September 9, 2021 — The day after new rules for the lobster fishery aimed at preserving the North Atlantic right whale came down from the federal government, Richard Larrabee Jr., an offshore lobsterman, was fuming.
“I’m pissed as hell,” he said. “This makes no sense.”
He wasn’t the only one. Both supporters of Maine’s lobster industry and conservation groups were displeased with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s new rules, though largely for different reasons.
Larrabee, who fishes out of Stonington, called it a textbook example of government overreach and said it wasn’t based in science. The Center for Biological Diversity, which has been waging legal battles on behalf of the critically endangered species, called them “half measures” that can’t be expected to save the whales.
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