Lobster cannibalism on the rise due to climate change

If you weren't aware of it before, lobsters aren't exactly too discriminating when it comes to their food, as they'll snack on each other just as easily as they'll go after something else for a meal (like fish, crabs and clams). This 'casual cannibalism' is being driven to much more alarming proportions in recent years though, and one of the major culprits is climate change.

When you see lobsters in the tank at the grocery store, the rubber bands on their claws serve a dual purpose. They're to prevent the lobsters from taking someone's finger off, but they're also there to stop them from tearing into each other for a meal.

According to Richard Wahle, a University of Maine marine sciences professor who was interviewed by Reuters last December, this cannibalism has never been observed out in the open, though.

Wahle's graduate student, Noel Oppenheim, has been out on the water off the coast of Maine, dropping a camera down onto the ocean floor to see what is the primary predator for lobsters. In the past, it was mainly fish, but as his underwater cameras have shown now, that has definitely changed.

"The population of lobsters in Maine has skyrocketed and there have been some interesting changes in abundance, demographics and, we believe, behavior," said Oppenheim in the Reuters interview. "Eight out of nine times at night, predation is due to cannibalism."

In this video from Climate Desk, James West talks to Oppenheim about his experiment, and to local fishermen and officials about the problem:

There are a few reasons for this upsurge in cannibalism. The species of fish that prey on lobsters — like cod and herring — have been extensively over-fished. Much of the herring caught is used as bait, and this is apparently feeding quite a few of the smaller lobsters that are still capable of slipping out of traps. Both of these have accounted for some of the increase in lobster populations, but climate change is also playing a role.

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Climate change certainly isn't the only reason for this whole problem, but the entire problem is man-made, caused by the way we make our money and the way we handle our resources. Fixing the problem of climate change is one way of helping though, as it would put the lobsters back on a more natural growth pattern, thus reduce their numbers substantially, and make them less prone to making a meal out of one another.

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