Here is lobsterman Bruce Fernald, the main character in my book The Secret Life of Lobsters, holding a lobster caught last week off Little Cranberry Island, where the book takes place. Bruce’s colleague on the island Steve Philbrook, a friend of mine, caught the 17.5-pound crustacean by accident. Far too big to fit inside a lobster trap, the critter was clinging to the outside of one of Steve’s traps when he hauled it up. Steve brought the lobster to the island for show-and-tell, and then released it back into the sea. All Maine lobstermen release oversize lobsters back to the ocean—part of their ethic of conservation, which I describe in the book.
This photo was taken by Bruce’s wife, Barb Fernald (who once worked as Bruce’s sternman aboard his boat). Naturally, in small-town coastal Maine a 17.5-pound lobster is big news. Barb’s photo ran on the front page of the local paper, the Mount Desert Islander.
