May 21, 2019 — In the early 2000s, the news appeared good for endangered North Atlantic right whales. Their population grew significantly, due to both rising numbers of births and fewer deaths from ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear.
That good news has come to an end. Twenty of the rare whales died in just two years — 2017 and 2018, according to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium. For the first time in nearly four decades of monitoring, it appears no right whale calves were born last year.
The consortium estimates there are only 411 right whales off the Atlantic coast.
Given these dire numbers, U.S. fisheries regulators have proposed dramatic declines in the amount of fishing lines in waters where the whales are believed to congregate and pass through.
Last month, a team devoted to reducing right whale deaths told Maine officials that the state must reduce the risk it poses to right whales by 60 percent.
The team recommended that Maine’s lobster fishery cut the number of vertical lines in the water by half. Vertical lines run between traps and buoys on the surface of the water to mark their location. The recommendations will be turned into proposed federal rules, which will be subject to public comments. The process could take up to two years.