The lobster fishing industry in Maine caught more than 100 million pounds of the crustaceans in 2021 valued at more than $725 million.The lobster fishing industry in Maine caught more than 100 million pounds of the crustaceans in 2021 valued at more than $725 million.PORTLAND, Maine — Lobsterman Curt Brown had already logged a full day on the water by the time he pulled up to a fishing wharf just blocks from downtown Portland restaurants bustling with lunchtime diners.
For Maine's 5,000 licensed commercial lobstermen, it meant a reprieve from rules that they warned could destroy their industry – and decimate coastal communities – by forcing them off the water in some areas for months at a time and eliminating the vertical lines of rope connecting a string of traps on the bottom to a buoy on the surface. Those lines can become wrapped around whales' fins or lodged in their mouths.
The migratory whales' territory stretches the entire Atlantic coastline, from their calving grounds along the Florida and Georgia coast to their foraging grounds off of New England and the Canada. "In the 25 years that I've been privileged to represent Maine in the United States Senate, I have never seen a worse case of regulatory overreach to address a problem and blame an industry that is not at all responsible for a problem," said Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican.
‘Conservation’ groups are ignoring the fact that not one right whale has been injured by Maine lobstermen in several decades, though Canada has had several. When naive conservationists are anti-labor, capitalism goes somewhere else and still does what it wants.
We have known whales are killed regularly by ships. Anybody propose halting sea shipping?
Maine lobsterman are some of the best stewards of the seas. Some have been doing that job for generations! They take care of the oceans.