“This is what I was built to do,” said lobsterman Herman Coombs steering his boat, the Jocelyn K., into blustery salt-laced winds and Maine’s coastal briny waters. His calloused hands make quick work of building his homemade bright yellow lobster traps, scooping fish bait, and tending to his vessel, named after his daughter.

By 4 a.m. on a dark November morning, Coombs and his two sternmen are already offshore working towards the 800-lobster trap daily limit. Of all the hauling, scooping, steering, and repeating, his favorite part of being a lobsterman is the smell: fishy, fresh, and familiar.

After hours of hauling traps aboard, they return to Glen’s Harbor just after 3 p.m., a small wharf on Bailey Island, 45 miles north of Portland. Coombs grips his screws and a drill with oily hands and, despite 20-mph wind gusts, wears no coat. Minutes later, his golden-furred dog rushes over with puppy energy, giddy to greet him.

Despite many of these long, overcast days, with arduous labor and boat maintenance, little deters these workers from their passion and pride.

“I know back in the day, when you would say ‘fisherman,’ people would assume that we all smoked cigarettes, we’re all drinking rum, or beer, or whiskey,” Coombs said. “But we’re not like that anymore. We’re just ordinary people. We just do an extraordinary job.”

For Coombs, and other Maine lobstermen, their job isn’t just a profession: it’s a cultural lifestyle. And for many, like fellow lobsterman turned conservancy worker Alec Bollinger, their work is rooted in familial ties and the merit of hard work on the ocean.

“My father passed away when I was young and then my uncle took me in and taught me to go fishing and it was part of my childhood,” Bollinger said. “He taught me a lot about life and hard work. It’s the freedom to go do your own thing.”

But recently, many factors are threatening this lifestyle.

As one of the most valuable and self-sustaining single species fisheries in North America, the lobster industry remains a coveted symbol of Maine, representing decades of tenacity and ecological harmony. But recent regulatory proposals, along with looming climate and ecological changes, threaten a precarious industry, particularly for the next generation of lobstermen.

Small Change, Huge Impacts

One such proposal that is currently on hold after being repealed in January is the gauge requirement, or size limit, for catching lobsters.

The proposal would increase the minimum size to catch a lobster by one-sixteenth of one inch, a seemingly small difference that many say would have an exponential impact on the fishery.

As one of the most self-regulated industries in North America, Maine lobstermen comply with environmental and regulatory groups to preserve and sustain the lobster stock in their waters. There are multiple self-imposed regulations in place: a lobster trap limit, a V-notch regulation, and minimum and maximum size requirements.

Trap limits cap lobstermen at 800 daily traps, V-notching refers to making a V-shaped cut in an egg-bearing female lobster’s tail lasting 3-6 years that, if captured, is released, and the current minimum and maximum lobster size requirements are 3.25 inches and 5 inches, respectively.

The proposed increase in minimum size would require lobstermen to release more lobster back to the ocean that do not meet the new size requirement. The proposal is said to help sustain the lobster stock and water ecology, with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries stating it could potentially help increase the egg production by up to 40%.

But an economic study of the proposal conducted by Michael Donihue, Professor of Economics Colby College, state that just a 10% decrease in lobster landings, or the amount of lobsters brought ashore, would have resulted in a loss of just over 680 jobs and $59.6 million to Maine’s economy. And others, like the working lobstermen, say the economic impacts of the regulation could be felt immediately.

“If you were at half of what you could normally keep, you’d be behind after your 1st week,” said Bollinger.

Another Maine lobsterman, Alex Thompson, agrees. “I don’t think it’s needed. I don’t really think that it’s going to be harmful in the long term, but in the short term, it definitely will be,” he said.

Thompson is also worried about the snowball effect of regulations, how one proposal now could lead to stricter regulations down the line as there was talk of implementing further size limits in subsequent years. “It’s always just one more thing,” he said. “It’s just little bites being taken away all the time.”

Around 58% of lobstermen share the feeling, reporting they are “very concerned” about planned changes from the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission, according to the 2025 Stock Assessment annual survey report.

The new size limit would also increase competition with Canada, as the interconnected business across borders would allow Canadian lobstermen to catch and keep smaller lobsters that Mainers cannot. In addition, Coombs believes the detriment of the policy would affect younger fishermen the most, a population that he said has decreased by about 2,000 fishermen in the last year alone.

Coombs, who taught his son and daughter lobstering from a young age, has lived through previous regulatory changes, like a vent increase policy that widened the lobster escape hatch in traps to allow more lobsters to flee. While he has had years to make up for the loss in profits, he believes, “for young people just starting out, that would have been crippling.”

Maine’s Fastest Warming Waters

The size debate also comes amid major environmental changes.

In 2016, lobstering in Maine was akin to a gold rush. According to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, waters that warmed 99% faster than all other global waters drove lobsters to flee to Maine’s colder shores. Lobsters also became abundant when their natural predators, groundfish, were overharvested and these fish now only comprise 1% of the fishery. These environmental factors, coupled with the self-regulatory measures of V-notching and size requirements, were the perfect concoction for a lobster boom that lobstermen are still chasing.

Since 2016, the abundance of lobsters has declined 34%, a worrying statistic for some but that is still well above previous historical lobster numbers. So, dispute the decline, the slow decline projects a looming crisis after an historical high.

