Jason Chipman’s Miss Amity and Eric Beal’s Kimberly Ann seconds before crossing the finish line at the Winter Harbor Lobster boat races on August 10, 2019. The large number of boats registered to race and the resultant long day of racing was balanced by great weather and big prizes at the end of the day. The biggest prize a Mitchell Cove 35. Fishermen’s Voice photo
Lobstermen: Maine Fishery Doesn’t Harm Right Whales
by Laurie Schreiber
Lobster fishermen along the coast said the fishery doesn’t impact the endangered North Atlantic right whale, and they panned a federal proposal to slash the number of vertical endlines by half.
“There are no right whales in Maine waters,” Rocky Alley, president of the Maine Lobstering Union, said during a scoping session on proposed gear modifications. “There’s no food there. The food source is in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.”
Of the proposed endline reduction, he added, “This is drastic. All of our communities could dry up and blow away. If we don’t have lobsters, we have nothing. We don’t have another source of income.”
The potential for entanglement in Maine waters is highly unlikely, said Julie Eaton, a Stonington lobsterboat captain.
