Northeast

Here's how activists use lobstermen as bait to endanger Maine industry, communities

Published

2 years ago

February 24, 2024

Here's how activists use lobstermen as bait to endanger Maine industry, communities

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Far left activists are exploiting the recent death of an endangered whale to imperil the future of Maine’s iconic lobster fishery.

An endangered right whale recently washed ashore on Martha’s Vineyard entangled with Maine lobstering gear. It’s the first documented right whale fatality associated with our fishery, but so-called environmentalists are seizing the moment to call for consumer boycotts and new regulations that threaten the maritime communities that depend on Maine lobster.

Fishermen are the real stewards of the ocean. But cubicle environmentalists are scapegoating us for whale deaths and demanding that regulators retaliate against us owing to the recent entanglement.

Maine lobstermen haul in their latest catch off the state’s coast. (Maine Lobstermens Association/Marketing Collaborative)

These organizations have poor command of the facts and no knowledge of our industry. Their agitating imperils our fishery and the working communities that depend on it.

LOBSTER FISHERMEN CLAW AT ‘UNCONSTITUTIONAL’ BOAT TRACKING MANDATE

Organizations like the National Resources Defense Council, the Conservation Law Foundation and others are exploiting this event to pressure regulators to impose new rules. These organizations are restless and can claim some success. A self-styled watchdog called Seafood Watch convinced Whole Foods to stop stocking Maine lobster products late in 2022.

Critically, regulators acknowledge that data respecting right whale entanglements and Maine’s lobster fishery are uncertain at best. A biological opinion from National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) on right whale interactions with our fishery forthrightly acknowledged this point – and that many regulations binding our industry are based on guesswork.

“Data are limited, so we are often forced to make assumptions to overcome the limits in [sic] our knowledge,” the opinion reads.

MAINE GROUP SUES CALIFORNIA AQUARIUM FOR TELLING CUSTOMERS TO AVOID BUYING LOBSTER

This is no surprise. Many whale deaths go undetected. Even when whale deaths are identified, it is often impossible to assign a cause of death owing to decomposition.

When entanglements are documented, they can seldom be traced to particular countries or even particular types of gear. And in those rare instances when a right whale entanglement can be traced, the numbers show Canadian fishermen are disproportionately responsible.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit cited all of these facts when it blocked a regulatory plan for Maine’s lobster fishery in 2023.

Given the uncertainties in the data, as well as the steps lobstermen undertake to protect whales, you would think the environmental NGOs would make more modest claims. But they are so hostile toward fishermen, and so wide of the facts, that many of NEFSA’s members are suspicious of their true motives.

GREEN GROUPS TARGETING BLUE-COLLAR LOBSTERMEN ARE LARGELY FUNDED BY DARK MONEY

These groups know little about the data and even less about lobstering. The industry-side solutions they suggest show the staggering distance between brahmin “environmentalists” and working people.

For example, the Conservation Law Foundation has long touted the benefits of ropeless traps, a catchall term for several kinds of technology.

While ropeless trap technology may one day be safe and commercially viable, as of this writing, I do not know a single lobsterman who could afford to make the transition.

Ropeless traps also have an unacceptably high rate of failure. I am confident in asserting that the overwhelming majority of Maine lobstermen oppose any such transition as a simple matter of dollars and cents.

MAINE LOBSTERMAN HEARS MYSTERIOUS CRIES FROM THE WATER THAT LEAD TO MIRACLE RESCUE

A ropeless trap regime will drive most lobstermen out of the fishery, clearing the water for a corporate takeover. I don’t know if these so-called environmentalists favor corporatizing the lobster fishery, but that is the future they will get.

These entities have no connection to our coastal communities – unless perhaps they own vacation houses up here – and it shows.

For our part, lobstermen have removed over 25,000 miles of line from the water. All of our gear is marked, ensuring any entanglement is attributable to our fishery. And we deploy weaker rope with weak link devices to head-off entanglements.

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Because of these measures, entanglements are rare. Right whale #5120 is just the second documented entanglement associated with our fishery since 2004, and the first fatality.

Maine’s lobster fishery is a model of sustainability. Our data-driven, preservation-minded practices have created an environmental and economic miracle. Wild lobster stocks are healthy and robust, while the lobster supply chain generates $1 billion for the state’s economy and supports thousands of jobs. We know what we’re doing.

Dustin Delano is COO of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association (NEFSA) and a fourth-generation lobsterman.

