Kicker - Never too old to catch lobsters

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Virginia Oliver started trapping lobsters when she was 8 years old. And she has been doing it—most likely longer than anyone.

OLIVER: Well, I’ve always done it so I might as well just keep right on doing it.

She still faithfully tends to her traps off Rockland, Maine, with her 78-year-old son Max.

These days she catches the crustaceans aboard a boat that once belonged to her late husband and bears her own name, the “Virginia.”

OLIVER: I band the lobsters and I measure them, then I put them in the tank.

When she started trapping as a young girl, the average lobster sold for about 40 cents—and World War II was still 10 years in the future.

Virginia is now believed to be the oldest lobster fisher in the world at 101 years old, with no signs of slowing down anytime soon!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.