February 2, 2026 — For decades, environmental advocates and fishermen have found themselves in a bind.
Private property rights over fishing gear made it impossible for communities to clean up rope, lines, and equipment that had been abandoned in the open ocean — even as the gear piled up, snaring endangered wildlife and forming floating islands of synthetic fibers.
Starting Jan. 30, however, new state regulations from the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) allow local communities to clean up marine fishing gear debris freely, the first step to eliminating what advocates call the “ghost gear” floating in New England’s waters.
Prior to the new rule, fishermen retained ownership rights of all fishing gear still in the water, regardless of its condition or how long it had been left to sea. Any attempt to interfere with or remove that gear by someone outside of DMF or the state environmental police constituted a rights violation. Volunteers and municipalities, meanwhile, could only remove debris that had washed ashore with state agencies’ permission — debris that still piles up by the tons on Massachusetts’ coastlines.
It’s a small change with a whale-sized impact, advocates say, and not a moment too soon. On Jan. 27, researchers found the first recorded North Atlantic right whale death of the year, a four-year-old male that had been fatally injured after getting entangled in fishing gear.