Saving Seafood

NOAA Fisheries report shows large whale entanglements nationwide up in 2024; 3 occurred in Maine

November 24, 2025 — According to a new annual report from NOAA Fisheries, there were 95 total confirmed large whale entanglements nationwide last year. In the Northeast Atlantic, the majority of entanglements were reported in Massachusetts Bay and Cape Cod Bay. Three occurred off the coast of Maine.

NOAA spokesperson Andrea Gomez says that two of those three whales were humpbacks, and one was a minke. One of the humpbacks was found dead outside of Portland, entangled in a fishing net. The other humpback and the minke were found alive off Jonesport and Stonington, entangled in Maine lobster gear. The minke was able to shed the gear on its own, and Maine Marine Patrol was able to disentangle the humpback.

Read the full article at Maine Public

Right whales stay in Cape Cod Bay longer, and later

June 16, 2022 — It isn’t high gas prices that changed the travel plans of right whales.

A new study in Global Change Biology by nine authors discovered that over the last couple of decades North Atlantic right whales are most active in Cape Cod Bay 18 days later than before.

That’s a shift — with a longer stay in the month of May — that could potentially bring the whales further into conflict with the region’s annual boating  and lobster season and require an extended season of protections.

“The state has a flexible rule in place — where they can extend fishing closures and small boat speed restrictions — that now is in place up the coast to New Hampshire,” the study’s lead author, Dan Pendleton of the New England Aquarium, said. “Massachusetts Bay has seen more right whales than it used to.”

“One of the problems with migratory animals is they can get into big trouble moving into shipping lanes so if we can move and adapt the protections as (whales) adapt to climate change, that would be ideal,” Pendleton said. “So much seems out of our control but one thing we can do is push for regulations that are responsive to the needs of an endangered species.”

Beth Casoni, executive director of the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association, hadn’t yet seen the study, which was published June 7. Casoni said, therefore, she couldn’t comment until she has been able to read it.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times

Can you hear me? NOAA studies boat noise and fish

January 8, 2018 — NOAA scientists studying sounds made by Atlantic cod and haddock at spawning sites in the Gulf of Maine have found that vessel traffic noise is reducing the distance over which these animals can communicate with each other.

As a result, daily behavior, feeding, mating, and socializing during critical biological periods for these commercially and ecologically important fish may be altered, according to a study published in Nature Scientific Reports.

Three sites in Massachusetts Bay included two inside Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, a region well known to whale-watchers from the Cape because whales feed in the plankton-rich bank, and one inshore south of Cape Ann. All were monitored for three months by researchers at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) laboratory in Woods Hole, and at the sanctuary offices in Scituate.

Vocalizations, such as Atlantic cod grunts and haddock knocks, were recorded by bottom-mounted instruments at each site during spawning in winter and spring.

“We looked at the hourly variation in ambient sound pressure levels and then estimated effective vocalization ranges at all three sites known to support spawning activity for Gulf of Maine cod and haddock stocks,” said Jenni Stanley, a marine research scientist in the passive acoustics group at the NEFSC and SBNMS and lead author of the study.

“Both fluctuated dramatically during the study. The sound levels appear to be largely driven by large vessel activity, and we found a signification positive correlation with the number of Automatic Identification System (AIS) tracked vessels at two of the three sites.”

AIS is an automatic tracking system, used on ships and by vessel traffic services. It provides information on a vessel, such as its unique identification number, position, course and speed, which can be displayed on a shipboard radar or electronic chart display.

Read the full story at the Wicked Local

 

Lobstermen brace for third year of fishing ban

January 9, 2017 — It’s a classic New England scene, colorful lobster traps stacked up along a dock.

But for fishermen in South Shore lobster ports, those grounded traps are a symbol of hard times ahead.

A ban that keeps most of their gear out of the water for the winter is entering its third year, despite arguments that it causes them unfair economic hardship.

“If it made sense, that would be one thing,” Irvine Nash, a lobsterman for 48 years, said as he stood on a dock in Green Harbor. “But it don’t,” he said.

Behind him, fishermen were pulling traps out of the water and loading them on trucks. They will sit empty in yards and garages until May, when the government lifts the ban.

Under a recent rule from the National Marine Fisheries Service, all traps from outer Cape Cod to Cape Cod Bay and parts of Massachusetts Bay must be out of the water by Feb. 1. That’s an area just under 3,000 square nautical miles.

