Saving Seafood

MAINE: Lobstermen react to proposed NOAA rule

January 27, 2021 — At what cost does saving the North Atlantic right whale come?

A Jan. 20 public meeting on the latest proposal to reduce the risk of whale entanglements in fishing lines focused on northern and eastern Maine lobster fishing. The virtual meeting continued discussions between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and lobstermen that began in 2019. The Maine Department of Marine Resources submitted its own risk-reduction proposal in January 2020 that NOAA said did not fully meet its goals.

At this latest meeting, local lobstermen echoed similar concerns they aired when discussions started two years ago: NOAA is relying on incomplete and outdated data, and fishermen are not seeing right whales in Maine waters. NOAA scientists agree that more data would be useful.

“We don’t have a lot of recent data to let us know that they’re not still going there,” said Colleen Coogan, a NOAA biologist who is part of its whale Take Reduction Team (TRT). “Maine has been working pretty aggressively trying to get more data.”

Read the full story at The Ellsworth American

As their population plummets, right whales are on verge of extinction

October 27, 2020 — In dire news for a critically endangered species, federal regulators on Monday substantially reduced their estimate for the number of remaining North Atlantic right whales.

Officials at the National Marine Fisheries Service estimated there were just 366 whales alive in January 2019 — an 11 percent decline from the year before. There are likely even fewer alive today.

Worse, the agency estimated the population included only 94 breeding females.

“Given the low population numbers … it is essential that we work together to protect every North Atlantic right whale in order to avoid extinction for this endangered species,” Colleen Coogan, the agency’s marine mammal take reduction team coordinator, wrote in an e-mail to members of a federal advisory board tasked with finding ways to reduce risks to the whales.

Read the full story at The Boston Globe

A daunting task begins: Reducing lobster gear to save whales

April 30, 2019 — Fishing managers on the East Coast began the daunting process Monday of implementing new restrictions on lobster fishing that are designed to protect a vanishing species of whale.

A team organized by the federal government recommended last week that the number of vertical trap lines in the water be reduced by about half. The lines have entrapped and drowned the North Atlantic right whale, which number a little more than 400 and have declined by dozens this decade.

The interstate Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission met Monday outside Washington to discuss the implementation of the new rules, which are designed to reduce serious injuries and deaths among whales by 60 percent.

The rules will be developed in the coming months and could have a huge effect on the lucrative fishery. Some individual lobstermen place several miles of trap lines in the water, meaning hundreds of miles will have to be removed in total to meet the goal.

“States are committed to taking on the reductions,” said Toni Kerns, interstate fisheries management program director for the commission, after the meeting. “This is a very complex issue, and it will be challenging, but they will find a way to make it work.”

Exactly how long it will take to implement the new rules is unclear at the moment, Kerns said. It also remains to be seen whether the commission or states will take the lead in implementing the rules, she said.

Colleen Coogan, who coordinates the federal government team designed to protect the whales, said during the meeting that cooperating with Canadian authorities is also going to be very important. Canadian fishermen harvest the same species of lobster, and the endangered whales also swim in Canadian waters.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Washington Post

Strict right whale protection goal raises concerns among lobstermen

April 8, 2019 — A federal agency is seeking a 60 percent to 80 percent reduction in the number of right whales killed or seriously injured by fishing line entanglement – a mandate that could have serious implications for the future of Maine’s $485 million lobster industry.

The National Marine Fisheries Service estimates that fishing rope entanglement kills or seriously injures five to nine right whales a year. Federal scientists believe that even a single death a year would prove too much for the endangered species to make a recovery.

If those deaths are split evenly between the U.S. and Canada, a fisheries service assumption that Maine fishermen and regulators question, then Maine and Massachusetts lobstermen would have to find a way to cut their share of the whale entanglement deaths by 6o percent to 80 percent to achieve that goal.

“We know this target is daunting, but it is necessary to ensure the recovery of the North Atlantic right whale population,” said Colleen Coogan, coordinator of the agency-led team created to protect the right whale, in a letter emailed Friday to team members, including Maine fisheries regulators.

Read the full story at the Portland Press Herald