Now, as regulators look to science to dictate proposals, scientists argue there are no easy answers.

The difficulty with using climate indicators to guide policy change is that “biology and ecology is really messy,” explained marine biologist Alex Ascher.

With changing climate and food availability, lobsters are tending towards smaller sizes and, therefore, producing smaller larvae. It takes “roughly five to seven-ish years for a lobster to develop and enter the fishery,” and that delayed timeframe makes it difficult to predict the human impact over sustaining the environment, explained Ascher.

While climate change poses overarching threats to the lobster industry, these warming waters were actually initially beneficial, retired Director of the Maine Lobster Institute Richard Wahle explained. “It enabled them to capitalize on what happened to be the positive effects of a warming climate in this cooler region of the species range in the Gulf of Maine.” Regarding the size limit and other conservation regulations, “these conservation measures only enabled us to capitalize on all that great egg production.”

The successes of earlier regulatory measures capitalized on the timing of inevitable ecological changes from warming waters. But those same conditions cannot be applied today. While the short-term effects of climate change may have positively impacted the industry, this cycle is doomed to repeat, with lobsters eventually fleeing to Canada’s cooler temperatures in the coming years.

Looking at long-term effects, these regulatory measures could simply be “staving off the inevitable,” said Wahle.

“We like to think we’re in the driver’s seat, but as fishery managers, Mother Nature has a much bigger hand in this than we like to think,” said Wahle. “There’s only so much we can do to mitigate the effects of climate change at this point.”

Lobstermen: From Skiff to Sail

In the summer, Alex Thompson finishes his shift by noon in Addison, a coastal region north of Bar Harbor. But in the winter, he works 15-hour shifts, sometimes staying out on the water until 6 p.m.

While Canadian lobstermen fish during set seasons, Mainers can choose, or not choose, to work year-round. But this year, Thompson feels he has no choice. “I’m definitely going to be out there all winter just to make enough to almost make what I made last year, hopefully somewhere near,” he said.

Thompson has dedicated his life to lobstering, receiving his first boat at 14-years-old and working in the industry for 26 years upon leaving college after two years. His ambition has helped endure the many 2 a.m. starts and “occupation hazards” known to the field, like men he knows that have lost fingers ripped off from rope tangles.

Despite his dedication, challenges this year have been hard to ignore. Thompson currently travels further offshore to find enough lobsters during his winter hauls and has felt the 20% price increase of equipment for traps and rope.

Inflation and rising tariffs have also been felt industry wide as the 2025 Stock survey said the largest recorded concern for lobstermen was prices of bait, fuel, gear, and boats in sustaining their fleet. The impact is especially great because “each individual is their own company,” said Chris Payne, Associate Director of The Maine Lobsterman’s Association.

“They’re paying for their own boat, they are paying for their own bait, their own gear, their own traps, they’re paying out their sternmen.”

This friction between lobstermen, policymakers, and environmentalists isn’t new. Coombs sees this stark division as one of the largest challenges facing the industry today. “You’re never going to get a fisherman and a scientist to probably agree because we all seem to see things a little different,” he said.

But for Bollinger, these worlds collided when he transitioned from lobstering to becoming a field technician at Quahog Bay Conservancy, leaving the industry after seven years to help sustain the work he loves most.

When he was 10, he received a wooden skiff and 100 traps from his uncle and began lobstering. With the profound impact the profession has had on his life, he wishes it were easier for younger fishermen to join the industry. Most lobstermen begin learning with help from their family as a child, but changing laws make it harder for minors to obtain a license, and the effects are a declining population of young lobstermen.

What is the Future of Lobstering in Maine?

The future of Maine’s iconic cultural symbol is cloaked in uncertainty.

With interconnected spheres of policy, industry, and the environment, it’s a “hugely noisy relationship.” Professor Wahle predicts even more unforeseeable obstacles for the industry, including the impacts of overharvesting lobster’s natural predators, groundfish, that now only comprise 1% of the fishery, warming waters on Maine’s coasts, and oceanic debris.

“It’s sort of an out of sight, out of mind thing, but I think it’s going to be increasingly an issue that the industry needs to deal with,” said Wahle.

Yet some, like PhD researcher Ascher, are still positive despite the general decline in overall profits. “We definitely see changes that are worrisome … but we’re still well above historical landings,” he said, referring to the amount of lobsters caught and taken to shore. Of the size limit regulatory proposal, “from a management standpoint, it still might be the right move in terms of protecting stock long term,” he stated.

From the industry side, lobstermen have proposed solutions to new policies like the size limitation, including Thompson’s idea to mimic Canada’s fishing seasons and require inshore and offshore permits to regulate the number of fishers in each area. Other lobstermen are most in favor of setting a lower trap limit, potentially around 600 traps a day, and emphasizing the already greatly accepted V-notching regulation by the industry. Others, like Coombs said, just want changes that are not so drastic.

They are also worried about maintaining their legacy without generational help. “I don’t think the lobster fishery will go anywhere,” said Coombs. “But where it is so difficult to get into this business, you’ll see a decline only because there’s not going to be the participants.”

While science tries to inform policy and policy tries to anticipate science, the greater cultural stakes are clear. “The balancing act is we’re not just trying to protect a species per population,” said Ascher. “We want to protect a population and an industry and cultural way of life in Maine and New England.”