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© Beate Hoddevik Sunnset/IMRAmerican lobster, Homarus americanus.
An epizootic shell-eating bacteria that has infected the southern New England lobster (Homarus americanus) for years is fast spreading up north, a situation that causes concern in the shrimp sector in Maine.

The disease, previously confined to the south of New England and Long Island Sound, has baffled a group of scientists at the University of Rhode Island, who have been researching the subject for over a decade.

The disease was first noticed in 1996 by fisheries biologist Kathy Castro. Two years later, almost 18 per cent of the Rhode Island lobsters were infected with it.

"By 2010, a third of all lobsters had the disease, and the scary part was that 70 per cent of females with eggs had it," she said. "That scared me because that's the reproducing population."

So far, only an insignificant number of Maine lobsters seem to have it: only three in a thousand sampled lobsters were infected. But there are fears that if the disease spreads as fast as it did in the waters of Rhode Island, it will have a drastic impact on the important Maine shrimp industry.

However, Castro argues that the fact that the lobsters affected by this disease can be consumed without any risks is good news. According to the researcher, the population of lobsters in the waters of Rhode Island is now at a level that is similar to that in the 70s, before the inexplicably increased abundance that occurred in late 1980s and early 1990s.

Maine State lobster biologist, Carl Wilson, of the Department of Marine Resources believes there is a cause for concern rather than alarm.

Shell disease is much less evident in the Gulf of Maine where the waters are colder than in southern New England although its presence is still made known there. Bacteria thrives in warmer environments but colder ones aren't ideal for its development so the scientists are not too overly concerned about it.

In Massachusetts, south of Cape Cod, the industry faced a similar problem when 22 per cent of sampled lobsters showed the disease in the period from 2000 to 2011. This percentage hit 38 per cent in 2011.

The lobster industry in the state of Maine accounts for as much as 65 per cent of the value of Maine's commercial seafood harvest and provides a source of employment for locals at the coastal communities.

Lobster fishery generates USD 400 million at the New England region, which is formed by the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.