The landmark six-year pause on any new federal whale regulations gave Maine’s multimillion dollar lobster fishery a chance to gather itself after years of fighting new restrictions aimed at protecting the rapidly disappearing North Atlantic right whales.
Now, top state fishing officials plan to use this break to try and transform how lobstering is managed in Maine to benefit fishermen and the endangered whales.
Regulators have been concerned for years about right whales getting tangled in fishing gear. But officials have had few options to cut down on the risk: They could close fishing grounds where right whales had been known to swim, slash the number of traps allowed for each lobsterman or make fishermen weaken their lines to allow the whales to break free.
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