Ron from Rockland, Maine

We've been wandering the working lobster docks along the coast of Maine since we first drove in from New Hampshire 11 days ago.

Many of the docks are old, smelly, strangely quiet and piled high with unused lobster traps.

Today we met Ron, the first person we've seen on the docks in days. Ron told us he has a weekly radio show on WRFR/93.3fm out of Rockland, called: 'The Penobscot Bay Report'.


Every Thursday he reports on environmental issues. Today he said he was just "Checking on the lobster business" - one that has been recently so affected by the slow economy and a glut of cheap lobster available from Canada.

Before the wind blew too hard and the air got too frigid, Ron answered many of our questions - that lobster fishermen can earn upwards of $200,000 . . . that cams lowered into the water have recently revealed the lobsters climb freely in and out of those rusty cages, they don't actually get trapped by the funnel shaped holes . . . that the local herring (lobster bait) is being fished out and could soon cause serious problems for the Maine lobster business . . . and that the Australians tested using strips of cow hide for bait but their main market, the Japanese gourmet, didn't like slicing open their freshly boiled lobster for dinner and finding fuzzy chunks of cow hide inside that lobsters can't digest.