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Bill McWeeny is the chair of the Maine Coalition for North Atlantic Right Whales and lives in Brooksville. He began studying North Atlantic right whales in 1983 with the New England Aquarium’s Right Whale Research Field Team in Lubec. He is still a volunteer scientist for the team.
In December 2022, at the urging of the Maine delegation, a rider was inserted into the Consolidated Appropriations Act in Congress that halted new North Atlantic right whale entanglement-related federal regulations for the lobster industry until January 2028. With 2028 approaching, Rep. Jared Golden recently supported a bill ( H.R. 8509) that would extend the pause through 2035. I believe this bill is in bad faith, as it both ignores the facts and side steps the Endangered Species and Marine Mammal Protection Acts.
Since the pause began, a juvenile right whale was found dead in Maine lobster gear. The entanglement was unintentional but deadly entanglements are preventable. A persistent aggregation of more than 90 right whales were seen off southern Maine, near Jeffreys Ledge in January 2025. Lobstermen fishing in Zones G and F were caught off guard and had to quickly mobilize in a voluntary effort to remove some of their buoy lines to lessen the risk of entangling a whale.
Also during the pause, the Maine Department of Marine Resources received funding as part of the 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act to conduct aerial and shipboard surveys, to place an expansive array of acoustic recorders throughout the Gulf of Maine, to carry out ecosystem modeling, and to support a dedicated team to work with fishermen to test alternative on-demand gear. This work has provided insights of when and where right whales are found along the Maine coast.
Right whales are being detected in Maine waters throughout the year. Acoustic detections show that right whales use waters off Maine most heavily in fall and winter, and are most abundant in offshore federal waters. The Maine DMR Passive Acoustic Monitoring webpage has monthly maps of this data. Right whales were detected along the Maine coast in 21 of the 24 months that have been analyzed so far.
It is inaccurate to characterize the current available science about these animals as outdated, so I believe there is no need for a further pause. The current data and subsequent data collected over the next two years will suffice for further reasonable regulations to be adopted in 2028.
Before the pause, regulations to protect right whales (and by proxy, all other large whale species that are often accidentally entangled in Maine every year) come about through a deliberative and collaborative process via the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team. Members of this team include lobstermen and other fishers, scientists and conservationists, managers, and industry representatives. The team hears science updates and fishery perspectives, and is led to compromise and consensus through independent mediation.
What might compromise and consensus look like? It does not look to me like mandated ropeless fishing gear for everyone. Not even close! Conservationists, managers, even NOAA Fisheries are not suggesting this.
Instead, compromise and consensus looks to me like lobstermen continuing to harvest their catch, but with targeted regulations that lead to reductions in whale entanglement risk in the areas right whales use the most. This might mean seasonal and area-specific closed areas, most likely in federal waters. Because right whales are most abundant in offshore waters during the fall and winter, these closures would impact a small proportion of the fleet.
Affected lobstermen could have the option to use on-demand gear if they want to continue fishing within a closed area like lobstermen are already doing in Massachusetts, Canada and California. I think on-demand gear should be fully subsidized for those who choose to use it, at no cost to the lobstermen. For the majority of the fleet, those fishing in state and more coastal, inshore federal waters, the current regulations incorporating weak inserts to help whales break free and avoid a serious entanglement could be sufficient protection for the whales that swim into these areas.
The Consolidated Appropriations Act has allowed the Maine DMR to conduct robust scientific research that I believe will be adequate to move on with further risk reduction measures in 2028. I believe Golden is proposing an unnecessary bill.