Originally published in New York's Seafood Council Newsletter Spring 1994 Vol. 1, No. 3
Updated August 1999
The American or Northern lobster lives in the cold waters of the Northeastern U.S. and Canada. Inshore populations of lobster are abundant from Newfoundland through New Jersey, and offshore populations are primarily harvested from the Gulf of Maine through the Hudson Canyon area. Although some mixing of these populations occurs, they are considered to be distinct groups. Both the inshore and offshore waters that surround Long Island support an abundant lobster resource.Lobsters are solitary, territorial crustaceans that live in a variety of different habitats preferring areas that have a rocky or soft mud bottom to one that is sandy. Lobsters are a long-lived animal that grows slowly by molting or shedding its shell. Lobsters reproduce when a recently molted soft-shelled female mates with a hard-shelled male in the summer or fall. The female generally extrudes and fertilizes the eggs about a year after mating, and then carries the eggs on her abdomen until they hatch the following spring or early summer. Hatched larvae go through a planktonic stage for about a month, and then permanently settle to the bottom. They can molt up to 10 times during their first growing season. The rate of growth and number of molts is dependent on the food supply, water temperature, sex, and geographic area. After the first year lobsters generally molt once or twice each year until they mature anywhere from 4 to 9 years after hatching. Inshore lobsters like those in LI Sound are thought to only move in localized areas during their lifetime, while offshore lobsters often migrate long distances from the edge of the continental shelf to inshore waters in late spring and summer and back again in the fall.
NEW YORK'S LOBSTER PRODUCTION
Lobsters are one of the most important seafood products harvested in New York both in terms of the total value of lobsters landed, and the number of commercial fishermen who make their living in the lobster fishery. According to the latest statistics available from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), 8,525,590 pounds of lobster with a dockside value of $29,850,846 were landed at NY ports in 1998. Lobster has ranked first since 1994 in terms of total ex-vessel value for all seafood products landed in the state, and the dockside value of the lobster catch was greater than the value of all fin fish combined in 1996, 1997, and 1998.