The federal agency first imposed the ban in 2015, to decrease the likelihood of endangered North Atlantic right whales, which come to Cape Cod Bay every winter, from entangling themselves in lobster lines.

There are now only about 520 right whales left, according to the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, up from about 300 in the 1990s.

Read the full story at the Marshfield Mariner

MASSACHUSETTS: Lobstermen press pols to ease access to restricted areas

September 23, 2016 — Bay State lobstermen want federal fishing regulators to work with them to ease restrictions on lobstering in Massachusetts Bay and two areas east of the South Shore, proposing new safety measures that would allow boats to continue to operate while also protecting endangered whales.

Local lobstermen and leaders of the South Shore Lobster Fisherman’s Association met Wednesday, Sept. 21 at the State House with legislators and representatives for members of the state’s Congressional delegation to discuss their pitch for preventing whale entanglements without having to remove all traps from February through April.

John Haviland, president of the association who lobsters out of Green Harbor, said lobstermen are proposing to open three sections – representing a fraction of the larger 2,965 square nautical mile restricted area – for parts of the three-month ban as long as traps are retrofitted with sleeves for their vertical lines that would break every 40 feet under 1,575 pounds of pressure.

Haviland said the line-safety improvement proposal is based on research done by the New England Aquarium and Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institute showing that right whales would be as much as 85 percent less likely to become entangled in lines engineered to break at those specifications.

“The point is not to repeal the closure. It’s to reach a compromise,” said State Sen. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester.

Read the full story at the Marshfield Mariner

Bay State lobstermen press pols to ease access to restricted areas

September 22, 2016 — BOSTON — Bay State lobstermen want federal fishing regulators to work with them to ease restrictions on lobstering in Massachusetts Bay and two areas east of the South Shore, proposing new safety measures that would allow boats to continue to operate while also protecting endangered whales.

Local lobstermen and leaders of the South Shore Lobster Fisherman’s Association met Wednesday at the State House with legislators and representatives for members of the state’s Congressional delegation to discuss their pitch for preventing whale entanglements without having to remove all traps from February through April.

“The point is not to repeal the closure. It’s to reach a compromise,” said Sen. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester.

John Haviland, president of the association who lobsters out of Green Harbor, said lobstermen are proposing to open three sections — representing a fraction of the larger 2,965 square nautical mile restricted area — for parts of the three-month ban as long as traps are retrofitted with sleeves for their vertical lines that would break every 40 feet under 1,575 pounds of pressure.

Haviland said the line-safety improvement proposal is based on research done by the New England Aquarium and Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institute showing that right whales would be as much as 85 percent less likely to become entangled in lines engineered to break at those specifications.

Beginning in 2015, the National Marine Fisheries Service implemented a rule designed to protect right and humpback whales that prohibits lobster traps in an area stretching from Cape Cod Bay to Boston between Feb. 1 and April 30.

Read the full story from State House News Service at the Gloucester Times

MASSACHUSETTS: South Shore lobster fishermen seek exemption from closure

June 9, 2016 — Finding ways to share the seas with important marine creatures, such as right whales, while keeping business afloat is a priority for local lobstermen and fishermen.

Representatives from local fishermen’s associations may have a solution they hope can lead to an exemption in a federally mandated closure that grounds local fishermen from Feb. 1 to April 30.

The closure encompasses nearly 3,000 square nautical miles, including parts of Massachusetts Bay and the waters around Cape Cod. It was first implemented in 2015 and affects fishermen who use vertical lines, such as lobster fishermen.

The goal behind the closure is to protect the right whale from possible entanglements. Since before the closure began, the fishermen have been looking for a compromise so they can help protect the endangered species without hurting their livelihoods.

“The commercial lobstermen want to coexist with the right whale. I don’t want to kill the whale, and I want to catch lobsters. We need to come up with a plan to make everyone happy,” said John Haviland, a Marshfield fisherman and president of the South Shore Lobster Fisherman’s Association.

The solution that may be the key to an exemption is a type of sleeve local fishermen have been trying out for about two years.

The sleeves wrap around the vertical lines, which are cut into 40-foot segments. Though the lines themselves break at around 4,000 pounds of pressure, the sleeves break with about 1,700 pounds of pressure—about the strength of the whale.

Read the full story at the Marshfield Mariner