Lobstermen are more like farmers than hunter/gatherers, in the sense that they return regularly to the same patch of the world to harvest a crop, while fishermen roam the high seas seeking prey. More or less.
So it makes sense to use lobster traps to gather time-series data (same place at multiple times) about ocean conditions.
Which is being done, as the NY Times reports in this article (gift, no paywall).
The program began in 2001 but expanded in 2024 with a $2 million grant from the state of Massachusetts, followed by $200,000 from the Nature Conservancy and $120,000 from NOAA. There’s now a waiting list among fishermen for the $5,000 package of sensors, software and tablets, which is paid by the program.
The sensors have collected 23 million temperature records to date, according to Erin Pelletier, the executive director of the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation, which maintains the devices and compiles the data. “It’s a pretty big data set,” she said.
Return to the Concord Monitor