Strict controls and preserves set up along the coast seem to be saving Norway’s lobster population. Officials report more and bigger lobsters in four preserves located from Hvaler in the east to Arendal in the west.
Newspaper Aftenposten wrote this week that researchers from Norway’s ocean research institute Havforskningsinstituttet found three times as many lobster (called hummer in Norwegian) last fall, three years after the first lobster preserve was set up along the Skagerrak coast.
There was a time when as many as 900 tons of Norwegian lobster were trapped a year. The catch started to decline in the 1960s, and by 2007 only 45 tons were caught. The lobster was put on the list of endangered species in 2006.
Four lobster preserves, each about a square kilometer in size, were set up off Hvaler, Nøtterøy, Risør and Arendal. “The results look very promising,” Even Moland of the institute told Aftenposten.
More local government are now keen to also set up preserves, to take care of the lobster population. Trapping is allowed from October 1 through November 30 in southern Norway north to Sogn og Fjordane, and through December 31 in the rest of the country, but never on Sunday and the catch is regulated.
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