Lobster 'seeds' taking hold

The Boston Globe -- (TABUSINTAC, New Brunswick) On a rocking fishing boat half a mile from shore, a scientist screwed a blue hose to a water tank filled with 16,500 penny-sized lobsters. The other end was dropped to the sea floor.

Seconds later, baby crustaceans streamed onto the rocky bottom of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with what scientists say is a vastly improved chance to wind up red and juicy on dinner plates around the world.

The biologist and two fishermen were seeding the ocean with lobsters in a reinvigorated effort to preserve the fabled catch of New England and eastern Canada. While lobsters are abundant in Maine and Massachusetts, there are growing concerns that New England's most valuable catch might one day fade away, like cod and flounder before it. Mysterious lobster population declines in Long Island Sound and off Prince Edward Island are accelerating century-old efforts to raise baby lobsters in hatcheries and use them to seed the sea.

After decades of frustrating effort, there are now early signs that hatchery-raised lobsters are thriving in the ocean off New Brunswick, and scientists say a suite of new techniques might allow them to substantially supplement - and, if need be, save - the nearly $1 billion US and Canadian lobster industry.

"They said that cod would be there forever, too," said fisherman Shane Ross, whose boat, the Mist-Defier, held the cache of baby lobsters. He, along with 31 other lobstermen around Tabusintac, are paying 25 cents each for the tiny animals from a hatchery in Shippagan, New Brunswick. The nonprofit hatchery expects to release a world record of about 350,000 baby lobsters this year. READ MORE