Sustainability

With funding from Maine Technology Institute’s Technology Asset Fund, faculty and students in the Saint Joseph’s College of Maine Sciences Department are among the top lobster scientists in Maine contributing to a unique, two-year industry-higher education collaboration between Ready Seafood, Inc., Saint Joseph’s College, and the University of Maine. At its core, this project involves research designed to increase the value of Maine’s most valuable fisheries resource by improving scientific understanding of lobster physiology that will enable increased survival rates of live lobsters during shipping. The value of lobster landed in Maine was $533.1 million in 2016 or nearly 80% of the landed value of all fisheries in the State. With projections that lobster populations have reached their peak, the industry is looking to scientists for innovative ways to increase value. One way to do this is to create an environment where a "soft shell lobster" turns into a more resilient and valuable "hard shell lobster" after it has been trapped.