Lincoln County News interviews Wahle about lobster shell disease
The Lincoln County News spoke with Rick Wahle, a marine scientist at the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center, for an article about lobster shell disease making its way into the state. Epizootic shell disease has been seen in rising numbers in the warmer waters south of Maine and could pose a future threat to the currently booming lobster population in the Gulf of Maine, the article states. According to Wahle, the disease first took off in the coastal waters of Rhode Island around 1997, spreading to northeastern Massachusetts before stalling out for a number of years. The disease then progressed to New Hampshire before making it to Maine. “We have gradually seen it creep into Maine,” he said, adding that until 2013, the disease was found in a few lobsters per thousand, but over the course of a year, its prevalence rose to a few per hundred, though these higher numbers were restricted to the southern part of the Maine coast. The Bangor Daily News also published the article.