The Daily News of Newburyport: Lobster Battle Over? U.S. and Canada Hope so

October 19, 2016

By: NULL

By: Sean Horgan

The remainder of the European Union may be distancing itself from Sweden’s campaign to declare American lobsters an invasive species, but the head of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association isn’t yet ready to declare complete victory.

“We’re very excited about the news out of Europe that the rest of the EU doesn’t seem ready to follow Sweden’s lead,” MLA Executive Director Beth Casoni said Monday. “But we’re going to stay on this because it’s not over by any stretch.”

Last week, The EU Committee on Invasive Alien Species informed Sweden it would not support listing American lobsters as an invasive species because of the lack of strong scientific evidence. Doing so would have opened the door to a total EU ban on importing live American lobsters landed in the U.S. and Canada.

While that decision seems to strike a deadly blow to Sweden’s push to ban the importation of American lobsters, Casoni said the European Union Commission still plans to vote next spring on potential invasive alien species even if the American lobsters no longer are on the list.

“The lobsters were the only consumable product on the list of potential invasive species,” Casoni said. “The rest are plants. But we don’t know everything that could happen between now and then. Sweden might continue to try to persuade other countries to join them. So, we’re going to keep working on it and not let go.”

Casoni credited the full-court pressure mounted by scientists, regulators, members of the commercial lobster industry and elected state and federal officials for rebuffing the Swedish effort. An EU ban on imports would have crippled the approximately $200 million live lobster trade between the EU and the U.S. and Canadian lobster industries.

“It was really a combination of everything,” she said. “A lot of people worked very hard on this and we’re letting them know today how much we appreciate it. It was a job well done.”

On Monday, Congressman Seth Moulton of Salem, who has been in the forefront of political efforts to rebut Sweden’s claims, said the decision by the European Union’s Committee on Invasive Alien Species reinforced the U.S. and Canadian positions that the campaign to label the American lobster as an invasive species was never supported by science.

“As we’ve said for months, a ban on American lobster is not supported by science and would have been damaging to our entire economy,” Moulton said in a statement.

Moulton was joined by U.S. Sens. Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren, both of Massachusetts, as well as several other House members, in applauding the decision.

“I am pleased to see that the EU has determined that an outright ban on American lobster is not an appropriate solution,” Markey said in a statement. Warren said the EU “made the right call by rejecting the proposed ban on American lobster imports.”

By most estimates, Massachusetts alone sends about $125 million worth of live American lobsters, also known as Homarus americanus, to EU countries. Gloucester reigns as the state’s most prolific lobster port, both in terms of landings by weight and number of permitted lobstermen fishing here, followed by Plymouth and Rockport, according to the state Division of Marine Fisheries.

The issue first exploded in March, when Sweden first petitioned the European Union to begin the process of designating the American lobsters as an invasive species. The Scandinavian country claimed increasing numbers of the American lobsters were being discovered in Swedish waters and posed a threat to the country’s indigenous lobsters.

The U.S. and Canada followed with a scathing rebuttal of the Swedish 85-page risk assessment. On Sept. 6, however, the EU’s Scientific Forum on Invasive Alien Species ruled the risk assessment provided enough evidence to move forward with a more formal review of the Swedish proposal to list the larger American lobsters as an invasive species.

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