ASSOCIATED PRESS • March 18, 2022
While Maine’s lobster industry has been fighting an offensive legal battle against impending rules to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales, it also is playing defense in a case brought by environmentalists that seeks to shut down the lobster fishery entirely. Lobster industry groups are intervening in a case brought in Washington, D.C.’s U.S. District Court by the Center for Biological Diversity and other plaintiffs that argues the new federal restrictions aren’t adequate, and that the fishery’s continued operation poses an existential threat to the whales. Lawyers for the lobster industry recently filed a legal brief arguing that the environmental groups are misreading the two laws. In a separate case, the lobstering groups are fighting for the biological opinion to be revised, but not vacated.