Frank Thompson was among the scores of unhappy lobstermen who delivered millions of feet of rope to a warehouse in this fishing community.
He said the fishing rope piled high in his pickup truck and trailer was still good, except for one thing: Come Sunday, it will be illegal.
A new federal regulation, years in the works, outlaws the use of floating rope that connects millions of lobster traps on the ocean bottom and sometimes entangles endangered North Atlantic right whales.
Marine scientists and conservationists say using rope that sinks will make the whales less prone to getting snagged as they lumber through the Gulf of Maine each spring and summer.