Documents Reveal ‘Catastrophic Impact’ Right Whale Protections Could Have On Lobster Industry
Newly released documents by Maine’s Department of Resources are providing a glimpse of what federal action to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales could look like — including the closure of extensive areas of offshore ocean to lobstering. In an August letter to the head of the agency that reviews proposed federal regulations, DMR Commissioner Patrick Keliher asked for a meeting to go over options for reducing the risk of right whales becoming dangerously entangled in lobster trap gear and rope. That was after conversations with the federal Northeast Fisheries Science Center that brought to light a proposal that could put big swaths of ocean off-limits to lobstering in federal waters known as Lobster Conservation Management Areas, or LCMAs. >click to read< 18:46
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