Maine’s lobster fishers caught up in fierce fight with conservationists over entangled whales
A fierce fight is being waged in the Gulf of Maine between lobster fishers desperate to maintain their way of life and conservationists who argue that the waters are a vital haven for the threatened North Atlantic right whale.
Last month, a federal judge in Maine rejected a federal ban on lobstering in a section of the Gulf of Maine that is meant to protect the whales.
The decision reflects the tense battle between a centuries-long lobstering industry – and bedrock of the local economy – that is fighting for its survival and conservation groups, who argue lobster fishing in the area has had detrimental effects on an endangered species who have been injured and killed by the fishing equipment.
On 17 October, District Judge Lance Walker ruled in favor of several lobstering bodies including the Maine Lobstering Union when he rejected a fourmonth federal ban that would have prevented lobstering from continuing on offshore fishing grounds in the Gulf of Maine. Lobster industry advocates argued that there was insufficient evidence to prove that the whales frequented the area.
Walker questioned the federal statistical models used to evaluate the risk of whales becoming entangled in lobster fishing equipment. According to him, federal regulators from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration used “markedly thin” modeling to prove the whales’ presence in the thousand-square mile area off the Maine coast.
Lobstering advocates such Virginia Olsen of the Maine Lobstering Union praised Walker for his decision, saying, “we felt like someone actually took a look at that data that we had been looking at and finally came to some of the same conclusions.
“We felt like this was a step that was going to hurt our fishery, our communities,” Olsen said, referring to the federal ban. “What we needed as fishermen was some validation that what we were doing was actually in the best interest of the right whale … and we didn’t feel like the seasonal closure was that right step,” she added.
Maine’s $1.4bn lobster industry has for decades been the lifeline for numerous lobster fishers including Olsen herself. But conservationists see its lobstering practices as a significant factor in the reduction of right whale populations over the years.
In data released last month, the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium revealed that in 2019, the right whale numbered 366, before dropping to 336 in 2020, the lowest number in nearly 20 years. Entanglement is a leading cause of death among right whales.
The consortium cited human activities as the driving force behind the species’ extinction, as 86% of identified right whales have been entangled one or more times in fishing gear.
“When they encounter a vertical line that’s in the water, there’s a buoy on the surface and then there’s a string of up to twenty traps on the seafloor … [The whales] generally can’t see the ropes and it’s very violent. The whale will thrash in the water and at the surface, trying to escape,” said Gib Brogan, a fisheries campaign manager at Oceana, an international ocean conservation group.
Ropes entangling the whales can dig into their flesh, and wrap around their mouths, preventing them from feeding, breeding and socializing, Brogan said. . Entangled whales, especially young calves, may drown if they cannot reach the surface; others die slowly of starvation.
“What the government is saying is that [the Gulf of Maine] may not be an aggregation area. [Rather] it may be a pathway as the whales are migrating from either the eastern Gulf of Maine or the Gulf of St Lawrence … This is a time and place where a lot of whales are using this as their habitat … which have a lot of functions. It can be a breeding, feeding and socializing area,” Brogan said.
Noaa has appealed Walker’s order, arguing that the lobster unions and dealers failed to provide evidence of irreparable harm that the closure of the waters would have on them. It also argued that the lobstering bodies did not provide hard evidence that the closure would result in economic havoc.
Over the years, ropeless fishing has been promoted as an alternative to lobstermen that would pose less risk to whales. Instead of using the traditional lines that connect traps on the seafloor to a buoy, ropeless traps can be raised to the surface by remote control.
However, the industry has not yet widely embraced this method, with many such as Olsen citing ropeless fishing’s availability, cost and safety as major concerns. A ropeless trap costs about $4,000, while a traditional lobster trap costs between $80 and $180.
The National Marine Fisheries Service loans experimental gear technology to collaborating fishers, but Noaa expects a maximum of only 330 ropeless traps to be available coastwide – from Maine to Florida – in the coming years.
Some groups are calling for collaboration between the two sides. Erica Fuller, a senior attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation, said promoting new methods of fishing – and providing the means for lobstermen to adopt them – would help solve the fight.
“I don’t think any conservationist would say that ropeless fishing is ready today, nor is it affordable yet. But we have to get there,” said Fuller. “What in a collaborative fashion would be helpful would be if fishermen that might be otherwise closed out of a certain area or fishermen who generally want to be part of a solution would try on some of this gear … Based on fishermen’s feedback, we get the best gear modifications.
“If Maine wants to play a more collaborative role in trying to move that transition forward, that would certainly be an area where we do everything in our power to help those fishermen,” she added.