Posted on 05/25/2004 7:04:59 PM PDT by Pharmboy
BOSTON - A baffling disease that makes lobsters ugly, but not inedible, has crept northward from the Buzzards Bay hotspot where it's afflicted lobsters for several years.
The numbers of infected lobsters are far too tiny to cause panic, but the disease's progress is being eyed warily by regional researchers and lobstermen. The disease doesn't affect the meat, but a lobster with a corroded, blackened shell is a tough sell.
"You go and spend $8 for a lobster, you want a good-looking lobster," said Edward Heaphy, a lobsterman of 50 years from Dover, N.H.
In 1998, diseased lobsters began filling traps in the Buzzards Bay area, off the coast of southeastern Massachusetts. Almost a quarter of all lobsters sampled by the state in the bay that year had the disease, known as shell burn.
In the years since, the diseased lobsters were found in lesser numbers in Cape Cod Bay and Boston Harbor. Last year, according to preliminary numbers, 3 percent of lobsters caught off Salem and Cape Ann had the disease — the first time since sampling began there in 2000 that any infected lobsters were recorded.
"We've seen, year by year, a slow, steady progression northward," said Bob Glenn, a biologist leading the coastal lobster studies at the state Division of Marine Fisheries.
Arthur Sawyer, a second generation Gloucester lobsterman, said he's spotted a couple diseased lobsters in the last year or two, but added, "You're still talking about nothing."
He said the disease is worth watching because of its mobility and unexplained cause.
"To say whether it's going to get worse or not, nobody knows," Sawyer said. "Those guys got creamed down there (in Buzzards Bay)."
The state's lobster catch was worth $56.7 million in 2002, the most recent year for which statistics were available.
The shell disease hasn't been tied to any mass die-offs, and lobsters seem to survive it reasonably well, though perhaps in a weakened state, Glenn said.
The disease is caused by the chitinolytic bacteria that eats chitin, a cellulose-like substance in the shells. The disease has been around forever, but the strain that's hit Buzzards Bay lobsters could be new and more virulent, Glenn said.
Other theories tie it to pollution, warmer coastal waters or some weakness in the lobsters. Glenn said that unless researchers find an easily contained cause of the disease — say a leaking chemical pipe — nature will likely have to fix the problem.
"It's not like livestock where you could inoculate them," he said.
The disease has yet to significantly affect Maine — where fishery officials recorded a minuscule 44 cases of shell disease among 130,000 lobsters sampled in 2003 — or New Hampshire, where the disease turned up in 43 of 14,308 lobsters.
"Right now, I don't think it's anything to be concerned about," Heaphy said. "We're keeping our fingers crossed."
I'll share witcha. Nut pick?
Stop it...stop it...I'm dying here...I'm crying (and I have to clean up the kitchen).
Hell, they got the Kerry disease!
How close is the Kennedy Compound on Martha's Vineyard to the southeastern coast of Massachusetts?
Lobsters look like a cross between space aliens and humongous bugs, so looking uglier shouldn't be a real PR hit.
A big RED claw ping...
Commercial fisherman call lobsters "bugs" so you aren't too far off.
when I read this headline, my eyes popped out of my head and my face went red.
If you whistle when you take a bath tonight, you might look around to see if someone has melted some butter.
Okay, the lobsters are ugly because of a baffling disease.
So how do you explain THIS!
BTTT!
$8 ??????
What year is it? Where am I?
Now here's where the clowns at Fox really dropped the ball.
Had the writer-imbeciles been better informed, they might've worked this into the plot of the silly weather movie that's about to bomb.
Can you see it, Dennis Quiad holding one of the creatures up & exclaiming, "There! There's my proof! We're doomed!"
I know, I know.
...I oughta be writing for the pictures. :o)
Get a look at the sign. DEMAND EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION OVER THE COUNTER.
8 bucks for a lobster!? Here in Montana it's about $12.00 a pound. I'd eat lobster at least 3 times a week if I could get it for $8.00.
Hackney's and Captain Starn's, two great places for lobster, they were on the north end of the Atlantic City Boardwalk until circa 1975.
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