NOAA proposes gear changes to cut dangers to right whales gloucestertimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gloucestertimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration released a much-anticipated plan on Wednesday that it says will reduce North Atlantic right whale mortalities from entanglement in fishing gear by 60%.
The right whale is the most endangered great whale on the planet, with around 360 individuals remaining, including less than 100 breeding-age females.
The new plan achieves the 60% mortality reduction through new seasonally closed areas, increases in the number of pots connected to a buoy line and requirements to add more weak links that allow a whale to break vertical lines and hopefully shed lines and pots.
NOAA’s plan also proposes a more rigorous gear-marking system it hopes will make it possible to identify the fishery management area for fishing line found on entangled whales. That would allow for more precise targeting of problem areas.
A gathering of four northern right whales. NOAA photo.
The National Marine Fisheries Service released its latest plan to protect endangered northern right whales from lobster fishing gear entanglement – a suite of changes that include new area restrictions, modifying gear to add weak rope into buoy lines and a new system of state-specific gear markings.
Register, is NMFS’ bid to satisfy a federal court ruling that the agency must do more by May 31, 2021 to protect the East Coast right whale population, now estimated to number fewer than 400 animals and less than 100 breeding females.
The proposed rules seek to reduce the number of vertical lines in the lobster and Jonah crab fisheries by requiring fishermen to fit more of their traps between buoy lines and add weak insertions or weak rope into buoy lines, so whales have a better chance of breaking free of entanglement.
By Sean Horgan Staff Writer Dec 24, 2020
Jan 20, 2021
The Massachusetts lobster industry should find out in late January whether the state will bar lobstering in all state waters from February to May as a protective measure for the imperiled North Atlantic right whales.
The state Division of Marine Fisheries has drafted new protective recommendations that, if approved on Jan. 28 by the state Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission, would prohibit lobstermen in 2021 from setting or hauling traps throughout state waters during the months coinciding with the right whales annual migration and feeding though Massachusetts waters.
The proposals also mandate lobstermen use weaker vertical buoy lines designed to break under 1,700 pounds of tension to help mitigate whale entanglements in fishing gear.
State officials plan to ban lobster fishing for several months a year to help endangered right whales
By David Abel Globe Staff,Updated December 17, 2020, 10:34 a.m.
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A North Atlantic right whale fed on the surface of Cape Cod bay off Plymouth.Michael Dwyer/AP/file
In a major step to protect North Atlantic right whales, state officials are poised to ban lobster fishing in all Massachusetts waters during periods when the critically endangered species typically feeds in the region.
The
proposed
restrictions, which could be devastating for hundreds of fixed-gear fishermen from Buzzards Bay to Ipswich Bay, would prevent commercial lobstermen from setting their traps