May 21, 2015 — The new federal fishing rules designed to better protect whales in the Atlantic Ocean are slated to go into effect June 1. Stay tuned, however. Those rules may change again before they ever become official.
The measures, which represent changes to the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan, will have the greatest impact on lobstermen and gillnetters because of gear restrictions and area closures.
Currently, the impending rules include a minimum trap-per-trawl requirement for Northeast lobstermen to reduce the number of buoy lines in the water as a protective measure for whales. That rule effectively will preclude the lobstermen from fishing single traps in state waters.
Many lobstermen are strenuously opposed to the rule because of safety concerns, saying pulling more than one trap at a time is too dangerous for boats being operated by single-man crews or that are too small to safely pull more than one trap at a time.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times