Dive Deeper

We know a few things. We know that right whale entanglement in Maine gear is extremely rare. We know there have been a few cases where right whales have been found with Maine-marked gear on them. We know that there has been one documented right whale death in Maine gear, a juvenile right whale that was found in 2024.

The majority of entanglements can’t be traced to a specific location. Whales travel long distances, and recovered gear is often broken, missing, or too degraded to identify. We often can’t tell where a whale got entangled, but that doesn’t mean there is no risk.

Researchers have not observed a right whale becoming entangled in fishing gear. Based on observed entanglements, researchers believe that when a right whale swims through areas where rope is in the water column, lines can get caught in the whale’s mouth, or wrapped around the flippers, or tail. A single line can cause serious injury or death over time. That’s why regulations focus so heavily on reducing the number and strength of buoy lines in the water.

The risk-reduction target is based on the difference between estimated deaths from U.S. fisheries and the Potential Biological Removal, or PBR, for right whales. PBR is a threshold established under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). It represents the maximum number of right whales that may be removed from the population each year while still allowing the population to recover.

Because the right whale population is so small, its PBR is currently less than one whale per year. During the last round of whale rules, NMFS used a PBR of 0.7 and estimated that U.S. fisheries were responsible for more than six deaths or serious injuries annually. NMFS concluded that an approximately 90 percent reduction in U.S. fishery-related risk was needed to bring the estimated level down to 0.7.

That leaves very little margin for additional deaths or serious injuries. It is also why the birth of 23 calves during the 2026 calving season was welcome news.

Federal risk models estimate entanglement risk based on how much rope is in the water, the strength of that rope, where and when it is fished, and when right whales are likely to be present. The model evaluates the total risk from the fishery as a whole, not on individual boats or specific incidents. 

Maine lobster industry advocates argued that the federal model over-stated the risk posed by Maine’s lobster fishery. In the absence of sufficient Maine-specific information, the model relied on assumptions about right whale presence and fishing activity in state and federal waters off Maine. Since 2023, Maine DMR has been collecting Maine-specific data to improve how both right whale presence in the Gulf of Maine and the lobster fishery are represented in federal risk models. Congress funded this work as part of the six-year pause that prevented the previously proposed rule from taking effect.

We’ve all made a lot of changes to how we fish. Gear modifications already in place include: weak links and weak rope (designed to break under pressure), sinking groundline between traps (to remove rope from the water column), trawling up (more traps per trawl, fewer buoy lines in the water), seasonal closures (remove rope from high risk areas), and Maine-specific gear marking.

These changes do reduce risk and there has been a slow increase in the right whale populations since 2022. But here’s the challenge: Federal risk thresholds are based on the right whale population size, which is still extremely small. Even with lower risk there may still be more risk than the law allows. That’s why this hasn’t gone away.