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The Wrong Guy!



There is pressure on the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to get out from under a lawsuit. That suit is demanding that they do more to reduce threats to the North Atlantic Right Whale.

The NOAA/ALWTRT scoping meetings held in Maine in August were revealing. Particularly in Ellsworth where speakers from the large audience of fishermen and legislators raised fundamental questions about the NMFS premise that Maine lobster fishing gear is a threat to right whales in 2019.

A lead NOAA whale scientist noted that there is a great deal of uncertainty about where the right whale will be located in the future. This, in the context of a Gulf of Maine ocean environment that is very rapidly changing where, how and if right whales will find the habitat they require. Their summer feed and water temperatures are now in Canada. The origin of the ropes that cause some right whale injuries has not been identified.

The negative impact that the proposed gear changes would have on Maine coastal communities and the Maine economy are certain.

Virginia Olsen fishes out of Stonington. She noted that bigger boats would be required to safely handle the longer trawls being demanded. This would make current boats worthless. What may be more ominous is that the level of capitalization for a replacement big boat fishery could force open the door to consolidation and privatization. A death knell for the 300-year history of real working family fishing businesses and coastal communities.

Senator Angus King may have said it best when he likened the NMFS proposal for lobster gear changes, based on the lack of evidence to support it, to “bombing Brazil after Pearl Harbor.”

Kim Tucker, the attorney for the Maine Lobstering Union said, “(government) agencies are selecting out an industry that has little to nothing to do with the problem, choosing them as low-hanging fruit over and over again.”

NOAA is a top-down bureaucracy. NMFS has been told to make a case against someone to appease plaintiffs.

Every year someone is released after spending decades in prison in the U.S. They were finally found to have been the victim of public opinion, the mayor, the police, the DA, the elected judge who all needed a speedy conviction. Right whales are in big trouble, but NMFS has the wrong guy!