AP cites Steneck in report on Sweden’s proposed lobster ban

The Associated Press cited a paper written by Robert Steneck, a marine biologist at the University of Maine’s School of Marine Sciences, in an article about the dispute over a Swedish proposal to ban imports of live American lobsters into the European Union. According to the AP, Sweden is digging in on the proposal after a rebuke from American scientists, and the issue could go all the way to the World Trade Organization. Sweden asked the European Union to bar imports after 32 American lobsters were found in Swedish waters earlier this year. The U.S. government then told the European Commission that the proposal isn’t supported by science, and American and Canadian scientists issued reports calling the Swedish claim into question, the article states. In a paper written by Steneck, he said the American lobsters that turned up in Europe were most likely released illegally, as opposed to migrating across the ocean. He also wrote that American lobsters don’t pose a threat to European lobsters, in part because winter ocean temperatures along the coasts of European countries are too warm for the American lobsters to reproduce, the AP reported. New Haven Register and Portland Press Herald carried the AP report. Steneck also was quoted in a CBC News article on the topic.