Show Up Ready.

lobsterman in door frame
This fall, the Take Reduction Team (TRT) is going to sit down and discuss ideas for how the fishery moves forward while meeting risk reduction targets. Some will be familiar. Some will be new. All of them could affect how we fish, where we fish, and the cost of doing business.

Look: We don’t have to agree with any of these ideas. But we should know what they are—and have something constructive to say about why they may or may not work. That’s how we can show up and actually make our voices heard. Get the facts, participate in relevant meetings, and contact your representatives on the TRT.

Seasonal Restrictions

Seasonal restrictions can be used in areas where interactions between whales and fishing gear are predictable at certain times of year. These include seasonal buoy line closures such as the LMA1 Seasonal Restricted Area. A closure of this kind targets areas of elevated risk during periods when whales and buoy lines are likely to occupy the same waters.

A buoy line closure is a ban on 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 closure.

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.

Changes to trawl configurations can 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
  • Incorporating time-tension line cutters.

Gear Marking

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

Monitoring and Reporting

When the pause went into effect, Congress also provided funds to improve our understanding of where and when right whales and fishing gear overlap. The goal was to ensure that future measures could be directed more precisely to areas of actual risk.

DMR, NMFS, and other organizations monitor right whale locations through visual surveys from planes and boats, acoustic listening stations, and sampling that tracks where and when whale prey is concentrated. Vessel tracking and logbook reporting provide corresponding information on where, when, and how much gear is being fished.

Together, these data provide a clearer picture of whale presence and gear density, helping managers identify higher-risk areas and develop more targeted measures rather than relying on broad-scale restrictions.

Show Up Ready

These conversations are going to happen. The question is whether the people who know this fishery best are in the room when they do—and whether we come prepared.

Contact Us with your questions, your ideas, and to learn more about when and where to show up. info@ourfishingfuture.com