Legislators may have solution to save the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale
Photo credit Georgia Department of Natural Resources
In September 2021 I wrote my first news story about the plight of the North Atlantic right whale. That first was titled Save the Whales? Can the North Atlantic right whale be saved from extinction? In November, I wrote Are North Atlantic right whales destined for extinction?, a companion article that explored how two states – Georgia and Maine – and Canada looked at the right whales that swam off their coasts. Then in December, the news became more dire. In Off again, on again protections: Will the North Atlantic right whale survive the legal wrangling? I wrote that Maine’s lobster industry had taken to the courts to halt proposed federal regulations developed to protect the endangered whale. Now it looks as though the temperature of the adversarial relationship been the lobster industry and pro whale conservationists may have a chance to cool due to state and federal legislation that have been earmarked to help defray the costs for fishermen to comply with fishing regulations. This governmental action may finally bring a solution that assuages the lobster industry and assures the survival of this critically endangered whale.
Lobsters vs Whales
The rise in tensions between the lobster fishery and the pro whale community has been pegged to about 2015, a time when the North Atlantic right whale numbers began to plummet. Sean Todd, a whale biologist and director of a Maine-based research group focused on marine mammals, suggested that tensions between the two sides escalated when conservationists urged federal agencies to institute more effective management to avert the downward trend in right whale population that might well lead to the whales’ extinction. The North Atlantic right whale population in 2011 was estimated to be around 480. It has continued to decline. By 2021 the was close to 340 individuals. In October of 2021, the New England Aquarium published data that revealed that 86% of known right whales bore scars indicating they had been entangled in fishing gear.
Conservationists and scientists have heard a variety of unwarranted claims from proponents of the lobster industry. Among these is that Maine’s lobster industry isn’t responsible for the entanglement and death of right whales. Bill McWeeny, who chairs the Maine Coalition for North Atlantic right whales, says that the industry and its supporters claim that there hasn’t been a documented case in Maine since 2004 that a right whale had been entangled in fishing gear. According to McWeeny the claim is that “less than 2% of the entanglements have been traced back to any fishery.” He says this is a misrepresentation of the facts because lobster fishing gear has not been marked clearly enough to identify its origin. Sometimes the gear is found in poor condition having been recovered from a dead or injured whale. In other words, it is tough to trace a rope’s ownership. “So any fishery up and down the coast can say ‘oh we’ve only had one or two, or we’ve never had a death or anything.’ They all can say that,” McWeeny said but this allegation belies the full story.
Maine’s lobster industry isn’t the villain. It is composed of hard-working men and women who engage in labor intensive work that sometimes is in less than ideal weather conditions. They have boats and equipment they must pay for and maintain and families and crew that must be supported. But as a $1.4 billion industry they wield clout. They can be a daunting opponent for those who stand for the whales. “It is really frustrating to be a small voice against a massive wave of the lobster industry. It’s difficult to be heard in those circumstances, and it’s difficult to be taken seriously,” said Todd.
Money Talks, Politicians Listen
While Maine’s Governor and Congressional delegation state they want to protect the right whales, they believe some of the industry’s unsubstantiated claims and that Maine’s lobster fleet is being unduly targeted by management regulations. Another industry claim is that the right whales do not use the area currently designated for closure to traditional rope-and-buoy lobstering during the months of October through January. The industry has criticized the data that federal agencies used to develop the seasonal ban on traditional lobstering methods. However, acoustic recorders have recently detected right whales inside the restricted area. “We can’t say that they’re not here. There were whales seen inside [state waters close to shore] last year, we know they’re here; we know they move through this area,” admitted Maine’s Commissioner of Marine Resources, Patrick Keliher.
The conflict may be deescalated by the actions of federal and state governments that have allocated money to assist the fishing industry in complying with the fishing regulations. More than $17 million has been earmarked by the federal government with approximately $14 million of this to be used to upgrade fishing gear and comply with configuration and marking requirements. Money has also been allocated to help the lobster industry plan ahead as well as pay for right whale research, monitoring, and conservation. In Maine two bills have been endorsed by a legislative committee: one sets up a relief fund for lobstermen affected by the whale-protection regulations while the other would establish nearly a million dollar annual legal defense fund for the lobster industry.
An uncertain future for the lobster industry and North Atlantic right whales
The lobster industry and the North Atlantic right whale population are both facing an uncertain future. The fishing industry must contend with rising costs and, like the right whale, the impacts of climate change. The North Atlantic right whale’s future is tied intimately with what Maine’s lobster fishery does. Human activities have taken and will continue to take a toll on the whales’ survival particularly if the fishing industry declines to take action to help alleviate the danger of entanglement. “If we stop killing them and allow them to allocate energy to finding food, mates, and habitats that aren’t marred with deadly obstacles,” scientists like Dr. Scott Kraus, chair of the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium, think there is still time to save the right whales from extinction. The question now is will the financial incentives offered by federal and state legislation be enough to save the whales?
