October 24, 2019 — Maine’s fishery regulators, on behalf of the state’s vital lobster industry, appear to be willing to meet the right whale take reduction team halfway on the removal of lobster buoy lines — but only in federal waters.
The state’s Department of Marine Resources last week released its own draft plan as a counterweight to the take reduction team proposal to remove 50 percent of all vertical lobster lines from wherever Maine lobstermen set and haul — in Maine state waters and the federal waters three miles beyond.
The DMR proposal calls for removing 25 percent of vertical buoy lines set in federal waters by Maine commercial lobstermen.
It said it would eliminate the lines by mandating lobstermen engage in a fishing practice called “trawling up” in which more traps — in ascending numbers as they move further offshore — are attached to each vertical line.
DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher said his agency’s plan protects the whales “by reducing risk where it occurs” and protects the state’s elemental lobster industry in the state waters where most permitted lobstermen ply their trade.