“I started working in the lobster industry at Taylor Lobster in Kittery, Maine when I was 17. Where I would deliver bait and pick up lobsters from the local fishermen. When I was 19 I got a job on one of those fishing boats, F/V Kelly Marie. I've been on that same boat to this day, over 15 years. This year I got elected to be the Vice President of the New Hampshire Commercial Fishermen Association.

The biggest challenges this industry is facing is windmills and upcoming gauge increase. For the state of New Hampshire we are facing a devastating impact from windmills off our coast. What people don't understand about these windmills is they are not "green energy." The government is planning on running cables from 30 miles off shore into the state of New Hampshire. These cable get so hot they will need around 30 cooling stations. Pumping millions of gallons of heated sea water into the ocean, destroying the ecosystem. They will also be dumping large amounts of chemicals at the same time in order to prevent sea growth in these pumping stations. This will completely change ocean life. New Hampshire has the shortest coast line of any state in the country with roughly 13 miles and the government is going to destroy it for windmills and cables. The gauge increase that is proposed to go into effect at the beginning of next year is also going to be devastating. Officials are talking about a 10% decrease in catch, but fishermen believe it is going to look more like a 40% loss. There is no need for this increase, the population is healthy. This industry is the most sustainable of fishing. Everything is thrown over alive and no mortality rate and the majority of females are thrown back for reproduction. Most lobstermen will tell you the stock is huge, tons of shorts, tiny lobsters and females. The problem is biologist who have no idea of how, where, and when to fish. They set a few junk traps and tell us how it is. Just because someone went to college for a few years doesn't give them the right to tell fisherman who have been doing it for generations how it is. We see the population and it is fine, they don't see it on an everyday basis like us. It seems biologist have an outcome for their research before they even start and they will find what they are looking for to get the data they want.

The future is tough, especially for younger people. Lobster traps are over $100 a piece, bait prices are out of control, high fuel cost, and the boat price is the same as when I started over 15 years ago. Inflation affects everything but the boat price of lobster.”

-Jared McIntire

1st generation lobsterman

Portsmouth, NH