Spring 2025 lobster fisheries in Atlantic Canada have been generally successful and will add an icing to the July 9-13 Shediac Festival.
Despite price dissatisfaction that initiated the current season in late April, fishers have lately posted decent landings.
Good tidings are especially true of lobstering activities on the Prince Edward Island (P.E.I). Charlie McGeoghegan, chairman at the Lobster Fishers of PEI Marketing Board told PEI Canada that hauls in June finally improved.
The only downside is that prices ought to have reached C$10 ($7.33) a pound, unlike the C$6.50 ($4.76) fishermen first received.
Luckily, the rates improved to C$7.50 ($5.50) a pound for both canners (300 g lobster) and markets (full-size lobster) through June.
Lobster Meat Pricing Steady
Also putting a smile in the faces of lobstermen was lobster meat, which remained standard across spring at C$50 ($35.75) a pound.
Although spring catches have been dipping in recent years, cold waters in May 2025 helped somewhat to draw the crustaceans.
The reverse is true of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, northeast Canada, where fishermen have been reporting inconsistent catches in early July.
While some are blaming lately warming waters for low landings, others are celebrating uptick catches on the same island.
Shediac Festival
Boosting sales is the 76th Shediac Festival in New Brunswick, on the southeastern seaboard of Canada, which will be serving 10,000 lobster.
Although the five-day occasion starting July 9, 2025 serves local and international dishes, its signature cuisine is lobster.
Organizers are promising sustainability, too, and for this reason will be putting some of the critters back into the waters.
Ideally, the event’s athletic games will have participants start racing at a barrier shaped like a lobster trap.
It is a fitting cap for culminating main season lobstering, which has beaten odds to be fairly successful. To learn more on the previous market performances of spring lobster fisheries in Canada, skim the below data.
Canada Spring Lobster Fisheries Statistics
Although the spring fishery in Canada runs from late April to late July, this limitation applies only to inshore waters. The offshore fishery at 92 km from the coastline is season-free but has a yearly quota of 720 tonnes. Spring, winter and year-round seasons all land some 94,769 tonnes of lobster, as of 2023. In 2024 however, annual catches were the lowest in almost two decades, at 44,376 tonnes.
Are spring months in Canada lucrative for lobster landings?
The spring season offers some of the highest landings annually, typically in May and June, only rivaled by the December-January winter timings. May leads the count with an average 26,837 tonnes while June comes third at 17,315 tonnes. Only December in the winter season, at over 18,000 tonnes, beats the June tally.
How many spring lobster fisheries are there in Canada
In any given year, there are usually 45 fisheries for lobster, mostly on the Atlantic seaboard of eastern Canada. 43 of these are inshore and involve small vessel fishermen while 1 is in the open seas. Another, known as Area 40, is a conservatory.