Others postulate that the steep decline of predatory fish like cod has allowed more baby lobsters to survive. Still others point out that improvements in gear and technology make lobstermen more efficient. Another theory, said Carl J. Wilson, the state's chief lobster biologist, is that lobsters may be thriving because they are effectively being farmed. With more baited traps than ever, many a young lobster can stop in to a trap for a snack, then leave through the vents designed to let undersize lobsters escape. Lobstering, he and others noted, naturally lends itself to careful conservation.
Lobstermen can make individual decisions about each lobster and throw back each reject alive.
Fish caught in great nets, on the other hand, are often brought up dead, so that throwing back any illegal catches does little good. Lobster traps do not damage the environment as dragging does, either. But for all the lobster fishery's pluses, pessimistic voices predominate among the scientists who study it. They see signs that the numbers of young are dropping. Lobster has officially been considered overfished for a couple of decades, and at some point the lobstermen may have to pay.