Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
wildlife and spectacular scenery all around, there is a romantic aspect to
it as well.
Lobster History
Despite lobsters' popularity today, it wasn't always so. More than 100
years ago lobsters were considered unfit for eating. A commercial fishing
industry for lobster did not even begin until 1860.
Even during the late 1800s most folks turned up their noses at the
thought of eating the creature. In fact, after fierce storms, dubbed
“Nor'easters” due to direction of the strongest winds, lobsters would often
be tossed up on shore in great numbers. Most people would collect them
to be put in compost piles for the garden. The lobster was so lowly that
owners of stately shorefront mansions, which they called “cottages,” of-
ten considered lobsters fit only for consumption by their domestic staff!
In those early years fishermen, in dories they rowed from shore, or in
small sailing vessels like Friendship Sloops, tended their traps by hand.
Over the years, the high-prowed, motorized vessel familiar today devel-
oped. In recent years, coated wire traps have replaced wooden ones. Wood
and glass buoys have been replaced by Styrofoam.
Lobster Trivia
Maine has more than 6,000 licensed lobstermen.
A female lobster lays anywhere from several thousand to
100,000 eggs at a time, but only one-tenth of one percent of those
eggs will develop and live past six weeks in the larva stage.
It takes a lobster four to seven years to reach one pound in
weight.
The largest known lobster caught in Maine measured 36
inches from the rostrum (back) to the end of the tail. One of the
largest known ever caught is a 42 lb, 7 oz monster on display
(dead and mounted) at the Museum of Science in Boston.
A lobster can be right or left-handed. Some have the large
crusher on the left, others on the right.
A lobster can drop a claw as a defense mechanism and grow
another over a period of years.
