ROPE BURN from page 1                             September 2007  
Proposed gear exemption line. After years of presenting comment, testimony and 35 years of historic sightings of large whales, an exemption line in the Gulf of Maine was proposed by the Department of Marine Resources. Environmentalists say it is too far from shore and fishermen say it is too close. The industry is being called upon to organize their comments on the position of the line at meetings on August 28, 29 and 30. See end of story for locations. NOAA photo
Y The MLA is organizing three industry meetings to review NMFS’ latest proposal and get feedback from the lobster industry on how the industry should respond. The comment period on the rule ends Sept. 17.

The new rules include a ban on the use of floating groundlines to be implemented in October 2008, but exempt a portion of Maine state waters from this requirement.

Since the publication of the FEIS, the industry consensus appears to be that the proposed exemption line is too close to shore, and the implementation date is too tight, said McCarron.

The final rule includes an exemption zone, which would allow nearshore fishermen to continue to use float rope.

The exemption line drawn by NMFS is not much further out than the line NMFS originally proposed. The original line basically ran from headland to headland. The new line runs from ledge to shoal to island. Just where the exemption line should be drawn is a matter of dispute. Environmentalists say it is too far from shore and fishermen say it is too close.

In the meantime, the DMR and industry are working to develop “bullet-proof evidence,” as Stockwell put it, to show that whales do not come around the nearshore area. To do this, they are putting together whale sighting data, gear interaction studies, and forage studies.

MLA’s meetings will be held:
Tuesday, Aug. 28, 6-8 p.m., at the Saco City Hall Auditorium, 300 Main St, Saco;
Wednesday, Aug. 29, 6-8pm, Rockland City Hall Council Chambers, 270 Pleasant St, Rockland;
and Thursday, Aug. 30, 6-8pm, Ellsworth High School Auditorium, 299 State St, Ellsworth.

The Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan Final Environmental Impact Statement is available at www.nero.noaa.gov/nero/
hotnews/whalesfr.

Comments may be received by the following means:
Mail: add the line: Attn: ALWTRP FEIS, Mary Colligan, Assistant Regional Administrator for Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service, Northeast Region, One Blackburn Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930.
E-mail: whalefeis.comments@
noaa.gov.
Fax: 978-281-9394.

Contact Diane Borggaard (Diane.Borggaard@noaa.gov or 978-281-9300 ext. 6503) for more information.

The MLA and DMR are working to forge a united front that would persuade NMFS to extend the implementation date and possibly lend flexibility to the exemption line.

“This rule has huge implications for everyone in Maine,” McCarron said.

The DMR continues to meet with the state’s Attorney General to discuss options, said DMR’s Terry Stockwell. The agency, he said, intends to develop a unified statewide response and resultant proactive plan, working with NOAA and Maine’s congressional delegates to move forward a realistic plan for the Northern Gulf of Maine.

Stockwell stressed the importance of the lobster industry standing together.

“We need to get cohesive comments and cohesive criticism,” Stockwell said. “If the comments are mixed and counter one another, the effect will be negative.”

“If ever there was a time to come forward to speak, this is it,” said DMR Commissioner George Lapointe. Lapointe stressed the importance of continued research to develop a workable rope.

The DMR has proposed an implementation date of June 2010. That date was based on NMFS’ initial three-year timetable for implementation.

Cutler fisherman Kristan Porter said fishing with sink rope will be impossible due to the tides and the hard, rocky, bottom, resulting in chafing, tangling, parting lines, lost gear and costly replacements. “It is time for the state of Maine to stand with the fishermen and challenge the feds on this,” Porter said. “We have tried working with this problem. The DMR has tried working within the system with NMFS on this. The DMR has been on our side, but working within the system.”

The proposed rule, Porter said, will put the industry out of business for no reason. “Among other things,” he said, “there is zero evidence that whales forage here.”

“I have fished for 55 years and have never seen a right whale,” said Corea fisherman Colby Young. “When whales fed inshore in the 1960s (before the herring were driven offshore by trawlers) we saw humpbacks. Now there are none.”

“They don’t know what they are doing,” Young said about the proposed line. “There’s no correlation what-so-ever between where the whales are and the line they have drawn.”

“I believe the environmentalists do not have a good grip on what is really happening with whales in the Gulf of Maine,” agreed Belfast fisherman and Downeast Lobstermen’s Association member Mike Dassatt. “We cannot fish without float rope. In Massachusetts, it is different, the bottom is different, and a one-size-fits-all does not and cannot work.”

