Maine shrimp, also known as Northern shrimp, is small, pink, sweet, delicate — and some say delicious enough to eat raw. But raw or cooked, it’s not really been available in recent years. That’s because warming waters and low biomass have meant the fishery has been shut down for over a decade. But people were hopeful that a limited catch survey this winter would reveal the shrimp had recovered a little, and that some would even hit markets for customers eager to get some. But that didn’t happen. 

“This is my trap, I'm just finishing,” said Gary Libby, a commercial fisherman who works on his lobster gear in his workshop in Port Clyde, Maine. “These are my buoys. I painted them earlier, they're pink and green. These ones here show up good from a distance.” 

Mr. Libby is 67 and has been commercially fishing for half a century, starting at 18 years of age. He is chair of a regulatory shrimp advisory panel, and he has been advocating for more robust year-round sampling, with extra boats and locations. But on this day, he was focused on gear for other fisheries. 

“This is what I do in the winter when I'm not fishing: try to keep my gear in good shape,” said Libby. 

While Libby would love to be out fishing for Maine shrimp, he can’t — in fact, he even sold his shrimp boat and gear years ago. Except for very small catches for science, Maine’s commercial shrimp fishery has been shut down for 11 years. The population is considered "depleted." And Scientists say warming waters in the Gulf of Maine are hard on shrimp; they think they’re marching north. Before the closures, in the mid ‘80s and 1990s, Libby said he would pull in 1,000 pounds of Maine shrimp a day.

“And then towards the early 2000s, we was catching 1,000 pounds for every hour we towed. I was coming in with five [thousand], 6,000 almost every day,” he said. 

Back then, those tiny shrimp didn’t bring him big bucks. “50 cents a pound, maybe?” said Libby.

But still, shrimp filled a niche in the cold months, when fishing off shore for other species is too dangerous. And the little pink shrimp had a big impact.

“Shrimp was just such a part of our winter culture here,” said Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association. “You know, shrimp was something that when you drive down the the coast, Route 1 in Maine, you'd see people on the side of the road selling shrimp. “ 

At its peak in 1996, the shrimp catch in Maine was about 6% of all seafood earnings in the state that year. But the moratorium on shrimp stopped all that until this winter.  

“So when there was this announcement that there was going to be a very small, limited fishery that would allow fishermen to go and try to show that there were shrimp in the ocean, there was a lot of excitement,” added Martens. 

And the seven Maine fisherman picked for the program would get paid for their catch.

“But unfortunately,” said Martens, “they did not have a lot of great success. I also talked to a lot of fishermen who didn't think that the shrimp were there, and, you know, did not participate in in the process because they were believing in the science, and what the data had been been showing over the past decade, or so.”

Martens said the boats that went out knew what they were doing, they are all experienced and skilled fishermen. These are fishermen who know the ocean, they understand shrimp.

“You know, they picked the right people to go out and chase those shrimp,” he said.  

But warming temperatures and predators and other factors can hurt the species. Squid, which love warmer water, have been moving in and preying on the Maine shrimp.  

“Even if one condition becomes favorable for shrimp again, the population would need time to reestablish,” said Dr. Kathy Mills, a senior scientist at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

The official numbers aren’t in yet. They’ll be released around May 1, 2025.  But it seems the shrimp haul was no where near the catch limit allowed. And the disappointment has spread around the state, including to the Delano Seafood Market and Shack in Waldoboro, Maine. 

“Yeah, we was counting on the Maine shrimp. We use them in the shack as deep fried shrimp. And shrimp salad rolls,” said Kendall Delano, Jr., owner of Delano Seafood Market and Shack.  

But Delano and other markets in the state got no shrimp from the winter catch. Delano now has 220 disappointed customers who were on a waiting list he created when he though some shrimp might come in.   

“But I've had people message me and say, ‘I don't care, I’d spend $25 a pound in the shell, because we miss ‘em, we haven't had ‘m, we gotta taste!’” said Delano. 

Delano said he’s offered Canadian shrimp as a substitute for Maine — it’s the same species. And now he’s bringing in shrimp from Norway and Greenland, too. But it can’t replace the freshness of Maine shrimp.

But Delano and others are holding out hope. He said shrimp come and go, in cycles — there have been years where the population crashed, and then rebounded. He’s crossing his fingers for a comeback.