Conservation groups sue over new lobster rules

MOUNT DESERT ISLANDER • September 14, 2021

Several conservation agencies that have been fighting the National Marine Fisheries Service in federal court over the agency’s protections for the right whales filed additional claims last week. The lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity, Conservation Law Foundation and Defenders of Wildlife, claims that the agency’s new rule violates the Marine Mammal Protection Act by failing to reduce the risk of right whales dying in the ropes that lobstermen run from their traps to buoys enough to meet the requirements of the statute. It also alleges that the fisheries service’s Biological Opinion, a document that works hand in hand with the new rules, fails to meet the standards of the Endangered Species Act.