October 4, 2019 — Without citing its sources, the group told the inspector general of the Commerce Department, which oversees the Fisheries Service, that it has “reason to believe” that there are e-mails, memos, and other internal communications that support their allegations that the agency’s officials were responsible for “blatantly mischaracterizing” the recommendations of its scientists on whether to open 3,000 square miles of popular feeding grounds for right whales to fishermen. The move, made under pressure from the fishing industry, outraged environmental advocates.
“An internal review process would likely reveal a disagreement within the agency, or a failure to take into account the advice of … its own right whale scientists, or true ‘agency expertise,’” Whitehouse wrote.
Officials at the Fisheries Service and the Commerce Department declined to comment on the complaint. An official at the inspector general’s office said he had yet to review the complaint.
Representatives of the scallop industry, which has been allowed to access the newly opened areas and has earned millions of dollars from their catch, said they were operating safely.
“Scallopers have been fishing for years, and there’s not a single known interaction with a right whale,” said Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney at the Fisheries Survival Fund in Washington D.C., which represents the scallop industry. “If we’re not impacting them, then why should we be restricted from the area?”
But scientists say that other fisheries, such as those that use fixed gear like lobster traps, pose a grave threat to right whales. That threat has increased in the waters off Nantucket, where more right whales have been spotted in recent years.