February 11, 2021 — The public can weigh in this month on a federal plan aimed at saving critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.
Researchers estimate that fewer than 375 right whales are still alive. Their leading causes of death are getting hit by ships or tangled in fishing gear, especially long vertical lines such as those used in lobstering. Getting tangled in lines and dragging fishing gear through the ocean exhausts and stresses out the whales, and can cause serious injuries and infections.
So the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has proposed new fishing and lobstering rules to prevent entanglements.
But Gib Brogan with the environmental group Oceana said this week that the plan isn’t good enough.