PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • November 17, 2021
A federal appeals court is reinstating a ban on traditional lobster fishing in a nearly 1,000-square-mile stretch of the Gulf of Maine – a win for defenders of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale and a blow to Maine’s iconic lobster fishery. Federal fisheries officials released a new set of restrictions on the lobster fishery earlier this year in an effort to protect the whales, which now number fewer than 340, from deadly entanglements in fishing gear. Most of the new rules, which include state-specific gear marking and weak points in rope to allow entangled whales to break free, won’t go into effect until May.