September 30, 2022 — Lobster fishing has never been an easy way to make a living. Any economic endeavor that relies on natural forces and harvesting natural resources carries risk and uncertainties. As someone who represents coastal communities and as a member of the Legislature’s Marine Resources Committee, I’ve learned this firsthand from the hard-working men and women in the industry.
I first wrote about this issue in 2019 in a newspaper column. As I write this new piece, I am shocked and dismayed to see the lobster fishing communities facing increased challenges. This month, a judge ruled in favor of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) opinion on how to best protect right whales. This judge also ruled in favor of achieving a 90% risk reduction in right whale entanglements within the fixed gear industry, of which the lobster industry is one. The result is that the lobster fishery will need to make incredibly significant changes to the way they fish in a year or two, rather than the 10 years that had initially been planned for. This ruling ignores conservation measures already taken by the industry.
For instance, Maine lobster fishermen have been reducing risk to right whales for over 20 years. They’ve replaced floating groundlines with rope that sinks and added more traps to each line, resulting in a reduction of 30,000 miles of rope in the water. In addition, they invested in weak links below the buoys to break if whales encounter gear and they’ve implemented gear marking to identify it if that gear shows up on a right whale entanglement.