Maine lobster business salvaged its summer despite pandemic

摘要

Maine's lobster fishermen braced for a difficult summer this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, but then the unexpected happened. They kept catching lobsters, and people kept buying them. The pandemic has posed significant challenges for the state's lobster fishery, which is the nation's largest, but members of the industry reported a steady catch and reasonable prices at the docks. Prices for consumers and wholesalers were low in the early part of the summer but picked up in August to be about on par with a typical summer. The Maine lobster industry is in the midst of a multiyear boom, and fishermen have caught more than 100 million pounds for a record nine years in a row. It's hard to guess whether they'll reach that total again, but summer 2020 hasn't been half bad for a season in which many fishermen expected collapse, said Kristan Porter, president of the Maine Lobstermen's Association.