Protect Maine’s Fishing Heritage Foundation calls on state and federal authorities to do all they can to change the decision handed down by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan today. The decision will close large parts of the Gulf of Maine to lobstering from Mt. Desert Island to Casco Bay from October to January.
According to press reports, it will restrict 950 square miles and calls for ropeless gear and more traps on a trawl.
PMFHF executive director Crystal Canney said, “This is incredulous. Maine lobstermen and women are not killing right whales. Why would you penalize an iconic Maine industry for the sake of being able to say you are saving right whales? It’s like cutting off an arm when it’s the foot that is the problem and pretending you have fixed the problem. This industry is under fire from every direction – right whales and large industrial aquaculture. The whale deaths are not in Maine at the hands of Maine lobstermen.”
Canney added, “Instead of saving right whales what this decision has done is endanger not only the livelihoods of many of our lobstermen and women but also their lives. More traps on a trawl will make an already dangerous job even more so.”