Guest lobstress #2 — HELLO!
A.’s childhood friend was in town for the weekend and came out with us for an afternoon of lobstering. Not a bad haul, actually. Our second berried female of the season. Very berried indeed. This hen was already notched, so we were spared the excitement of snipping the back flipper this time around.
K. got cozy with a baby short, featured here, but eventually opted to release it.
And what else? … Oh yes! Very interesting — we hauled a lobster with some kind of degenerative shell disease. Apparently, it’s an infection caused by a range of different 
bacteria and fungi that results in the gradual erosion of the lobster’s exoskeleton. The infection leads to soft, irregular lesions in the shell, seen here on the lobster we found as red and purple speckled sores (below).
The infection can spread to the gills and parts of the shell preventing a lobster from being able to successfully molt. This is one of the ways the shell disease can cause mortality.
According to NOAA, interestingly, the degenerative shell disease is not all that common in the wild. It’s more prevalent — not to mention economically destructive — in lobster pounds, where conditions may be ripe for the harmful bacteria to grow.
Somewhat disturbing is the fact that the shell disease is observed in degraded coastal habitats, where the lobsters come in contact with contaminated sediment while roaming the sea floor. AND the infection has been generated in the laboratory environment by exposing healthy lobsters to sewage sludge. Ughly.
This is NOT encouraging at all. Especially in light of the recent nytimes series on the nation’s water quality, “Toxic Waters”. They’ve pulled together data from the EPA into an interactive graphic that covers all parts of the US. You can zoom into Casco Bay, and it identifies multiple polluters in the immediate vicinity of our lobstering range that have failed to comply with the Clean Water Act at some point over the course in the last three years.
Below I’ve inserted a still shot of our home turf from the nytimes feature.
The orange dots represent facilities with one or more violations. Of those stamped with violations is our friendly neighborhood waste water treatment plant on the East End directly west of the boat launch. Another is the Portland city sewage treatment facility out on Peaks Island.
DEElicious. Needless to say, the one with the funky chitin we tossed back.
See a more detailed map of our trap locations here.
the haulress
the long hauler
