Tagging the lobsters

I guess I'm Dr Know-it-Some ? South American capital cities; 19thC British politics; European railways; synonymous codon usage - I'm a handy addition to your table quiz team. Although codon usage doesn't come up often. I am hopeless with other areas of knowledge and expertise. But I'm willing to learn . . . enough to write 700 words for a Blob. I've really cut down on my YouTube perhaps because I am too broad-minded for The Algorithm?? But I recognise enthusiasts by the cut of their jib regardless of what their cargo is.

I have something of a grá for John Locker, a Geordie who now lives with his family in Cornwall because the fishing and weather is better than the North Sea. Vlogging their adventures with flounder Platichthys flesus and conger Conger conger turns out to be more interesting than watching paint dry. That's partly because his excitement is catching but it's also about the endless and colourful variety of what gets drug up from the depths. 

So last week Locker was crab-pooling along the rocky shore. I won't call it beach-combing because, contra me, he was ignoring buoys, cracked fish-boxes and hanks of old rope. It was a revelation to adult me how many crustaceans could be hidden in the crevices of rock-pools. Maybe not to 9 y.o. me because then I had time to immerse myself in those small contained worlds and really l◎◎k. Later he gets into a wet-suit and snorkle and plunges into the sea. After a bit he surfaces with "a berried hen" which was a totally new label for me. Female lobsters Homarus gammarus produce A Lot [10,000 to 100,000] of eggs but she keeps then about her person after fertilisation. There the larvae develop, changing colour as they do so, until, after about a year, the young detach from their mother's apron strings and start an uncertain life as a small nutritious piece of plankton.

People love lobster. One of the traumatic events of my life was going to a sea-food restaurant in New England with my boss. As a seafood noob, I got to sit inside the table looking out across the room. Just over Neil's shoulder was an enormous woman wearing a plastic bib voraciously tearing a lobster apart with the help of pliers lobster crackers. There was drool. My clam chowder was excellent. But the demand for lobster can easily outstrip supply and something must be done. 

Of course, in an ideal sustainable world, lobster fishers would toss back any berried hens that make their way into the pots. That would add 10k - 100k to the larval stocks. But that is a vague benefit for The Commons and The Future and a loss for the poor wet lobster-fisher on which the supply-to-table depends.  Chances are that none of those thousands of larvae contribute to the next generation; because prey. 

One way to tilt the process in favour of  survival of the species is to make it illegal to land / sell undersized [carapace < 90mm] lobster. It takes several years to get that big and to start reproducing. Another more recent [how recent depends on country] ban is on the landing of lobsters with a distinctive V-shaped notch in the tail. Occasionally someone gets busted by Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority. Those notches are put there by dogoodnik lobsterers who apply the mark to berried hens before throwing them back in the sea. It is not sufficient to ban the landing of gravid females because it is the work of moments for the unscrupulous to scrape the eggs off before tossing them in the boat's lobster-locker for sale.

It is article of faith that notching lobsters doesn't cause pain. Because we care about that too.