ORONO — When Bob Steneck came to the University of Maine in 1982, there were few marine ecologists in the state, and none interacted with fishermen. He was among the first in Maine to work with lobstermen on research, traveling with them on their boats, diving to the seafloor to study lobsters and sharing his findings with them.
At that time, there was a scientific consensus that the lobster population in the Gulf of Maine was declining. By working with lobstermen and diving down to the depths of the gulf, Steneck showed that the population was actually on the rise.