around Jonesport, pound owners bought “shedders” and kept them until February or March. The lobsters could roughly double in value and regrew hard shells, meaning they could be shipped longer distances.
Pounds offered price competition and employed locals when work was scarce in the winter. Milliken himself used to make extra cash as a diver hauling crates for one.
Without them, the local economy is less resilient, he said. Fishermen instead turn to scalloping, clamming or looking for periwinkle snails, which can be dangerous and harder to do as new coastal landowners restrict once-public shore access.
Oyster growing seems to be the only viable option for reusing pounds, Milliken said. Two former pounds that recently sold in his area are becoming oyster farms.
If that’s financially successful, he could see pound values going up again. If it doesn’t, he expects they will disappear and become residential properties, taking pieces of the town’s shrinking working waterfront with them.
He markets a property by its highest and best use, Milliken said, which these days often means not even mentioning a pound.
Growing shellfish in former pounds, primarily oysters, has been pitched as a way to diversify income sources for lobstermen. It’s an option for making money, but interest has been limited Down East, according to Beal, whose institute researches aquaculture uses for former pounds.
Pounds could be an easier path than open-water leases because they’re near traditional landing spots and rights are typically owned by fishermen, according to the University of Maine.
The enclosed design of impoundments and their private ownership also minimize conflicts with landowners, water navigation and commercial fishing that can flare around aquaculture leases, a UMaine study published last fall found.
Hancock and Washington County waters are generally too cold for growing oysters fast enough to sell commercially, but some lobster impoundments can be warmer, the Downeast Institute has found.
Greenhead Lobster, one of the state’s biggest lobster dealers, is set to start raising oysters on two old pounds in Stonington this spring.
Owner Hugh Reynolds told the BDN last year he hoped the project would demonstrate a way to reuse abandoned infrastructure and diversify working waterfronts while providing work in the slow season.
“These properties are all over the place,” he said.
Greenhead used its three pounds “as long as anybody,” Reynolds said, but they’re not as profitable as they used to be.
Waterfront views from the former pounds have also inspired at least one event venue for Maine’s significant wedding industry. In Hancock, a former lobster pound sold for $2.55 million in 2023 after years on and off the market, is reopening as seasonal wedding and event venue The Foggy Pearl.
Part of the property was then leased to a seafood wholesaler and former owners still used part of it, buyers told Mainebiz at the time. The last owners of the working pound said their “geographic needs” changed, so they weren’t using the full space.
“What began as a working lobster pound in the 1940s has evolved into a space for meaningful gatherings, celebrations, and time spent by the water,” the venue’s website reads.
Waterfront properties that include old lobster pounds have also become residences.
“Having that component to a property could be intimidating, or it could be intriguing and an opportunity,” Milliken said last fall about a Beals property he listed with a working pound.
Most initial interest was from out-of-state buyers who had no idea what a lobster pound was, he said at the time.
Even if fewer people are using them, lobster pounds still appear to hold a strong place in marketing an image of coastal Maine.
Seafood restaurants with the word “pound” in their names abound, and the working sites can be an attraction, too. In Pemaquid, the active Riverview Lobster Pound — built more than 130 years ago — is advertised by a seasonal cottage business of the same name.
And in Boothbay, a still-working pound is currently for sale for $1.2 million.
Beal believes they could still be profitable if owners paid lobstermen to handle fewer lobsters with “more respect,” and would offer more economic opportunities to communities — not just property owners — if they were working again.
As it is, he expects existing unused pounds to decay.
“It’s like owning a house that nobody lives in anymore and keeping it up,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
