Consider the plush toy lobster

Over Fourth of July weekend I visited Maine for my first time, specifically the island tourist town of Bar Harbor. It’s the kind of buzzing summer place that all but shuts down during the snow-heavy winters, save Main Street necessities, which makes sense since most of the stores in the small community appear to depend on the sale of touristy knickknacks. Wandering in and out of these shops, I was struck by how many of the souvenirs invoked lobsters.

Being in Maine, that’s not too surprising. However the economic significance, not only of the edible crustacean but its mere visage to the State of Maine, seemed stocked on shelves, hanging from walls and ceilings, and enticingly arranged by cash registers, everywhere I turned.

There was lobster clothing, from T-shirts and bibs to embroidered socks and chef smocks. Lobster snow globes, key chains, posters, and lunch pails. Carved wooden lobster puzzles and a large variety of plush lobster toys. A lobster Halloween costume for your dog. A lobster costume for your baby. Oven mitts shaped like lobster claws. Numerous books about lobsters. And plastic harmonicas disguised as a lobster claw (life size).

The list goes on, but by measure of souvenirs alone, Maine’s license-plate boasting (“vacationland”) industry, tourism, is inextricably tied to its original industry, lobster fishing. Of 1.2 million overnight visitors in Bar Harbor, 68 percent of them ate lobster. Of the three million day trippers, 61 percent also went shopping, which by my highly unscientific estimate means at least a quarter of them went home with a lobster-kitsch item. On average, we currently pay $2.25 per pound for edible lobsters, and $14 per pound for silky, synthetically stuffed lobsters with black button eyes.

What all this amounts to in my mind is a very successful example of ecotourism, where the tourism industry is so dependent on sustainable management of a charismatic species (come on, lobsters have a certain je ne sais quoi) it’s economically advantageous to protect the ecosystem. In 2006 the tourism industry contributed $10 billion to Vacationland. It’s in the economic interests of a very large portion of Mainers to ensure lobster stocks thrive long into the future, and according to the 2009 Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission report, Maine’s doing a very good job of it. Between 2005 and 2007, the Gulf of Maine American lobster (Homarus americanus) fishing grounds was home to some 116 million of the crustaceans, while the population can withstand culling about 72 million.

I’m heartened that the largest lobster fishery in the US functions sustainably. I joined the 68 percent of lobster eating Bar Harbor visitors, my conscience clear.

By Victoria Schlesinger