The Lobster Trap
The Global Fight for a Seafood on the Brink
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The Lobster Trap
Narrated by:
Jonathan Watton
Buy Now for £12.99
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Narrated by:
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Jonathan Watton
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By:
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Greg Mercer
About this listen
Lobster has been a phenomenal success story, with a commercial fishery that has generated enormous wealth and fuelled appetites for one of the world’s most recognizable luxury foods. The great lobster boom that began in the 1990s has also led to violent fights over who has the right to catch this valuable seafood, including many Indigenous people in Canada, who until recently have been excluded from this industry. Now overfishing, trade wars, and climate change are threatening the future of this fishery in deeply troubling ways.
By 2050, scientists expect that warming ocean waters in the heart of North America’s lobster fishing region will cut catches by two thirds. In some parts of America, there’s hardly any lobster left to catch. Unlike previous collapses, there are few other large-scale wild seafood species left that fishing crews can switch to. The economic upheaval for fishermen and seafood companies alike could devastate coastal communities in both Canada and the United States.
In this deeply reported, resonant, timely book, Greg Mercer takes readers on a fascinating global journey and inside this precarious moment for the lobster industry, to show the money and heartache, and the danger and violence, tied up in it. Along the way, he explores lobster’s remarkable history, the gold-rush mentality that surrounds it, and examines the looming crisis for this most precious shellfish.
Editorial Review
Cracking the hard shell of the lobster industry
As a New Englander, I can hardly imagine summer without “lobstah” on the menu. With the help of this eye-opening glimpse into an industry on the brink of collapse, I now have another bleak potential to worry about. Tackling everything from tariffs and trade wars to the nuances that make overfishing restrictions on this market murky at best, The Lobster Trap reveals that the age of abundance is over for these delicious crustaceans. While I never questioned whether Greg Mercer, a well-seasoned reporter for The Globe and Mail, would mesmerize me with his analysis of the financial risks that fishermen take to stay afloat, I was pleasantly surprised by his commitment to narrating this listen in different regional accents. (His Boston is on par with several Hollywood actors, none of whom locals ever expect to get it quite right.) I recommend savoring this listen with a side of melted butter. —Haley H., Audible Editor
Critic reviews
A GLOBE AND MAIL 100 BEST BOOK OF 2025
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“Deeply researched…. [Mercer] grounds this global saga in moving human stories, like that of a lifelong Canadian lobsterman who worries his children won’t be able to carry on the family legacy. This is a revelatory account of an industry on the verge of collapse.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“Mercer draws on his Maritime roots and decades of reporting experience to paint a vivid portrait of a historic, lucrative industry facing the brunt of intersecting crises.” —Karen Pinchin, Globe and Mail
“The Lobster Trap is a beautiful, briny reckoning—a clear-eyed portrait of coastal communities caught between old rhythms and a new, less forgiving ocean. Greg Mercer brings the same instinct for character and place that defines his journalism, but here it deepens into something richer: a kind of elegy that still holds space for grit, grace, and dark humour. This is a book about a fishery—but also about memory, climate, and capitalism; about what gets passed down, and what’s being lost. Mercer doesn’t steer the story so much as trail it like a line through water, letting the rhythms of coastal life and the people living it shape its arc. In doing so, he gives us something rare: a story that’s urgent, unshowy, and quietly unforgettable.”
—Chris Wilson-Smith, Report on Business, Globe and Mail
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
“Deeply researched…. [Mercer] grounds this global saga in moving human stories, like that of a lifelong Canadian lobsterman who worries his children won’t be able to carry on the family legacy. This is a revelatory account of an industry on the verge of collapse.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“Mercer draws on his Maritime roots and decades of reporting experience to paint a vivid portrait of a historic, lucrative industry facing the brunt of intersecting crises.” —Karen Pinchin, Globe and Mail
“The Lobster Trap is a beautiful, briny reckoning—a clear-eyed portrait of coastal communities caught between old rhythms and a new, less forgiving ocean. Greg Mercer brings the same instinct for character and place that defines his journalism, but here it deepens into something richer: a kind of elegy that still holds space for grit, grace, and dark humour. This is a book about a fishery—but also about memory, climate, and capitalism; about what gets passed down, and what’s being lost. Mercer doesn’t steer the story so much as trail it like a line through water, letting the rhythms of coastal life and the people living it shape its arc. In doing so, he gives us something rare: a story that’s urgent, unshowy, and quietly unforgettable.”
—Chris Wilson-Smith, Report on Business, Globe and Mail
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