Wahle welcomes world to spring lobster conference in Portland

University of Maine marine scientist Rick Wahle is co-chairing a June conference in Portland, Maine focused on the impact of the changing ocean environment and the global economy on the biology and business of lobsters.

About 200 biologists, oceanographers, industry members and fishery managers from more than a dozen countries are expected to attend the 11th International Conference & Workshop on Lobster Biology and Management June 4–9 at Holiday Inn by the Bay.

Wahle says the timing is perfect for Maine to host the event, which also has been held in New Zealand, Canada, Cuba, Japan and Norway. In 1977, 37 lobster biologists from six countries attended the first such international conference in Australia.

“It was about time,” Wahle says. “It’s been hosted all over the world, but never in New England, which we all know to be one of the world’s lobster hot spots.” This marks the second ICWL in the United States. The first was in 2000 in Key West, Florida.

It’s also timely because the lobster fishery is booming in the Gulf of Maine. From 1994 to 2014, lobster landings in Maine swelled 219 percent to more than 124 million pounds, according to NOAA Fisheries. In 2015, Maine’s haul was valued at $495 million.

But Wahle says the state’s coastal economy is dangerously reliant on the 10-legged crustacean. According to Maine Department of Marine Resources statistics, in 2015 lobster comprised 81 percent of the state’s total fisheries.

Just as lobsters have surged the last decade in the Gulf of Maine, they’ve sustained massive die-offs and disease in southern New England. Wahle says the lobster glut in Maine and its collapse in southern New England are partly due to the same process — widespread ocean warming.

Lobsters become thermally stressed in water above 20 degrees Celsius. And in recent decades, Wahle says the summer temperature of water in coastal southern New England has been rising above that threshold with increasing frequency.

The water temperature in the Gulf of Maine is currently close to ideal for lobsters, Wahle says. But continued warming could bring more shell disease and thermal stress, he says, heightening concerns that Maine’s iconic fishery could eventually suffer the same fate as the fishery in southern New England.

The international conference puts Maine and its coastal economy in the spotlight and its fishery in a global context, says Wahle, one of the so-called renegade biologists in Trevor Corson’s 2004 book “The Secret Life of Lobsters.”

“Let’s start with the fact that the American lobster is the nation’s most valuable fishery,” says Wahle. “Our lobster has become an icon of marine fisheries and a poster child of a changing ecosystem.”

Maine’s lobster fishery is one of the most productive in the world. Lobster is Maine’s single most-valuable export — at $331 million in 2015. Markets for live lobster in Asia and Europe are at an all-time high. Since 2014, Wahle says Ready Seafood Company in Portland has increased exports to China by 30 percent.

There’s been controversy about lobster exports, as well. After American lobsters escaped from holding pens in European waters, Sweden proposed an European Union ban on future imports on grounds the American lobster is an invasive species.

The EU panel denied the proposal, though, averting what Wahle says could have been crisis for U.S. and Canadian trade with Europe. More about the topic will likely unfold at the conference, he says.

Forging connections, engaging in a global dialogue and learning from other scientists all have been valuable to Wahle, who has attended six international conferences since 2000.

He’s is a natural to co-chair the conference. For decades, the UMaine research professor has studied the ecology of the American lobster.

Wahle’s lab at the Darling Marine Center in Walpole is the hub for the U.S.-Canadian monitoring program — the American Lobster Settlement Index. Since 1989, this diver-based survey, now carried out by a partnership of government and academic institutions, has annually censused newly settled postlarval lobsters repopulating coastal nurseries.

Wahle and collaborators are developing tools to predict population trends by understanding larval transport, settlement and post-settlement processes.

Kari Lavalli, a marine biologist at Boston University, is co-chair of the symposium.

Sen. Angus King, who Wahle calls a longtime supporter of fisheries — will welcome attendees.

Three keynote speakers will highlight scientific sessions. Jelle Atema, professor at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, will discuss “Sensory Biology & Behavior.” Paulo Prodohl, professor at Queen’s University in Ireland, will discuss “Genomics Revolution.” And, Malin Pinsky, assistant professor at Rutgers University, will talk about “Ocean Animals on the Move: Consequences for Ecological and Human Communities.”

June 8 will be Industry Day, during which commerce leaders will conduct sessions for harvesters, dealers, distributors, biologists and fishery managers from Newfoundland to New Zealand.

Discussion will include strategies employed by lobster fisheries around the world to sustainably and profitably manage the resource. A special session will focus on merits of collaborative science-industry research as a worthwhile, cost-effective investment in sustainable fisheries.

Participants also will share perspectives on how to confront and adapt to challenges and uncertainties of doing business in a changing climate and global economy.

Wahle says the discussions can lead to new partnerships and areas of research. The needs of lobsters, as well as those who rely on them to earn a living, can better be met when everyone in the fishery collaborates, he says.

In addition to keynotes, science talks, discussions and poster sessions, attendees can join a lobsterman hauling traps in Casco Bay. They also can tour area microbreweries, scuba dive, kayak, take a river cruise at UMaine’s Darling Marine Center, shop in Freeport and visit the Portland Fish Pier.

There also will be a Casco Bay Lines cruise to Peaks Island for a lobster bake. The conference will conclude with the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s farewell social on Portland’s waterfront.

To register and for more information, visit 11thicwl.com.

Contact: Beth Staples, 207.581.3777