Lobster Shell Disease Poses Threat To Maine Seafood Industry; Are The Lobsters Safe To Eat?

A shell disease that has plagued the southern New England lobster industry for years, appears to be creeping northward to the lobster-rich grounds off the coast of Maine.

This lobster shell disease, which is caused by bacteria eating at the lobster's shell, is a disfiguring condition where black lesions form on lobster's shells that look like cigarette or acid burns. It makes lobsters unsightly and in some cases unmarketable, but doesn't hurt the meat.

Since the 1990s, the disease has been spotted on lobsters in southern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where one in every three or four lobsters suffer from this condition.

When biologists first began sampling for the disease in Rhode Island, the prevalence was small: less than 1 percent in 1996 and 4 percent in 1997. But in 1998, the percentage jumped to nearly 20 percent; since then, it's ranged from 18 to 34 percent a year.

In Massachusetts, an average of 22 percent of sampled lobsters have been diseased from 2000 to 2011. The rate peaked at 38 percent in 2011.

In Maine, however, a few are affected. Only three out of every 1,000 lobsters were infected last year. But scientists and lobsterman say the prevalence of the disease has grown.

"It's certainly something to keep an eye on. But in terms of our perspective of Gulf of Maine shell disease, we don't see it as something to get particularly concerned about," said Tracy Pugh, a fisheries biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries. "The rates are pretty low. We don't see a pattern."

Kathy Castro, a fisheries biologist at the University of Rhode Island Fisheries Center, said shell disease could be linked to a number of pressures such as rising water temperatures, pollution and low oxygen levels in the water, and the waters in the Gulf of Maine are cold.

Lobster is one of the most important fisheries in Maine and New England, valued at more than $400 million to fishermen and hundreds of millions more to coastal communities, and are more valuable in the live market.

Even though this disease stresses lobsters and can sometimes kill them, it doesn't taint their meat, making them safe for consumption, but an increase in the disease, could still mean economic loss because lobsters couldn't be sold at their original price.

South Bristol lobsterman Arnold Gamage Jr. says lobster shell disease doesn't worry him a lot. He told AP that the number of ill lobsters is "a lot compared to none," but "it's still a very small number; it's way less than 1 percent."