The lobster bait shortage in Maine has been particularly visible this year, but it’s connected to a much wider trend: stocks of forage fish (fish that are preyed on by larger predators for food) all over the world are under increasing levels of stress. Small fish like herring and menhaden are harvested to make everything from Omega 3 supplements to fish meal fertilizer, a popular source of nitrogen used in organic farming. At the same time, prey fish are a vital part of the aquatic food chain, a major nutrient source for birds and bigger fish.

But one fisherman’s bait shortage is an entrepreneur’s golden opportunity. Synthetic and alternative baits, an afterthought in a boom year, are having their moment in the spotlight.

In the past, these alternatives have included everything from pig fat to offal. This year, two very different alternatives are vying to fill in for herring—and they’re both working against a history of tarnished reputations.

About ten or fifteen years ago, lobstermen started using cowhide to bait their traps. Details on how it caught on are shaky: no one likes to divulge a trade secret, especially if it means giving up a competitive advantage. At the time, the use of hides as bait use was largely unregulated. In a public hearing on a regulatory bill in 2006, detractors alleged that alternative bait was just “sweepings from the slaughterhouse floor.”

Flickr/Danjo Paluska

Cowhide was available from local slaughterhouses and tanneries and had some significant advantages. It lasts longer than herring (it’s sturdy and not susceptible to the sea fleas that sometimes beat lobsters to their prey), and the supply chain is steadier, less vulnerable to shifting tides. It can be used alone or as a supplement to herring, and its relative priciness is mitigated by its long shelf life. “On a usage basis, it’s less expensive because it lasts longer,” says Chuck Baker, co-founder of Bessy Bait, a cowhide bait maker in Seabrook, New Hampshire.

But as hide increased in popularity, a significant PR problem emerged. “It was literally cowhide. It was safe, it was coming from a slaughterhouse and they would treat it however they would treat it, but the hair remained on the hide, so when the lobsters would go and nibble on the hide, they would ingest some of the hair,” says Wilson.

A lobster with a hair-clogged digestive tract is not a pretty mental image, and no one wanted the reputation of Maine lobsters to don a digestive toupee. The state legislature banned hairy bait in 2006 and introduced a new set of regulations concerning the use of animal hide. The 2016 version of the Department of Marine Resources rule book requires that alternative baits be pre-approved and that all baits be labeled with an ingredient list that includes the chemicals used to strip the hair from the hide.

Now, cowhide is making a comeback. Baker told me he’s had to turn away customers this year. His regulation-compliant hide is stripped and salted, though he wasn’t willing to share any more trade secrets about the tanning process. The sole photo on the company’s website shows soggy-looking white strips, akin to what you’d imagine a dog’s rawhide chew looks like before it dries (or after the dog has given it a thorough sliming). Which is exactly what it is.

Bessy Bait

“People are always trying to come up with a synthetic bait,” Wilson says, though the steady stream of synthetics over the past few decades have mostly proved to be … ahem … red herrings. Just as the image of a lobster coughing up a hairball doesn’t exactly make you want to stop at a seafood shack, the idea of plastics or chemicals in a lobster’s digestive tract is not an appetizing one. To wit, the Maine legislature has also banned baits containing ingredients not derived from the marine environment.