Sen. King speaks at international lobster conference, media report

The Portland Press Herald and WLBZ (Channel 2) covered U.S. Sen. Angus King’s address at the the 11th International Conference & Workshop on Lobster Biology and Management being hosted by the University of Maine and Boston University. Calling proposed cuts in federal science funding “unacceptable,” King told lobster researchers that data is the key to protecting Maine’s most valuable fishery, the Press Herald reported. Maine’s independent senator asked the 250 biologists, oceanographers and fishery managers at the global conference in Portland to give him data on the impact of the changing sea environment on lobster, including temperature, salinity and acidification, and whether that is prompting a migration of Maine’s $533.1 million a year fishery to Canada, the article states. The Boston Globe and The Revelator also reported on the conference, citing co-chairman Rick Wahle’s American Lobster Settlement Index. Wahle, a marine scientist at UMaine, said the number of young lobsters is falling in the Gulf of Maine despite years of record-breaking harvests, the Boston Globe report states.