As federal regulators look to impose limits on fishing lines that can entangle an endangered whale species, a bipartisan group of Maine lawmakers is rallying to block rules they say could tank the state’s lucrative lobster industry.
And as part of the effort, they’re threatening to take federal funding away from one of the country’s most prestigious marine research centers after it urged consumers last month to stop eating lobster until better protections for the North Atlantic right whales are in place.
“North Atlantic right whales have been entangled numerous times in U.S. lobster gear over the last decade, and in the last three weeks we’ve seen a North Atlantic right whale known as Snow Cone, with gear not yet linked to a specific fishery, and reports of a humpback whale that was entangled in Maine lobster gear,” said Jennifer Dianto Kemmerly, vice president of global ocean conservation at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California.
