February 28, 2025 — The wind is whipping the sides of the dock on this bright, cold afternoon in Jonesport.
“I think my fingers are too frozen.”
Brooke Hachey of the Sunrise County Economic Council is leading a demonstration of a kind of “on demand,” sometimes called “ropeless” lobster fishing gear.
In a bid to protect North Atlantic right whales from extinction, many scientists are promoting this kind of alternative lobster fishing gear that minimizes the risks of entanglement.
While some lobstermen in Massachusetts have agreed to use this new gear in exchange for accessing closed areas of Cape Cod Bay, most Maine lobstermen have been reluctant — if not outright resistant — to the new technology.