PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • June 18, 2020
A national environmental group is asking federal regulators to ban traditional lobster fishing in areas of the Gulf of Maine where the endangered right whale is known to feed during its annual migration, including the waters off Mount Desert Rock, Jordan Basin and Jeffery’s Ledge. In a petition submitted to the U.S. Department of Commerce, The Pew Charitable Trusts said the continued use of surface-to-seabed buoy lines in the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries poses an existential threat to the right whale, whose numbers have dwindled to about 400 as a result of deadly ship strikes and fishing gear entanglement.