As lobstermen across the state grapple with the potential impacts of reducing their vertical lines by as much as 50%, U.S. Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine 2nd District, and Chellie Pingree, D-Maine 1st District, have introduced legislation that would effectively block the proposed reductions from implementation.
The amendment to an appropriations bill would prevent the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from using a data tool it created to enforce new regulations on lobstermen, since the tool has not been subjected to scientific peer-review, according to a June 19 news release.
“The federal government is asking Maine lobstermen to make huge sacrifices without clear evidence that those sacrifices will have any positive impact on right whales,” Golden said in the release. “It’s important to help the right whale, but there’s no conclusive proof that right whales are getting entangled in Maine waters.
“NOAA needs to use sound science and reliable data to make its policies and that can’t happen without peer-review. My amendment blocks the use of NOAA’s data tool — and the resulting regulations — until the data tool is subjected to peer-review.”
Pingree added: “Maine fisheries have been engaged in monitoring and protecting right whales for years, as we should be, but I have concerns about the disproportionate effect the new regulations would have on smaller, shore-adjacent fishermen, especially given lack of data about where the right whales actually are.
“Our state has a huge lobster industry that has already done a lot on their own. We need federal protections to ensure fisheries in other states and countries are making an equal effort and that it doesn’t fall to Maine to shoulder the entire responsibility to this important issue.”’
On May 28, Pingree and Golden along with U.S. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine, sent a letter to Neil Jacobs, the acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, to express their concern about North Atlantic right whale take reduction efforts and their significant impact on the Maine lobster industry.
The delegation urged NOAA leadership to ensure that the science they are relying on is sound and comprehensive, the risk reduction standards are equitable across U.S. and Canadian jurisdictions, and the industry is included and consulted throughout the decision-making process.
Maine Department of Marine Resources has been in the midst of a first round of meetings with the lobster industry, to discuss strategies to cope with the expected 50% cut in the number of endlines in the water.
The Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team has recommended broad measures for Maine that include removing 50% of vertical lines from the Gulf of Maine and the use of weak rope in the top of remaining vertical lines in federal waters.
The final meeting in the first round is scheduled for June 27 at the Freeport Performing Arts Center, Freeport High School, 30 Holbrook St. in Freeport. The agency will process input after the first round of meetings and return for a second round in August. DMR is scheduled to submit its proposal to the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is the federal regulating agency on the matter, in September.
This is not the first time Maine’s lobster industry has had to modify gear in efforts to save the North Atlantic right whale. Since 1997, the federal government has enacted an evolving suite of measures that address groundlines and vertical lines.
