More restrictions considered for Massachusetts lobstermen

By Jessica Trufant 

Published Jan 3, 2021 

MARSHFIELD — To protect North Atlantic right whales, regulators want to expand an annual three-month ban on the use of lobstering equipment off Cape Cod Bay to include all Massachusetts waters.

Since 2015, federal regulations have banned the use of lobstering equipment from Feb. 1 until at least April 30 off Cape Cod Bay and beyond, shutting down the local industry for the winter. The goal is to reduce the chances of whales becoming entangled in the gear.

Right whales are common in Cape Cod Bay during late winter and early spring, especially during March and April.

Now the state Division of Marine Fisheries is proposing to extend that ban to all waters within the state's jurisdiction.

John Haviland, president of the South Shore Lobster Fishermen’s Association, said local lobstermen have dealt with the regulations for years, but now the rest of the state’s commercial fleet will feel the pain.

“In this area, we’ve seen this movie before, we’ve lived this movie before, and the takeaway from having history with this closure is that the window of opportunity to make a living keeps getting briefer and briefer,” he said. “For the normal person, what if they don’t get a paycheck for three to four months? How long could they survive?”

Right whales that are intensely feeding near the surface can be oblivious to their surroundings, according to officials, making them more vulnerable to vessel strikes and entanglements in vertical buoy lines.

In public hearings earlier this month, Division of Marine Fisheries Director Dan McKiernan said the rules are necessary as a last-ditch effort to save the right whale population, which is now estimated at fewer than 400.

“The rationale of this is to reduce the potential of any entanglement in waters under the jurisdiction of the commonwealth,” he said during a hearing.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 31 whales in Canada and the United States have been confirmed dead in the last three years, and 11 others are alive but with serious injuries. Officials attribute most of the deaths and injuries to either ship strikes or entanglements. 

Experts say entangled whales often suffer slow and painful deaths because the entangling gear affects their ability to feed and swim.

McKiernan said the regulations would also protect the state from liability regarding right whale deaths following several court rulings that regulators weren't doing enough to protect the animals. 

In May, a federal judge in Boston ruled that state regulators violated the Endangered Species Act by allowing lobstermen to use fishing gear that entangles right whales. A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the law by failing to reduce the likelihood of whale entanglements.

The state’s Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission is scheduled to consider the new regulations at its meeting Jan. 7.

The proposed regulations require vertical buoy lines to be modified to break under 1,700 pounds of tension, so they are more likely to release when a whale comes in contact with them.

Some South Shore fishermen already used modified lines that meet those standards in an effort to save their industry while protecting the right whales.

In 2017, Haviland and members of the South Shore Lobster Fishermen’s Association went before the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team to present a new rope line designed to reduce the chance of entangling endangered whales.

The state’s Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission is scheduled to consider the new regulations at its meeting Jan. 7.

The proposed regulations require vertical buoy lines to be modified to break under 1,700 pounds of tension, so they are more likely to release when a whale comes in contact with them.

Some South Shore fishermen already used modified lines that meet those standards in an effort to save their industry while protecting the right whales.

In 2017, Haviland and members of the South Shore Lobster Fishermen’s Association went before the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team to present a new rope line designed to reduce the chance of entangling endangered whales.

The South Shore lobstermen came up with a way to retrofit buoy lines so a tangled whale is more likely to get free. The design includes a shell made of a braided polypropylene material placed over sections of rope with hollow voids every 40 feet that would break under about 1,700 pounds of pressure.

Haviland said the hope was that lobstermen could keep some traps in the water in exchange for using the retrofitted lines year-round.

Instead, he said lobstermen now will likely need to spend money to change their lines while the closure expands even further. 

Haviland said Massachusetts has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to protecting right whales, but the massive animals travel thousands of miles where regulations are more lax.

He said very few right whales have gotten entangled with gear from Massachusetts waters in the last decade, yet local fishermen pay the consequences.

“I’ve seen a lot of rules and regulations over my 45 years of fishing, and it’s another paper cut in the many paper cuts we’ve already had,” Haviland said.