BOSTON (AP) – An unusually low lobster catch has sent prices of the coveted crustacean soaring throughout the region.

At the Boston seafood wholesaler, James Hook & Co., for instance, prices are running about $1 a pound more than last year. Steve Burns at South Shore Lobster in Hingham is selling soft shell lobsters at about $1.50 to $2.50 more than the normal retail price of about $5 a pound.

“Everyone comes in everyday and says, “Why are they so expensive this year?”‘ Burns told the Boston Herald.

His answer is that lobstermen simply aren’t catching many lobsters.

“It’s a supply and demand product and when they are not catching them it gets expensive,” he said.

Theories about this year’s poor haul throughout New England vary, with lobstermen blaming factors such as cold water temperatures they say are forcing the lobsters to hunker down on the ocean floor, as well as a lack of easterly storms to flush the animals out of hiding.

Bruce Estrella, the state’s lobster biologist, said cold water has something to do with it, but also pointed to chronic overfishing.

“Many females don’t have a chance to produce eggs before they end up in a pot of water,” said Estrella of the Division of Marine Fisheries.

Another factor may be tough new rules forcing lobstermen who fish Buzzards Bay and areas from Martha’s Vineyard to New York to throw back at least 15 percent of the lobsters they once were allowed to keep. Regulators said the rules were needed because overfishing and a mysterious shell disease have devastated stocks in that region.

Massachusetts’ roughly $55 million in lobster revenues was second only to Maine, which collected about $161 million in 2001, the most recent year statistics are available.

This year’s higher lobster prices are bad news for consumers, but New Bedford lobsterman Henry Cebula, 60, said they’re keeping him afloat.

“Lobstering is not real good down here,” he said. “But the price is keeping us in the ball game and softening the pain.”