October 15, 2018 — The lobster industry is willing to consider switching to weaker rope to protect the endangered right whale from deadly entanglements, but whale defenders say that doesn’t go far enough to help a species that can’t bear even one more death.
A team of scientists, regulators, animal rights groups and fishermen met this week in Providence to review proposals to help a species that has dwindled to about 450 individuals after coming back from the brink of extinction.
The team is advising the National Marine Fisheries Service on how to prevent whales from getting entangled in fishing gear as they migrate, feed and mate as they travel back and forth along the East Coast of the United States and Canada.
The team agreed on a lot of measures that could help them understand why the whales are dying, like putting distinctive marks on all fishing gear so regulators can know which fisheries pose the biggest threat, but not on how to actually stop entanglement deaths.
Led by Maine regulators and fishermen, the lobster industry agreed Friday to explore weaker vertical lines – the rope that links seabed traps to a surface buoy – in areas where whales gather in numbers or eat, an act that puts them at greater risk of a fatal entanglement.
Rope strength limits would represent “a giant step forward,” lobster industry officials said.
“We pushed ourselves way beyond our comfort zones to present this idea with a bow on it,” said Patrice McCarron, director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. “Let’s get the low-hanging fruit and find gear that we could actually fish and get in the water.”