Who says “global warming” doesn’t have some positive value? Well I guess if you are a tofu chomping green that recoils at the thought of eating lobster, you wouldn’t see this in a positive light, but many people do.
Miguel Rakiewicz submits this in WUWT Tips and Notes today:
Newly abundant and much cheaper lobster thanks to Global Warming.
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A story published in The Toronto Star in print on Saturday, 07 July 2012, and on the web on Friday, 06 July 2012, (06 July 2012) http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1223031–lobster-is-now-cheaper-than-cold-cuts-in-some-places-mclobster-anyonereveals that lobster prices have gone down substantially enough to make it much more accessible to the average consumer.
On Friday, oversupply pushed the price to fishermen down to $2.50 a pound in Maine and $4 in Canada.
…
As the text proceeds, it eventually gets to the reason for this economic and culinary miracle:Global Warming.
” [ Geoff Irvine, executive director of the Lobster Council of Canada ] blames global warming and increasing water temperatures for the current oversupply. The Maine lobsters have come to market a month early, because of the warm spring temperatures, he said. ”
A lobster, or more, in every pot is the gift of Global Warming. An interesting new slide for
Al Gore’s next show.
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Of course a warm spring doesn’t prove anything and we should remember that seafood is not climate. OTOH, we’ve been lectured that this warm spring is a likely signature of global warming, so I suppose we can posit a connection.
R Campbell remembers rightly. The collapse of the cod fishery because of overfishing removed a major predator of and competitor of lobster. This changed the Grand Banks ecology and led to a lobster explosion. The change was enhanced by the fact lobsters can catch and eat cod fry, yet another example of the ubiquitous “positive feedback.”
This is BS! Homarus vulgaris, the common lobster, thrives in the temperature range between the high and the low of the ocean temperature cycle. They are most scarce during the peaks of cold and warm. Lobsters are thriving right now as we are cooling and the midrange temperatures are good for them.
Maine lobstermen told me of this pattern back in the early 1970s, it’s been obvious for years. During the cold 1970s, you could look off the coast and see the number of lobster pots increasing as the lobsters became more scarce. It’s called “lobstering effort.” It takes more pots to catch what is needed when they are scarce. When lobsters abound, the number of pots decreases.
This is not global warming, as the common lobster’s southern limit is largely determined by temperature as is the northern extent of Palinurus spp., the rock lobster. The boundary between these species is at about Cape Hatteras. They complete in these areas, but the actual boundary moves up and down in that area based on the ocean temperatures.
Another case in point is the lobster in Long Island Sound. They are more temperature sensitive as the waters are also often diluted with rain water and also depleted of oxygen. The lobster’s viable temperature range decreases as other stresses, such as low salinity and low oxygen, are imposed. Too much metabolic stress in toto can be lethal.
So, the size of a lobster has nothing at all to do with good fishing standards and practices or the environmental conditions of it’s local habitat?, there are many other explanations for what can influence the size of a lobster other than a global temperature.
Funny how we had giant lobsters in the past, that must be proof that global temperatures were much warmer in the past too! see how that works?
btw I don’t eat lobster, crab or prawns myself, as a kid when I first saw them they looked like giant bugs to me.
Tom Stone says (July 9, 2012 at 11:57 am): “I am a global warming skeptic, but last week, we could have cooked the lobster and melted the butter on our sidewalk.”
With the right materials and little work, you don’t need a heat wave to cook with the sun:
http://solarcooking.org/plans/funnel.htm
And at night it becomes an ice maker!
Note that for lobsters, as for pretty much every other living thing, warmer is not always better:
http://www.ct.gov/dep/lib/dep/fishing/fisheries_management/022609_lobster_volunteer_termperature_survey.pdf
In and around the 1980s, various efforts were made to lobster the Continental Shelf, either with traps or by dragging. This was a big mistake and I believe that it was too expensive and largely failed. I think we are lucky that it failed.
Lobsters around England are small and do not grow to legal length because they have been so heavily fished for so long. A population of slow-growing, smaller lobsters was selected for, which explains why there is no local lobster fishery in England today.
The reason that the New England lobster has not suffered the same selection pressure is that the real breeding population of the lobster lives on the Continental Shelf and the lobster we fish are largely the overflow population. As long as the large original breeders live untouched out in the depths, we cannot ruin the gene pool and select for slow growing, smaller lobster.
Lobster was so abundant in colonial times that there was a law that slaves or indentured servants could not be forced to eat lobster more than 3 or 4 times a week. It cut down on revolts from having such a boring diet.
eyesonu says:
July 9, 2012 at 11:34 am
Cinaed, your link does not work.
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Opps – lost a path delimiter – try this URL
http://www.ct.gov/dep/lib/dep/fishing/fisheries_management/022609_lobster_volunteer_termperature_survey.pdf
I’d guess the most likely cause would have been a change in ocean currents.
