Conservation Officer Frances Ethier still recalls boarding the lobsterman's boat in Point Judith and being struck by the strange odor. "We had trouble with this guy in the past, so I wondered what was going on. I was gauging his lobsters and my hands reeked of bleach."
That was four years ago. Either's suspicions went up through the chain of command at the Department of Environmental Management and eventually landed in the hands of Michael J. Syslo, biologist and director of the Massachusetts Lobster Hatchery in Oak Bluff, Martha's Vineyard.
Last week, from his office with the million-dollar view overlooking picturesque Lagoon Pond, Syslo reported that the tip from Ethier triggered a multiyear effort to raise money and do research to combat what turned out to be a new form of thievery -- fishermen so shortsighted or strapped for money that they were illegally keeping egg-bearing lobsters and then washing the eggs off with bleach so they wouldn't be caught.
For years, conservation officers have been trying to prevent lobstermen from scraping off the eggs of females each winter. Bleach melts away the cement that holds the eggs to the lobster.
"It was an extremely distressing problem when this was brought to our attention because we had no way to detect the use of bleach," said Syslo. "Now we have found a method and we're beginning to teach others."
There's no other place in the world quite like the Massachusetts lobster hatchery. Founded in 1949 by marine biologist John Hughes, its small, weathered-shingled building is tucked between the pond and a marsh where egrets stalk their prey and an osprey feeds its young.
The hatchery is part tourist attraction. Tens of thousands of visitors stop in on weekdays every summer to stare into the green tanks filled with lobsters bigger than those most people ever see -- some weigh as much as 10 pounds and are arm's length.
It's mainly a hatchery: the big females shelter egg masses under their tails that hatch into as many as 15,000 larvae. Each day's hatch is held for a month, during which time each larvae grows from a tiny fleck to a miniature lobster, a half-inch long and nearly transparent. At that stage, they are distributed in waters around the state.
The hatchery is also part research station. No other place is set up to produce lobster larvae year-round. The hatchery gives larvae to scientists around the world for research and does research of its own on such problems as those posed by the lobster bleachers.
There used to be similar hatcheries all over New England. Rhode Island had one at the turn of the century in Wickford.
But one by one, the hatcheries closed and even Syslo conceded that many biologists question whether significant numbers of his larvae actually survive and help increase lobster catches.
Rhode Island officials made a pitch recently for starting a new hatchery with money paid as remediation after the World Prodigy oil spill in 1989. Lobsters would be the prime product, but other fish could be grown there too. Federal officials denied the request, arguing that there wasn't enough money to keep a hatchery open for more than a few years.
Nevertheless, local lobster research continues. A team from the University of Rhode Island recently began trying to determine the consequences of the loss of tens of thousands of lobsters in the North Cape oil spill.
Also last week, DEM called on fishermen to help with two lobster studies.
Since 1993, URI's fisheries department has released more than 6,000 undersized lobsters in Narragansett Bay's West Passage. So far, cooperating lobstermen have returned only 400 tags.
Last month, DEM's Division of Fish and Wildlife Lobster Research and Management Project tagged and released 300 undersize lobsters in canyons off the Rhode Island coast.
DEM is asking lobstermen who find tagged lobsters to call URI's Kathleen Castro at 874-5063 or DEM's Thomas Angell at 783-2304.
Despite all the research, Syslo is the first to say there is plenty that remains unknown about lobsters.
"As many years as we study them, they do something completely contrary. For instance, just when some scientists were convinced that inshore lobsters don't migrate more than a mile, they find a Maine lobster in Rhode Island."
A generation ago, experts predicted lobsters would be fished to extinction.
Instead, fishermen in New England have been taking in record catches in recent years. Syslo said there are many theories and probably all play a role.
Some think warmer waters are improving lobster abundance. Others point to successful management of lobster fishing. Most agree that baiting lobster traps results in feeding undersize lobsters until they reach legal size and they are too big to use the escape vents on traps. It also helps that major lobster predators such as cod have suffered steep declines.
Budget cutbacks have reduced Syslo's staff to two so he can no longer man the hatchery around the clock during the busy summer season. A big problem with lobsters is that if you don't keep feeding them, they eat each other. Just like babies, the lobster larvae want to eat every three hours.
Syslo says he produces only about 70,000 larvae now, ompared with as many as 500,000 several years ago when he had summer help.
Though the hatchery is down, it's far from unwanted.
In 1990, when much of the building was destroyed by fire, Vineyarders launched a fund-raising effort and local tradespeople patched the roof to keep out the winter weather. Later, state money was found to complete the restoration.
Last week a steady stream of visitors bicycled up the driveway and came inside to get a closer look at the biggest and smallest lobsters they had ever seen.
Syslo said much more could be done with the Spartan facility. "We could turn this into Clam-o-rama. We could sell T-shirts and hire more staff to put on presentations. But I always wanted to stay above all that here."
The public's fascination with lobsters never seems to slow. Syslo suspected that one reason is that lobsters are about the only animal that we bring home alive in the United States and then kill before we eat.
He's had tanks of scallops and clams, and no one was interested. But the lobsters? The crowds come during the length of the hatching season -- all summer long.
Syslo readily answers questions, though he said he's not good at estimating the weight of the massive brood lobsters, which are caught far offshore by a specially licensed lobsterman from Hyannis.
And he likes to dispel lobster myths.
For instance, big lobsters don't necessarily produce tougher meat.
And lobsters aren't scavengers. They like fresh fish.
It takes seven years for lobsters in New England to grow to legal size. They like cold water. But if you force them to live in warm water, you can grow legal-size lobsters in two years.
There's long been a big interest in farming lobsters. But there are two big problems, according to Syslo. Because they are cannibalistic, they must be kept separate. And no one has created food cheap enough to make such ventures worthwhile.
One day, however, lobster catches may go down again. Probably no one will know why. But prices will go up, and then business people may find it worthwhile to farm lobsters.
Ethier, the state conservation officer, said a while ago that she had heard that some sort of test had been developed to catch fishermen using chlorine, but she didn't know the details until she attended one of Syslo's fishing schools three weeks ago.
(There she learned that when dipping is suspected, law enforcement people can pull the swimmerettes -- a series of appendages underneath the tail -- off suspect lobsters and put them in a special solution. If the solution changes colors, it proves chlorine is present. The test has already been used in two big arrests in Massachusetts, and Syslo thought more will come soon.)
"He kept talking about a case in Point Judith four years ago, and I kind of figured that was mine," she said.
"I lobstered for five years before I came on the job, so I like lobstermen," Ethier said. "In Rhode Island, most are honest. This will help us deal with the few who aren't."
