The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-23
THE VANISHING LOBSTER.
How the LObstermen arc Killing Their Own Business oy Violating the Law.

| 1 lobster fishery is either depleted or | in a. state of decline. The evidences | of this condition are to be found in l steadily increasing prices and in the statistics of fisheries. The market price. or cost to the consumer, has 1 steadily advanced in direct ratio to the l steady decrease in the market supply. l From 1889 to 1899 the annual crop was reduced one-tlalf while its value | had more than doubled. In Maine, which in some years has produced | two-thirds of the entire output of lob sters, the produce fell off in twenty years over 100000 pounds, while it's value advanced four-fold. In Massa- chusetts the catch of 1900, although only half as great as that of 1880, was worth more than the total catch of ten years before. Connecticut has a similar story to tell. and it is only a sound and essentially uniform code of laws for the entire fishery
 that will check the constant and ever. increasing drain that is now surely
 and steadily forcing the lobster to
 extinction
 The largest lobster on record was
 taken in the spring of 1897, off At
 lantic Highlands, N. J., weighed 34
 pounds, and measured 23 3-4. inches,
 total length. This was nineteen years
 ago. At that time a TO- or 12-pound
 lobster was not at all uncommon, yet
 at present practically none of this class find the way to our markets. The American lobster lays it's eggs but once in two years. The eggs are carrid attached to the under side of the tail for nearly a year, CT until they are matched ten or eleven months after deposition. The fry, or young, when matched, rise to the surface or | toward it, and lead free swimming life for three weeks. hardly larger than a mosquito. They perish by | the thousands before the storm and | countless fish and other enemies It | has been estimated that probably not | more than two in 30.00o survive and | grow to a marketable size. This l shows that the present gauge laws are | indefensfble, because they rob the l fishery of the billions of eggs neces- sary to maintain it. It speaks loud | ly in favor of law to protect the
 large egg producers. and also of the
 newer plan of rearing the young to l the stage when they seek the bottom, | instead of lfberating them soon after | matching.
 1 An eggLbearing lobster 16 inches | long, which, according to good au- l thority, is nearly eighteen years old. has had succession of eight broods
 and has produced 210.000 eggs The | larger animal is thus worth nine | times as much as the smaller; in Oth | CT words. in the course of twelve years | its value to the fishery has been in- creased 800 per cent. It is these big l holsters, which produce by the fifty and hundred thousands, that have been nearly wiped out. and the main tenance of the race depends alfost entirely upon the smallr adults which l produce about one tenth that of the | larger class.
 The present gauge laws are good. as far as they go, but the rigid en- | forcement of these laws is next to impossible and the illegal sale of short ! or chicken" lobsters a1as become a trade of big. proportions.
 The shortsightedness of the lobster fishermen who brush or comb off the eggs from the female to evade the law tor the sake of the few cents the lobster brings, is a clear case of not only killing the goose that lays the golden esg'' for the public. but he is killing his own future business The
 average number of eggs destroyed by
 this method from one 8 inch female i5,
 approximately, 5000: from a 10Anch
 female, over 10000; from 12-inch
 female, over 21.o00. and from an 1s-
 inch female nearly 80,000.
 Is 1t strange that holsters are be-
 coming scarce and expensive when
 their. future generations are deetroy-'
 ed by the millions in this way? Some
 thing must be done to stop the illegal
 and wholesale destruction of holsters
 and thedr eggs or there will soon fbe
 no Holsters.
 A double gauge law has been sug-
 possess holsters between certain min
 imum and maximum lengths only, say
 four and eight inolses. inclusive, cara.
 pace measure, thus preventing the destruction of not only the little fel-
 lows but the large producing adults.
 The present laws shift the duty
 of maintaining the race upon the
 small producers, which the law of sur
 vival plainly tells us it is unable to
 bear. Spare the large producer.
 then, by the proper gauge law. and nature will save the race.
 Much more interesting end valua- ble detailed information regarding ttds epfcurean de1fcacy may fbe had from the Government Bureau of Fisheries bulletin on the 'Natural History of the American Lobster from which a portion of the above is taken.