Lobsters grow by molting their hard exoskeleton, and they do so a lot: the average lobster can molt 44 times before it’s a year old. By the time lobsters reach the age of seven, they molt once a year, and after that, once every two to three years, growing larger with each successive shedding of its exoskeleton. The largest lobster on record, caught in Nova Scotia in 1977, weighed 44 pounds, six ounces and measured 3.5 feet in length.

and they keep producing them until they die. Last year, fishermen caught a 27-pound lobster , roughly the size of a toddler–the largest in Maine’s history. For lobsters, bigger bodies translate into more reproductive success: females can carry more eggs as their body volume increases,and they keep producing them until they die.

So... Boson Harbor is going to get more and more larger and larger lobsters. And horseshoe crabs.

Boson, MA - Angry lobster fishermen have docked their boats and declared a strike over concerns that the application of Monsanto Company's 'Roundup' weed killer to harbor islands. Fishermen and ecology advocates claim that Roundup is causing mutations in the crustaceans near the island run off during heavy rains and winter storms. The weed killing chemical has also been showing up in Eastern Massachusetts waste water facilities like the near-by Deer Island treatment site.The Deer Island Treatment Plant was constructed as part of a federally-mandated plan to clean up Boston Harbor, at that time the dirtiest urban harbor in the US. The plant became partially operational in 1995 and fully operational five years later.After completing the mammoth, sophisticated treatment plant, construction began on the outfall tunnel — the world's longest tunnel of its kind at the time. The outfall tunnel moves up to a billion gallons of treated wastewater a day and it does so without any pumps or electrical power. It relies solely on gravity. At the very end, the tunnel ‘chokes down’ and goes from a 24-foot wide behemoth to a pipe that is just five feet in diameter.Some worried that the treated water would hurt marine life in Massachusetts Bay. But, after years of studies including scuba diving to the outfall pipe release site marine biologists from UMass Boson have determined that sea creatures seem to thrive in the nutrient rich water. Lobsters appeared to thrive and grow bigger as they clustered around the pipe in the middle of the bay. Roundup has been used to combat weeds on harbor islands.The lobsters have become more aggressive as their size increases. Fishermen have reported more resistance from lobsters they catch. Handling lobsters onboard a boat now requires gloves. Some fishermen claim that the lobsters seem to be communicating with each other, and perhaps even communicating with fellow primitive crustaceans the horseshoe crabs.University of Massachusetts at Boson marine biology staff and students have been helping to document the rapid growth of sea life in Quincy Bay and the areas off the coast of the City of Boson and North Wollaston Beach.Lobstermen, there are no women among any of the crews, have been calling on the local governments and the state to ban the use of Monsanto's Roundup. Dockside protest have become a weekly event on Sundays when the boats don't go out.Fishermen are not calling on the public to stop eating the giant lobsters. UMass Boson biologists say the lobsters should be safe to eat and in fact are "delicious and extra meaty." But one ally in the fight against Monsanto's Roundup does urge the public to stop eating lobsters - the Vegan Animal Rights group urges everyone to stop eating seafood of any kind. "It's sea life, not sea food!" chanted the dozen or so protesters who joined the fishermen at one weekly protest.