Care in capture: Ambiguous care for lobsters and whales

Abstract

Lobster fishers in Maine on the northeast coast of the US find themselves in an awkward form of vulnerability. While the ocean creatures that their livelihoods so heavily rely on fare reasonably well as a population, lobster fishers have come to see themselves as an endangered species. Concerned with the alleged lethal damage fishing gear does to the endangered North Atlantic right whales, environmental organizations have advocated for restrictions on the use of fishing technologies like ropes and traps in ways that could be detrimental to the state's otherwise thriving lobster fishing industry. Easily misread as a conflict between extractive capture on the one hand and multispecies care on the other, this article shows that a closer examination of the fishing practices of these communities reveals that practices of capture and practices of care intersect and overlap in often ambiguous ways.