Distant Early Warning

One of the joys of picking up junk at the beach every week is stumbling on a good mystery. This summer, an intriguing one has been unfolding, week after week.

For months --  late winter and most of spring -- any lobster claw bands that trickled in looked like this:

From March 31. Blech.

Grotty, torn, a mess. Then, suddenly, June 2 rolls around. And so do these:

Fresh & springy 

Except for the one in the back right, all brand new. Beautiful. And from Canada. The next week, June 7, another one:

Another Canadian band 

I took the next week off, but on June 20 I found a big handful, the green & yellows almost certainly (two really certainly) Canadian:

Sensing a pattern...

And more have kept coming in.
June 23: 3 more, 2 Canadian/probably Canadian.
July 1: 4 more, 3 Canadian/probably.

July 7-9: 7 more, 6 Canadian/probably.
July 15, 5 more, all Canadian/probably:

July 15: Hello, my pretties

On and on, even now into September. In fact, since June 2, nearly every week has brought fresh, new, beige or green claw bands that are either stamped "Wild Canada" or are clearly the same make and likely Canadian.

Last year, from the first day of summer to the 1st week in September I found 17 claw bands. Maybe three were Canadian. This year during the same time I found 49. 42 to 44 of them are new, fresh, pristine, beige/green, and Canadian!

Some time in May, in the northern Gulf of Maine / Bay of Fundy, as lobstering in Canadian Zones 33-38 was winding down, an accident happened on a Canadian lobster boat. I don't know if it was a catastrophic accident, or just a box of claw bands getting knocked overboard. But what I'm finding here in Saco Bay is directly related to an event that happened 150-200 miles away. Its effects have rippled down the coast of Maine (and no doubt further south) ever since. Curious how much longer I'll be finding these.

We're all connected. For proof, just stroll the beach.

Details, details - Part 1

I'm an archaeologist at heart -- if not by profession. I love the forensics of it -- taking the tiniest shreds of physical evidence and trying to tease the truth from them. There's an irony that if this bag of trash were from 2,000 years ago, I'd be thrilled to pieces. But it's not ancient. And seeing it isn't a thrill.

Still, just as with pottery shards, coins, nails, and other "small finds" at an archaeological dig, this modern trash is evidence. And it has a story to tell; it's just a question of learning how to read it.

So a little more detail about the bag collected on March 19.

Some things don't take much detective work -- such as the remnants of somebody's trip to Dairy Queen.

But some things do.

132 of these rubber-bandy things in my first bag. 31 here in this bag. What on earth? Well, there was a big clue in the huge amount of trawler rope and broken traps from commercial fishing fleets. Plus, I remembered many trips to Hannaford's, with my daughter waving hi to all the lobsters scrunched in their tank. Their claws were tightly banded so they wouldn't snap and maul or murder each other.

And if there were any doubt left, a clean-up of my finds revealed:

It's not hard to picture the scene. Lobster boat crew racing to get the bands on their newly-hauled catch. It's a dangerous job. A lobster pinch can tear the flesh off of a finger, and even badly bruise a gloved hand. Not to mention lobsters wounding each other and rendering the catch worthless.

It's also not hard to picture hundreds -- thousands -- of these little bands going overboard. Who would give a second thought to a little rubber band? Just grab another one. They're sold in bulk, all over the world. (How many bands -do- you get for a 25 lb. carton?) If you Google "lobster bands" you get some 2,840 hits. It's a big business.

Sadly, as I was learning with my beach-combing, these lost bands don't sink to the bottom of the ocean, to be covered by sediment and become future fossils. They don't melt into nothing, disappearing back from where they came. They simply don't go away.