July 15, 2019 — A directive for new protections for endangered right whales represents an “absurd federal overreach” that places an unfair burden on Maine’s signature lobster fishery, Gov. Janet Mills said.
She ordered the state Department of Marine Resources to draft an alternative plan that would reduce the impact on lobstermen.
“My administration will not allow any bureaucrat to undermine our lobster industry or our economy with foolish, unsupported and ill-advised regulations,” she wrote in a letter this week to the lobster industry.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration wants the state to present a plan in September for reducing the lobster industry’s threat to right whales by 60%.
The plan would mean reducing by half the number of lobster trap lines that could entangle whales. It would also require weaker rope for traps in federal waters.
But the Democratic governor says that Maine’s lobster industry isn’t the “primary problem” and that there’s a “disturbing lack of evidence” connecting it to recent right whale deaths. Six have died in recent weeks in Canadian waters.