Tag Archives: lobster fishing gear
Federal judges: Data does not prove Maine lobstering endangers whales
Friday, a panel of judges ruled that data on entanglements in lobster fishing gear does not support the need for the new strict limits on where and how lobstermen could fish. Those regulations, set by the National Marine Fisheries Service, were put in place under the authority of the Endangered Species Act to protect the 340 North Atlantic Right Whales whales left. The Maine Lobstermen’s Association says there is no evidence of Maine lobster gear ever killing a whale. There has been no documented entanglement of a North Atlantic Right Whale since 2004. “Every lobsterman in Maine was facing a decision of whether or not they would be able to continue in the fishery,” MLA policy director Patrice McCarron said. Video, >click to read< 08:55
NOAA orders lobster fishing gear out of offshore zone
After a month-long court battle, an appeals court upheld the closure on November 16 U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a Maine Democrat, said that the annual closure from October 1 to January 31 sets a dangerous precedent. It “will give federal agencies a green light to pursue regulatory actions that could devastate communities without any regard for whether or not those efforts are grounded in facts and data,” he said in a statement. “It’s regulations like this one that make people distrust government. Instead of looking out for hardworking people, our government cares more about appeasing deep-pocketed environmental groups that can litigate our lobster fishery out of existence,” Golden said. >click to read< 09:19
U.N. committee takes up racism complaint of N.S. Mi’kmaq fishermen against Ottawa
The April 30 letter of notice from the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination asks Leslie Norton, Canada’s permanent representative to the U.N., to respond to allegations by Sipekne’katik First Nation by July 14.,, The letter asks Canada to respond to the allegations and indicate what actions have already been taken to deal with allegations of racism. The notice is signed by Yanduan Li, the chair of the committee and a representative of China. The First Nation’s leader, Chief Mike Sack, said in a news release Sunday that it intends to proceed with a lobster fishery beginning in June, despite the lack of an agreement with the federal Fisheries Department. >click to read< 07:35
Federal judge gives NOAA time to craft new whale rules
A federal district court judge, in a decision issued late on Wednesday, Aug. 19, gave the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) nine more months to craft new rules to protect endangered right whales from entanglement in lobster fishing gear. Judge James E. Boasberg also denied a request by conservation organizations for an immediate ban on lobster fishing in a vast area of the ocean south of Nantucket Island in Massachusetts. >click to read< 09:45
Con groups propose total lobster fishing ban
According to the Center for Biological Diversity and several other plaintiff conservation groups, the area “has increasingly become important right whale foraging and socializing habitat in recent years.” The conservation groups filed their request last Friday, three weeks after the judge ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) violated the federal Endangered Species Act when it continued to allow lobster fishing with gear that used fixed vertical buoy lines in which whales could become entangled. As a practical matter, a ban on the vertical lines that connect traps on the sea floor to marker buoys on the surface would amount to a total prohibition against lobster fishing in the area south of the two Massachusetts islands. While scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and a few others have experimented with “ropeless” lobster trap gear (laughter and scorn, erupts from the crowd),,, >click to read< 09:18
