All kudos to CNBC for bringing attention to a gravely under-reported story — the crisis facing the US lobster industry.
It was probably a slow news day, we know — but bear with us, it’s not an uninteresting tale (despite the drastic overuse of the word ‘boil’, strap lines like “Claws of Crisis”, and the lack of any cold hard numbers).
NBC’s Janet Shamlian reports from Maine where the price of wholesale lobsters has apparently fallen from $12 a crustacean two years ago t0 $2 a beastie today. More worryingly, she says, there’s no sign of prices picking up despite the hallowed notion of there being a recovery increasingly underway. In fact, it’s got so bad for the industry lobster men have even taken to sinking each others’ boats and even killing each other to boost access to trawling territory and volumes.
Do tune in to hear such observations as “lobstering is struggling”, “problems have boiled to the surface”, “people are not buying this delicacy, especially the big Canadian buyers, impacted by the crisis in Iceland.”
We like the last question from CNBC’s Amanda Drury in particular:
“Is there any hope amongst the lobster people?”