DC North Atlantic Right Whale Ruling
“The MLU is exploring all legal options to ensure that forthcoming judicial decisions on NOAA and NMFS’s arbitrary assumptions will finally result in some meaningful protections for the NARW that do not needlessly jeopardize Maine’s heritage industry without any corresponding benefit to the right whale population” Virginia Olsen. Judge Boasberg was correct in stating “the crux of the problem is that the 2021 BiOp projects that in the coming years the American lobster fishery will continue to potentially kill and seriously injure North Atlantic right whales at over three times the sustainable rate.” That projection is not supported by the best scientific available – far from it in fact. Until NOAA and NMFS stop relying on arbitrary assumptions and apportionments and start paying attention to the best scientific data available, which reveals that Canadian fisheries are the source of almost all known causes of entanglements, then both the North Atlantic right whale and the American lobster fishery will go extinct. 13:02
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