Dassatt urged fishermen to get involved, and send their comments in to NMFS. “Fishermen have to get involved and it can’t be done in a gripe session,” Dassatt said.

“The regulations are killing us,” said Bass Harbor fisherman Jason Gordius. “The only ones getting screwed is us.”

The Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan is a federal fisheries management plan to reduce the risk of serious injury and or death to large whales as a result of entanglement in fishing gear. While the plan focuses on protecting the North Atlantic right whale, it also is intended to reduce entanglements of humpback and fin whales, both of which are also endangered, and to benefit non-endangered minke whales. The plan first went into effect in 1997; however, the current need for revision is due to the continuing risk of serious injury and or mortality of North Atlantic Rright Wwhales due to entanglement with fishing gear.

From 1993-2002, there were nine fatal and 22 live right whale entanglements – an estimated average of 1.2 right whales per year. For right whales, the “potential biological removal” rate, or number that can be removed per year, is zero. Peer reviewed scientific scarification evidence indicate that 61.6 percent of right whales bear evidence of entanglements and 10-28 percent are entangled each year.

In 2002, under Endangered Species Act Section 7 consultations, a Biological Opinion found that four federal fisheries (Atlantic lobster, Mid-Atlantic gillnet, NE sink gillnet and SE Atlantic shark gillnet) were likely to jeopardize the continued existence of right whales. As a result, in 2003, NMFS conducted a series of public scoping meetings to gather comments on modifying the whale plan to reduce the likelihood of jeopardy. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement was published 2/25/05.

The DMR and three Maine fishing industry members (Mike Myrick, Peter Inniss and Leroy Bridges) participate on the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team.

“The Maine representatives have consistently and unilaterally commented that most Maine lobstermen fish in areas of rocky and tidal habitat and require floating groundlines,” says information from the DMR. “These members have also maintained that the presence of large whales, and more importantly large whale forage, in the Northern Gulf of Maine is low. Consequently, DMR strongly supported the DEIS Alternative 5 which specified no prohibition of floating groundlines as well as the concept of exemptions.
  
DMR specifically requested a total exemption from gear modifications within a discrete area along the coastal waters of the state based upon 35 years of historic sightings of large whales.”

However, the DMR document continues, strong opposition from the academic/conservation community and the likelihood of additional lawsuits made it unlikely that Alternative 5 would move forward through the federal rule-making process. As a result, the DMR began the research and development of experimental low-profile groundlines in 2004.

Multiple experimental lines have been tested. The latest version has been documented to float less than one meter above the bottom. “DMR’s research indicates encouraging signs of operational viability in some areas, and DMR staff has worked with industry and rope manufacturers to produce another version with greater abrasion resistance,” the document says.

Throughout this process, the DMR protected resources program has shifted from outreach and general research to focused gear and Northern Gulf of Maine whale-related research. The agency’s near-future plans are to overlay the areas, by season, that Maine lobstermen fish with documented whale sightings and forage distribution; and then determine actual areas of risk for large whales in the Northern Gulf of Maine.

“DMR will continue to advocate for both the equal protection of lobstermen and whales,” the document says, “and intends to move forward avoiding a ‘blanket’ rule by identifying the areas of high risk for whales (such as parts of the recent Dynamic Management Areas), by identifying areas operationally suitable for low-profile groundlines, and then by working to exempt the other areas that pose little to no risk to whales.”

The final preferred alternative includes the following measures:


30 days after Final Rule is published:

• Expanded Seasonal Area Management requirements.


6 months after Final Rule is published ~ April 2008:

• Dynamic Area Management is eliminated

• Technology list eliminated; New fisheries folded in

• Weak links on all flotation devices and/or weighted devices attached to the buoy line.


12 months after Final Rule is published ~ October 2008:

• Sinking and/or neutrally buoyant groundlines required

• Expanded SAMs are eliminated.

Following the closure of the comment period, NMFS will prepare a Record of Decision that will include: the decision,; alternatives considered,; and factors considered in the decision.

The final whale rules are expected to be filed following the Record of Decision on or before October 1, 2007 and published a few days later.

The MLA and DMR urge fishermen to attend the upcoming meetings.

“We want to propose something that’s based on whale conservation but will also allow our fishermen to fish,” said McCarron. “It will be a race to get this together by Sept. 17. We need to hear from people. The industry needs to make a really strong statement on this.”

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