Show Up Ready.

All comments will be summarized and given to the Take Reduction Team (TRT), which includes your representatives from the Maine lobster fishing industry and Maine DMR, before they meet during the first week of December. That’s when they will begin discussing new whale rules, known as the Take Reduction Plan.

Comments that speak to as many of NMFS’s questions as possible and that are directly based on your own experience and knowledge will be the most effective. These will help NMFS, your representatives, and the TRT understand the impact of different options. Be direct and professional. Remember, all comments are included in the public record — this is your chance to tell your story and show up ready.   

Comments that only talk about anger, that tell the agency to just do nothing, that include foul language, or question whether the process if valid won’t help the Maine lobster fishing industry or your TRT representatives. You have every right to feel angry and may want the process to disappear, but if changes to the rules will be required, we’ll need  to address the challenge head-on. 

If your comment reads or feels like it is based in frustration or doesn’t address the questions NMFS is asking (see above), or if you are mostly feeling angry writing your comments, take a break and ask for help from other fishermen, family, or trusted community leaders. It’s worth taking some time and thinking carefully about your comments to make sure your voice is heard.

NMFS wants to know how you think future whale protection rules could impact the lobster industry. They also need your ideas about how to make new rules workable for the industry, if possible. This is tricky because we don’t yet know what the final rules will look like. So the most effective fishing industry comments will look ahead to what might be included in new whale rules. Base your comments on your expertise about lobster fishing and the impacts of previous whale rules.

The agency is asking for your input on each of the following topics:

1. Reducing vertical (buoy) lines through gear reduction measures (trap or line caps, or using ropeless gear) or gear configuration changes (increasing traps per trawl)

For example: What has trawling up meant to your business and how would additional trawling up impact you? What do you know, from direct experience or what you’ve seen, about how ropeless gear could impact your operation if you were to use it to access closed areas or to reduce the number of buoy lines on your trawls? 

2. Reducing the breaking strength of ropes so that entangled whales could break free

For example: How have weak rope and weak links changed your operation? How have the costs of gear modifications impacted your business, financially or in terms of efficiency? Are there ways to add more breakaways or other changes to your gear to allow whales to escape when they get tangled?

3. Seasonal restricted areas that would not allow buoy lines or would be closed to fishing  in places where right whales are likely to gather in a particular season

For example: What impact do seasonal fishing area closures have to your business? Are there areas where this approach would be a major problem, or less of a problem? How should data about fishing be used to decide where closures would be? 

4. Dynamic area management (short-term area closures or restrictions where right whales are located) that allow quick responses to unpredictable right whale presence

For example: How long would it take you to move some or all of your gear, or remove endlines from trawls, if an area were closed using dynamic management? What might make that process easier or harder? How would the impacts on your operation be different between dynamic closures and seasonal closures? How should agencies and industry work together to make dynamic management measures work, and how should dynamic closures be communicated to the fleet? Who should be involved in making decisions about dynamic closures, and what information is needed to make good decisions about dynamic closures? 

5. Changes to existing seasonal restrictions, seasonal closure areas, and exemption areas

For example: What has changed about fishing operations, lobster populations, or whale migration that impacts decisions about shrinking or expanding closed areas? What new things should be considered?

6. Updates to gear marking requirements

For example: How has gear marking impacted your business? How should gear marking change, if at all, in order to provide additional information about potential risk to whales? Should other fisheries use gear marking?

7. Data gaps that could inform how the process evaluates fishing impacts and risk to whales

For example: What were the most major problems or issues with the last round of whale rules? What should the TRT know about fishing impacts that they don’t already know? You can consider your fishing operation, the other businesses that depend on the industry, and your community.

8. Anything else you want to comment on – be specific, and think big!

If you want your voice to be heard, be specific. Talk about what you know about your business and your fishery. Tell the agency how to reduce the burden of the whale rules on your fishing operation. Describe how different measures will affect:

• Your costs, including gear, bait, fuel, etc.
• The efficiency of your operation, including prep for the season and fishing throughout the year
• The safety and health of yourself and your crew
• Your bottom line
• The cost and additional time you’ll need to change your gear, haul your traps, or change your crew
• The businesses in your community that rely on the industry
• Your community

Explain how the rules might impact your operation or your community differently depending on the season, since that can affect when a new requirement goes into place. Explain how these impacts could be reduced.

Seasonal Restrictions

Seasonal Restricted Areas are used to reduce risk where interactions between whales and fishing gear are predictable at certain times of year, or the model has determined an elevated risk during periods when whales and buoy lines are likely to occupy the same waters. Currently, there are four Seasonal Restricted Areas that impact lobster fishing in Massachusetts and Maine, including the LMA1 Seasonal Restricted Area.  

Right now, seasonal restricted areas ban the use of static buoy lines, but not on fishing. On-demand gear and other pop-up technologies are being tested to see if they could provide a reasonably safe and effective option to fish within a seasonal restricted area.

Dynamic Management

Dynamic management is a real-time approach which could be used when whales show up in actively fished areas. A rapid response plan could include measures that quickly reduce risk, such as:

• Removing one buoy line from each trawl.
• Modifying surface gear configurations.
• Temporarily closing an area to buoy lines while whales are present.

There are several options to reduce risk by decreasing the total number of buoy lines in the water. Potential measures include:

• “Trawling up” or increasing the number of traps fished on each trawl.
• Lowering the trap limit while maintaining existing trawl configurations.
• Establishing a buoy line cap that allows fishermen to choose how to configure their traps with a specified allocation of buoy lines.
• Fishing with a single buoy line or using on-demand technology on one end of a trawl.

Gear Modifications

Gear can be reconfigured or modified to increase the likelihood that a whale can break free before an entanglement injury becomes life threatening. Potential measures include:

• Weakening the buoy line by incorporating weak insertions at specified points, or fishing weak rope.
• Fishing one buoy line as a weak tag line while the other remains stronger for hauling.
• Shorting the scope or modifying the surface system gear or configurations to reduce the amount of rope in the water
• Incorporating time-tension line cutters which enable a whale to be freed from stronger ropes.

Gear Marking

Unique, trackable gear markings can help identify the source of recovered entangling gear such as the country or management area where the gear is fished, which fishery it came from, or who owns the gear. This information can improve understanding of where entanglement risk occurs and which fisheries or gear types may be involved.