That's good enough for me. He added that most lobstermen don't want to be looking over their shoulders and sneaking to avoid the law. It's difficult to determine with the naked eye whether a lobster in a restaurant tank has been scrubbed or bleached, experts say. It becomes even more difficult after a lobster is cooked. Each lobster boat is allowed up to 800 traps.
Lobstermen can haul up hundreds of pounds of lobsters in a day.
At certain times a year, anywhere between 10 to 50 percent of the lobsters off the Cape are egg-bearing. Lobstermen, by law, must thrown them back. That's a lot of money. Cases of scrubbing are very rare, said Bill Adler, the president of the Massachusetts Lobstermen's Association, which has about 1,000 members. Significant penalties Enforcing lobster laws is high in the pecking order of environmental police.