Season could be ‘a tough pill to swallow’

Lobster shore prices have been down in the Bay of Fundy fall fisheries

As is the case every year before the start of the lobster fishery off southwestern Nova Scotia, the anticipated shore price is what’s being talked about the most.

If the October shore price in the Bay of Fundy is any indication of what lobster fishers in Lobster Fishing Areas (LFAs) 33 and 34 will receive for their catch when their seasons open, it won’t be good.

“It will be a tough pill to swallow to go from arguably one of the best seasons on record to what people are looking at. It might not be a disaster, but it’s definitely not going to be any kind of record breaker in a good way,” said Tommy Amirault, president of Coldwater Lobster Association.

“I hope I’m wrong. I hope the markets come back. I think it’s going to take some sharp pencils to make this season work for most fishermen,” he said.

Weather permitting, the LFA 33 and 34 seasons are always scheduled to open on the last Monday of November. LFA 34 takes in all of Yarmouth County and parts of Shelburne and Digby counties. LFA 33 runs along the south shore of the province.

Fishers in LFA 35 in the

Bay of Fundy, who saw their season open on Oct. 14, were getting between $6 and $7 a pound for their catches in the opening weeks, compared to November 2021 when the shore price for lobster was in the $12-a-pound range.

In LFA 33 and 34, the season opened last year with a shore price of $11 a pound and closed in the $10 range, peaking at $17.50 in late winter and early spring. But those prices aren’t expected this year.

After record lobster exports in 2021, the Ukraine conflict, COVID and inflation began impacting worldwide sales of live lobster this past spring.

“We’re catching a luxury seafood product and heading into a recession. I don’t want to be talking the price down, but I’m a realist,” Amirault

said. “I think we have to deal with reality.”

He said the LFA 33 and 34 seasons – which both run to May 31 – usually open with a shore price a little less than the Bay of Fundy “just because we’re front-end loaded with volume.”

“There’s just so many boats in 33 and 34 and the volume, it’s hard for buyers to handle … there’s so much volume coming ashore at once it makes it hard for buyers to move them where they’re supposed to go,” explained Amirault.

Combined, there are around 1,660 licence holders in LFA 33 (which runs from Eastern Passage to Baccaro, Shelburne County) and LFA 34 (which runs from Baccaro, Shelburne County to Burn’s Point Digby County and takes in all of Yarmouth County).

In LFA 35 (which takes in the Digby area in addition to other geographical regions of the Bay of Fundy) there are 94 licence holders.

While the price will be one problem, Amirault believes the lobster industry is going to be fighting two or three

battles this year.

“The high price of supplies, the high price of bait, the high price of fuel and the low price of lobsters – if we only had one of those battles at a time, I think maybe we’d be okay, but trying to fight a lowprice lobster with high priced supply, bait, and fuel, I think it’s going to be a really tough season for fishermen,” he said.

“I’m sure processors and buyers are going to be dealing with the same problems. It’s not just a fishermen’s problem. It’s the whole country’s problem, whether you are a farmer or a business owner. For people who are established and set up, it’s going to be a bump like in 2002 and 2008 where we survived it,” he said.

For young people in the industry, there will be growing pains, Amirault said. For anyone carrying debt, interest rates will be another problem to contend with.

Still, Amirault said fishers are very resilient.

“We’re time tested. We’ve been here for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years doing the same thing.

No doubt people will have to tighten things up and try to make cuts where they can. Unfortunately, that will probably translate into the local economy – boat shops, truck dealerships and grocery stores. I’m sure it will translate into those sectors.”

According to preliminary DFO statistics, the LFA 34 fishery had a landed value of $401,764,520 for the 2021-22 season, with 17,235,730 kg of lobster landed.

In LFA 33 in 2021-22, there were 6,762,545 kg of lobster landed, valued at $165,881,243 wharf side.

During the 2020-21 season, LFA 34 licence holders had generated a landed value of $375,825,000. In LFA 33 that year, the landed value was $138,963,000.

Aside from price, the weather is also the talk of the industry.

Foul weather plagued fishers throughout the last season, from the two-day delay of the season start, which pushed the opening from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1 in 2021, to high winds and rough seas throughout the spring.