Ropeless Traps and Breakaways at NMFS Meeting
Mystic CT—The National Marine Fisheries Service met with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) scientists, the New England Fishery Management Council (NEFMC), lobstermen’s association representatives and New England state marine resources departments to discuss reducing whale entanglement in rope used in commercial fishing. The deaths of 17 right whales in 2017 precipitated a lawsuit against NOAA charging the agency with failing to protect whales under the federal Endangered Species Act. The majority of those 17 dead right whales were found in Canadian waters.
The two-day meeting was held on April 3-4, and was part of a NOAA grant of $715,000 to move forward on the current situation with the small population of remaining right whales declining. One of the goals of the meeting was to discuss with the fishing industry, NOAA and scientists the development of alternative hauling technology, where things stand, and how to move toward a solution.
The meeting was not related to the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team. A three year study evolved out of Take Reduction Team meetings over time that resulted in recommendations that included looking at whale entanglement locations, lobster trap configurations in the Gulf of Maine and other data. The Mystic meeting grew out of discussions with a number of groups discussing vertical lobster trap lines, which included the Maine Department of Marine Resources, the Maine and Massachusetts lobstermen’s associations and environmental groups in Portland and in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
The meeting divided into two subgroups. One focused on ropeless fishing, which could use flotation to bring up lobster traps in several ways. The other group considered the development of weaker ropes that would break away after the functional load of lobster trap hauling was passed.
Some of the rope right whales have been found to be entangled in was traced to the Canadian red crab fishery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Marine Stewardship Council has suspended the certification of the Canadian red crab fishery as a result of these right whale entanglement findings. In recent years right whales have been sighted further north in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, rather than the Bay of Fundy. At the same time sightings of right whales in the Gulf of Maine have declined.
Canada has been less proactive than the U.S. in furthering right whale protections. The Maine lobster industry in particular has participated in the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan since it began over 20 years ago. The Maine lobster industry has documented when and where fishing occurs in state and federal waters. That information was used to develop co-occurrence models. The industry participated in and informed the development of regulations to protect right whales. This has included things such as sink rope, marking gear, weak links and a minimum number of traps on a trawl to reduce the amount of vertical buoy line in the water.
Maine lobstermen participated in several research projects on gear modifications that could reduce whale entanglements. There is a pending Saltonstall-Kennedy grant to study right whale habitat shifts in the northeast U.S.