ORONO, Maine (AP) - The University of Maine is creating a team to collect and evaluate sick lobsters that are harvested in state waters.
The team will be assembled this spring as part of a study on the impacts of rising water temperatures and ocean acidification on the lobster population.
The Portland Press Herald (https://bit.ly/1OTWy6z ) reports that the work will focus on shell disease. The disease has hit southern New England’s lobster population hard. As many as one in every three lobsters trapped in the area has some degree of shell disease.
The incident of shell disease in southern Maine waters was less than one in every 100 sampled last year. It is less in eastern Maine.
A state grant of a little more than $127,000 is funding the work.
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