Photograph Courtesy of Nicole Glawson
Coveted for its resemblance to a dragon, California spiny lobster is a lucky dish for Lunar New Year and is also served at weddings and large get-togethers. Covid-19 crashed those parties in late 2019 and throughout 2020. Spiny lobster prices crashed too. It started with rumors, said Pete Halmay, seasoned urchin diver and president of San Diego Fishermen’s Working Group. At seventy-something, he’s still out getting salty almost every day. Two or three months before spiny lobster season was set to open in early October, Halmay said, talk on the docks was that Asia wasn’t buying this year, demand was way down due to covid-19, and the price San Diego fishermen would get for spiny lobster would be 30-50 percent of the norm. In a typical year, 95 percent of spiny lobster caught in San Diego goes to overseas markets, primarily Asia.