Conventional lobster harvesting has consisted of divers harvesting lobsters and the use of traps placed on the sea floor and whose location has been marked with floats. These methods of harvesting lobsters has been useful to date, however, the ever increasing population is placing increased demands on our natural resources that are nearing or have already outpaced the available, sustainable lobster supply. One solution has been to look to new locations for harvesting lobsters. Another solution has been to raise lobsters in captivity. Raising lobsters in captivity is in its infancy.
Typically, juvenile lobsters, also referred to as seed lobsters, are captured from near shore reefs and ocean accessible shallows, such as in the channels proximate to the shallows. These seed lobsters are then contained in cages in a naturally occurring water body or on land in tanks. The seed lobsters are typically captured via a collector suspended in the water. Each collector is deployed individually and is checked individually. The collector is hauled from the water and manually shaken by hand over the deck of a boat. All lobsters that fall to the deck of the boat are collected. Wind and seas often make this a very time consuming process because the boat must maneuvered to catch the float for each collector. Currently, the process is very time consuming.