March 25, 2021 — It’s pretty easy to guess what Jon Tolley does for a living.
His house on the quarter-acre lot is nearly surrounded by gravel, with bright yellow and black fishing traps neatly stacked all around.
Tolley is gearing up for the fishing season, and he was outside at a work station Wednesday, a hoodie his only protection against the cool air of early spring. Tolley is headed for a hip replacement in a month, but that wasn’t his only concern.
New state regulations, the result of a lawsuit seeking to protect highly endangered North Atlantic right whales, require that he fit the buoy lines on all 1,200 of his lobster, conch and black sea bass traps with special sleeves that release under the pressure of an adult whale.
Along with collisions with ships, entanglement in vertical fishing line attaching lobster and other pots to buoys is one of the top causes of right whale mortality.