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Maine

NECEC conservation plan will not protect Maine’s mature forests | Opinion

Published

33 minutes ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

NECEC conservation plan will not protect Maine’s mature forests | Opinion

Robert Bryan is a licensed forester from Harpswell and author or co-author of numerous publications on managing forests for wildlife. Paul Larrivee is a licensed forester from New Gloucester who manages both private and public lands, and a former Maine Forest Service forester.

In November 2025, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) approved a conservation plan and forest management plan as mitigation for impacts from the NECEC transmission corridor that runs from the Quebec border 53 miles to central Maine.

As professional foresters, we were astonished by the lack of scientific credibility in the definition of “mature forest habitat” that was approved by DEP, and the business-as-usual commercial forestry proposed for over 80% of the conservation area.

The DEP’s approval requires NECEC to establish and protect 50,000 acres to be managed for mature-forest wildlife species and wildlife travel corridors along riparian areas and between mature forest habitats. The conservation plan will establish an area adjacent to the new transmission corridor to be protected under a conservation easement held by the state. Under this plan, 50% of the area will be managed as mature forest habitat.

Under the forest management plan, a typical even-aged stand will qualify as “mature forest habitat” once 50 feet tall, which is only about 50 years old. These stands will lack large trees that provide wildlife denning and nesting sites, multiple vegetation layers that mature-forest birds use for nesting and feeding habitats and large decaying trees and downed logs that provide habitat for insects, fungi and small mammals, which in turn benefit larger predators.

Another major concern is that contrary to the earlier DEP order, the final approval allows standard sustainable forestry operations on the 84% of the forest located outside the stream buffers and special habitats. These stands may be harvested as soon as they achieve the “mature forest habitat” definition, as long as 50% of the conserved land is maintained as “mature.”

After the mature forest goal is reached, clearcutting or other heavy harvesting could occur on thousands of acres every 10 years. Because the landowner — Weyerhaeuser — owns several hundred thousand acres in the vicinity, any reductions in harvesting within the conservation area can simply be offset by cutting more heavily nearby. As a result, the net
mature-forest benefit of the conservation area will be close to zero.

Third, because some mature stands will be cut before the 50% mature forest goal is reached, it will take 40 years — longer than necessary — to reach the goal.

In the near future the Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) will consider an appeal from environmental organizations of the plan approval. To ensure that ecologically mature forest develops in a manner that meets the intent of the DEP/BEP orders, several things need to change.

First and most important, to ensure that characteristics of mature forest habitat have time to develop it is critical that the definition include clear requirements for the minimum number of large-diameter (hence more mature) trees, adjusted by forest type. At least half the stocking of an area of mature forest habitat should be in trees at least 10 inches in diameter, and at least 20% of stands beyond the riparian buffers should have half the stocking in trees greater than or equal to 16 inches in diameter.

Current research as well as guidelines for defining ecologically mature forests, such as those in Maine Audubon’s Forestry for Maine Birds, should be followed.

Second, limits should be placed on the size and distribution of clearcut or “shelterwood” harvest patches so that even-aged harvests are similar in size to those created by typical natural forest disturbance patterns. These changes will help ensure that the mature-forest block and connectivity requirements of the orders are met.

Third, because the forest impacts have already occurred, no cutting should be allowed in the few stands that meet or exceed the DEP-approved definition — which needs to be revised as described above — until the 50% or greater mature-forest goal is reached.

If allowed to stand, the definitions and management described in the forest management plan would set a terrible precedent for conserving mature forests in Maine. The BEP should uphold the appeal and establish standards for truly mature forest habitat.

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Massachusetts

Foul play suspected after human remains found in water in Shirley

Published

51 minutes ago

March 5, 2026

Press Room

Foul play suspected after human remains found in water in Shirley

Human remains were discovered Wednesday in the water in Shirley, Massachusetts, and authorities suspect foul play.

Police in Shirley said in a social media post at 7:15 p.m. that they responded to “a suspicious object in the water near the Maritime Veterans Memorial Bridge on Shaker Road.” Massachusetts State Police later said the object was believed to be human remains.

The bridge crosses Catacoonamug Brook near Phoenix Pond.

The office of Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said a group of young people was walking in the area around 5:30 p.m. and “reported seeing what appeared to be something consistent with a body part in the water.”

Foul play is suspected, Ryan’s office said.

Authorities will continue investigating overnight into Thursday, and an increased police presence is expected in the area.

No further information was immediately available.

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