November 14, 2019 — Efforts to find consensus over how to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales from entanglement in fishing gear without decimating the Maine lobster industry took a blow last week.
The Maine Lobstermen’s Association (MLA) announced that it would not support a plan developed by the Department of Marine Resources “because it seeks reductions that exceed the documented risk posed by the Maine lobster fishery” and “creates unresolved safety and operational challenges for some sectors of the lobster industry,” MLA Executive Director Patrice McCarron said in an email Saturday.
The MLA decision came late last week after DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher held a series of meetings with lobstermen in Ellsworth, Waldoboro and South Portland.
The meetings were held to present the department’s response to a proposal by the National Marine Fisheries Service that would require a 50 percent reduction in the number of vertical endlines, which connect lobster traps to buoys on the surface, used by Maine lobstermen.
The goal, according to NMFS, was to reduce the risk of right whale entanglement in fishing gear by 60 percent.
Throughout the summer, DMR developed an alternative plan that called for many Maine lobstermen to “trawl up” by fishing more traps in strings attached to one or two endlines.