October 3, 2022 — During its four-day meeting at the Beauport Hotel last week, the Newburyport-based New England Fishery Management Council heard from NOAA Fisheries officials about ways to protect the endangered North Atlantic right whale with a proposed 10-knot speed limit for vessels 35 to 65 feet long, expanded seasonal speed zones, and ropeless fishing gear to prevent whales getting entangled in lobster trap lines.
Speed rules
Caroline Good, a large whale ecologist with NOAA Fisheries, presented the proposed rules aimed at reducing right whales from being struck by vessels and killed or injured.
However, the council could not come to a consensus to comment on the proposed changes.
Good said the right whale population continues to decline and is approaching extinction due to death and serious injury from entanglement with fishing gear and vessel strikes. Fewer than 350 individuals remain.
Since 2017, scientists have documented 54 right whales killed or seriously injured in U.S. and Canadian waters. Of those, according to Good’s presentation, 11 were killed due to vessel strikes and nine from entanglements.
Right whales are present in U.S. waters year-round, but in greater numbers during the late fall through early summer, Good said. They are highly vulnerable to vessel strikes due to dense vessel traffic along the East Coast.