April 25, 2025
More random knowledge we dug up this week.
Wandering Wikipedia: The Lobster War
This week, I felt like a crustacean, under a whole lot of pressure, and I needed a laugh. Luckily, a memory struck me. The memory of LOBSTER WAR! So that is precisely what I will be talking about today.
What is the Lobster War, exactly? The Lobster War was a conflict between the French and the Portuguese, in which France had lost almost all of its colonies on the African continent, and consequently, lost maritime waters where they would catch large quantities of lobster. However, with those territories and waters gone, the French supply of lobster sharply dwindled. This led to them sending a delegation to the state capital of Pernambuco, Brazil, in order to request authorization for three ships to research the lobster nurseries off the Brazilian continental shelf for 180 days.1 Additionally, all ships were required to have inspectors aboard who were part of the Brazilian navy in order to make sure they were doing what they said they were going to be doing.
Upon later inspection, it was found that they had numerous violations of Brazilian regulations. First, they had sent four ships, instead of the authorized three. Second, and finally, they were not researching the lobster nurseries; they were actually catching the lobsters with intent to return to France with them.
Later, in November of the same year (1961), with a new president in place, the French again requested permission to research lobster nurseries on the continental shelf. You’ll never guess what they did next. They went fishing, and so the Brazilian government was through with them and expelled them from their waters, thus beginning what will forever be known on Wikipedia as the Lobster War.
The war started as a simple, diplomatic argument about whether or not the French should be able to harvest lobster from the continental shelf. The French argued that they should be able to, since the lobsters swim through the water. The Portuguese instead argued that the lobsters crawl along the continental shelf. At the time, the French argument would allow them to catch the lobsters, since they were considered to be in international waters, but if the Portuguese argument held true, then the French would not be allowed to catch the lobsters, since they would be on defined Portuguese territory.
This whole diplomatic battle lasted until real conflict broke out on February 11, 1963. Countries sent warships to each other’s shores, and the Portuguese continued to escort away French fishing vessels, until March 10, 1963, when peace, and an agreement, were struck. The French would be allowed to catch Portuguese lobster in limited quantities, during limited times, and only if they shared their profits with the Portuguese government.
—Sylvie Cavros, The Nerd Zone Co-Editor
1.A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water that acts to connect the continent to the seafloor.