Funny how a “good” news is not really a “good” news. What they really want to say, is that GW will bring havock in another form…
GK
“Of course a warm spring doesn’t prove anything and we should remember that seafood is not climate. OTOH, we’ve been lectured that this warm spring is a likely signature of global warming, so I suppose we can posit a connection.”
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Perhaps the connection has something to do with bottom-dwellers?
A favorite way of eating crayfish (what you call lobster but with slightly smaller front pincers) downunder (NZ) is placing thick chunks between two thick slices of white bread with lots of rich yellow butter, sprinkling of cracked pepper and a decent squeeze of lemon juice. I’ve been diving for these fish (both free diving and with a tank) around NZ and Southern Pacific sea for nearly 30 years and there has been a significant resurgence of the population during the last decade. Easy pickings like in the earlier years. Not sure if the prices have tumbled around these parts though.
[SNIP: John, get a grip. The end is not at hand and this rant has nothing to do with the price of lobster in New England. -REP]
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings and commented:
This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I’d never met herbivore.
[REPLY: Good. I like it. -REP]
Toronto prices have dropped mainly due to increased air cargo capacity between the Maritimes and YYZ/YTZ.
Lots of new DH4\’s (Q400) operating these routes with larger cargo compartments than the RJ\’s they replace. With Porter Airlines operating non-stop flights YHZ-YTZ and one-stops YQM-YOW-YTZ that\’s door-to-door service for a time-sensitive live shipment. What’s the price of Atlantic lobster in CDG, PVG, TPE, NRT at the moment?
http://www.flyertalk.com/acl/
Toronto prices have dropped mainly due to increased air cargo capacity between the Maritimes and YYZ/YTZ.
Lots of new DH4’s (Q400) operating these routes with larger cargo compartments than the RJ’s they replace. With Porter Airlines operating non-stop flights YHZ-YTZ and one-stops YQM-YOW-YTZ that’s door-to-door service for a time-sensitive live shipment. What’s the price of Atlantic lobster in CDG, PVG, TPE, NRT at the moment?
http://www.flyertalk.com/acl/
The bain of the food producer.
Production up, prices fall.
Prices up, production’s lousy.
Just can’t win.
Unless of course you’ve got a government so stupid that you can talk them into paying you to NOT grow stuff. But no one would have a government THAT stupid….
Oh wait. Never mind.
James Allison says:
July 9, 2012 at 1:40 pm
A favorite way of eating crayfish ….
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We call them crawdads 🙂
Loverly…. in jumbo or on wild rice. On big weekends we get our traps out divide into two groups one half catch…the other half peels them….And grownups do the cooking.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Thank you Rep 🙂
Oh no, not a link to the Star; they drank the AGW koolaid years ago. However, I do love lobster, especially Lobster with Ginger and Scallions (nice youtube vid with Ming Tsai making this delicious dish).
A lie is a lie-no matter who is telling it.
Show me where I can buy lobster for (anywhere near) that price.
Otherwise: Bulls*it!
I actually tried to purchase said beauties and got no closer than $35/lb. Thanks.
Here’s what happens when you forget about the lobsters “in the boot”. Paris ORY.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b331/kevster1346/badloadaircraft.jpg
He he, I sent this link to my brother, a lobster fisherman here in Nova Scotia, last week.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/07/06/thats-no-baloney-lobster-cheaper-than-deli-meat
Nice to see the Star is still finding their story ideas elsewhere.
My brother’s opinion is that this is the key sentence in the article, “Soft-shell lobsters—lobsters that have shed their hard shells—are easier to crack open and have less meat, so they typically fetch lower prices than their hard-shell brethren.”
Well there is another explanation for the low Maine lobster prices. People have finally figured out that Maine lobster sucks when compared to a good rock lobster aka New Zealand crayfish. Those big clawed critters don’t hold a candle to spiny lobsters, and then stone crabs beat both of them hands down. In the end, the seller really knows what his stuff is worth.
I see another hockey stick coming. It will be based on lobster price temperature proxy data.
Very very funny. What do all of you who don’t give a rip about climate change propose we do when the warm water allows the lobsters evolve into THIS….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlgy2ET7yzY
Not so amusing now, eh?
This is rather odd, Lobsters use Hemocyanin rather than Hemoglobin to transport oxygen because the poor low temperature off rate of hemoglobin. Lobsters therefore have quite a narrow growth window with respect to temperature. Indeed, the usage of Hemocyaninone by Lobsters means that they are highly copper limited. Many of their enzymatic systems have evolved to allow them to do without copper; they do not used the Cu-Zn cytosolic/extracellular superoxide dismutase, instead they have a gene duplication of the mitochondrial manganese superoxide dismutase, with one of the pair losing its targeting sequence.
They have an oxygen transport system that has evolved to transport oxygen when the temperature is about four degrees. The kinetics of oxygen binding and temperature effects are will known. Elevated temperatures will reduce the efficiency of oxygen transport in an anoxic environment.
I remember that high calcium and phosphate levels reduce metal bioavalibility in the marine crustaceans, not sure if that included copper.
When did we put limits on phosphate discharges into the sea?