August 25, 2021 — A set of new rules to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale is on the way to being finalized by the federal government.
But the rules include “hasty, late-breaking changes” that would “significantly harm the livelihoods of communities that depend on fishing and lobstering without meaningfully protecting whales,” U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine, and U.S. Reps. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine 1st District, and Jared Golden, D-Maine 2nd District, said in a letter to U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
The National Marine Fisheries Service’s Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan was first developed in 1997 and has been modified in various ways since then, in an attempt to save the endangered whales from extinction.
The delegation cited several of the newer proposed modifications, now under consideration, as potentially harmful for the lobster industry.