Landings are down but the shore price is up in the lobster fishing areas (LFA) 33 and 34 commercial lobster fishery in Southwestern Nova Scotia, impacting live and frozen markets.
An opening shore price of $10.50 a pound had increased to $12.25 by the end of December. The 2022/23 season opened at $7.50.
The strong shore price is good news for harvesters, says Tommy Amirault, president of the Coldwater Lobster Association.
“The lobsters are good quality from what I’ve seen. The people I’ve talked to say the quality is good, the lobsters are healthy, strong and in very good shape. I think the price shows that. If it was a lesser quality lobster, the price wouldn’t be where it’s at,” said Amirault.
Since the commercial lobster season opened on Nov. 26 in LFA 33 and Dec. 2 in LFA 34, talk on the wharves and in southwestern Nova Scotia communities has been the decreased landings, especially for the fleet that fishes the mid to offshore grounds.
“The outside fleet is down for sure,” said Amirault. “I think there’s lobsters in little pockets but they are not spread out over the offshore grounds like they normally are. The inside grounds, landings seem to be average whereas the mid to offshore fleet seems to be down.”
Weather-wise, aside from the six-day delay for the LFA 34 opening, “the weather has been doable other than that really big storm. It shook up the inside fleet. It was a big storm that caused a lot of issues… snarled gear, lost gear, destroyed gear. In a season where things are really expensive and there wasn’t a ton of lobsters to begin with, it’s going to really hurt some people,” said Amirault.
Colder than normal water temperatures may be a factor why landings were down in December, said Amirault.
“There’s probably a bunch of different factors why the catches are down. There will be some discussions this winter I’m sure as to how people are going to get by and get through it but I’m sure as an industry we probably will. It’s a long season yet. Somehow 34 has a way of what’s not there in the fall shows up in the spring. Hopefully everybody makes enough to get by and maybe have a really good spring. That will even things out.”
As for lobster markets, in general both the live and frozen markets are being impacted by the lack of lobster supply from the U.S. and Canadian fisheries in the second half of the year, said Geoff Irvine, Executive Director of the Lobster Council of Canada as 2023 was drawing to a close.
“Due to climate change and other factors, all lobster sector participants in Canada and the United States are realizing that raw material supply is changing and this will impact live and frozen sectors in similar but different ways. It appears that more lobster supply will come from the spring fisheries in Québec, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Gulf of St. Lawrence and eastern Nova Scotia and less from the summer/fall (Maine/Mass., Bay of Fundy and SW Nova Scotia — LFA 25 in the Gulf is the anomaly). This is changing how dealers, live shippers and processors plan their production, sales, inventory management and financing and is of course impacting harvesters who are in some places catching less (in general the fall fisheries) or more (in general the spring fisheries),” said Irvine.
Lower than expected lobster landings from Maine and the fall seasons in the Bay of Fundy and Southwestern Nova Scotia are driving up shore and market prices for live lobster, said Irvine.
“There is limited inventory and demand is strong from seasonal demand for Christmas, Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day all pushing demand higher. Cold water and very poor weather have meant lower catches than expected from all fishing areas which will impact demand and prices through the winter period.”
As for frozen lobster, with limited supply through the fall and December driving up shore prices, the processors have struggled to buy raw material at price levels that match the market, said Irvine. “Market prices for lobster meat and tails have been flat since April and only in December have begun to rise to match the overall supply/demand dynamic.”
