Maine’s Congressional Delegation is trying to step up its defense of Maine’s lobster industry now that the European Union says it will take the next step in considering Sweden’s call for banning live American lobster from the EU.
Over the years, Sweden has reported finding a total of almost three-dozen American lobster off its shores — the leading edge of an existential threat to native European lobster, according to Swedish officials. Sweden says American lobster could bring new diseases to vulnerable native populations or interbreed with them.
Last week an EU science panel backed Sweden’s risk assessment, opening the door to a full review that could lead to an import ban on live American lobster as early as next spring.
“Maine is lobster. Maine is moose. Maine is blueberry pie and it’s Moxie. Maine is lobster, so this is our brand. This is who we are,” says Republican 2nd District U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, who joined Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree and independent U.S. Sen. Angus King for a show of tripartisan unity staged at the waterfront shipping dock of Portland’s Ready Seafood Co.
The trio, along with Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, sent a letter to the EU calling attention to a ban’s economic effects — the U.S. and Canada sell about $200 million worth of live lobster to EU countries each year — and for an update of the Swedish risk assessment that adheres to the highest possible scientific standards.
“We believe in our lobsters. Our lobsters are strong and great — but they’re not going to take over all of Europe,” King says.
He says only a handful of American lobsters have been found off Sweden over the years, and with rubber bands on their claws to boot, demonstrating that they were most likely escapees from holding pens or a dock rather than actually breeding in the Northeast Atlantic.
There’s no evidence, he says, that the mere presence of those lobsters has enough of an effect on local ecosystem to mark them as an invasive species.
“In fact, there have been attempts to propagate North American lobster in other waters around the world by the thousands and it hasn’t worked,” King says. “So if they’ve tried to do it to make them grow as a conscious decision, then how do we expect the few strays to suddenly take over?”
At the most, King and the delegation argue, EU countries should take better precautions to ensure that American lobster do not escape as they are shipped from shore to the European kitchens where, after all, the Old World’s enjoyment of Maine’s New World crustacean is well-established.
Delegation members said they had not seen any evidence that Sweden was simply trying to boost the value of native species by getting rid of the popular imports.
On the science, the politicians were backed by Bob Steneck, a University of Maine marine scientist who has studied Maine’s lobster for decades. He says that while there is one example of a lobster found in the Northeast Atlantic that carried fertilized eggs that were a hybrid of the Euro and American species, there is no evidence that such eggs would hatch, or that once hatched the larvae would stand a chance of survival, never mind propagate to threatening numbers.
“Cold winter temperatures are very important to the egg production of lobsters. And in fact it also brings into synchrony their reproduction, so the lobsters hatch at a time when the babies are settling to the sea floor at a time when they can grow. Those cold winter temperatures just simply do not exist in European waters,” he says.
Steneck says the Swedes’ reaction to the few American lobsters they’ve found would be akin to Maine scientists reacting to recent sightings of what may be a giant anaconda in Westbrook with a ban on constrictor snakes.
It’s unclear just how seriously EU officials may ultimately take Swedish fears. After study by its “Alien Species Committee,” the question of a ban would be voted on by the EU’s 28 members.