MAINE COALITION FOR NORTH ATLANTIC RIGHT WHALES

• Entanglements occur when rope or mesh from fishing gear become wrapped around a whale’s body. Entangling lines can cause injuries that leave scars behind – these appear bright white against a whale’s black skin.
• Researchers at the New England Aquarium analyzed thousands of photographs of 833 individual North Atlantic right whales alive since 1980 and detected 1,938 entanglement events. In other words, 726/833 or > 87% of North Atlantic right whales have been entangled at least once.  Many individuals get entangled multiple times in their life – some as many as nine times.
• Most of these 833 whales shed the entangling gear on their own; in 92% of the 1,938 identified entanglement events, the gear was never recovered and could be studied or linked to a particular fishery. This means that entanglements happen often, but it is rare to document a whale with attached gear that can be identified.
• Since 2017, an Unusual Mortality Event (UME) has been declared for North Atlantic right whales. The UME is due to human impacts, and 170 whales (44% of the population) have been affected.  Entanglement in fishing gear is the most common threat to North Atlantic right whales.
• Even if entanglement doesn’t kill a whale outright, it can cause injury and chronic stress that impacts growth, development, and reproductive success. These impacts prevent recovery and drive the population closer to extinction.
• Some entanglements kill whales quickly through drowning, others last for months and cause a slow and painful death. Entanglement is an unintentional brutality that should not be tolerated for any animal.

• Through increased survey and passive acoustic monitoring efforts, right whales have been detected every month of the year in waters where Maine lobstermen fish.
• A persistent aggregation of > 90 right whales was seen off Maine in January 2025.
• Traps used in Maine's lobster fishery sit on the seafloor are retrieved with buoy/end lines, ropes that hang vertically in the water column. Whales can become accidentally entangled in these ropes in areas where whales and fishing gear overlap.

There are several ways that fishermen can modify how they fish to protect whales from entanglement.

• State-specific gear marking allows entangling gear to be identified back to a particular fishery. This knowledge helps inform targeted regulations in the future.  Since 2020/2022, rope from Maine needs purple/purple & green marks depending on how far offshore it is set.  Gear marking regulations could be improved to make gear identification more successful.
• Modern manufactured ropes used in commercial fishing are incredibly strong. Weak inserts are currently required in lobster gear buoy lines.  However, fully transitioning to weak rope ( < 1,700 lb breaking strength) could help many whales break free of entangling lines so that they shed gear on their own.
• Ropeless or on-demand gear keeps vertical buoy lines out of the water column until the gear is ready to be hauled, which minimizes the overlap of whales and rope. On-demand gear could be used in right whale habitat areas to prevent entanglement.  It could also be used in closed areas (like the Oct 1-Jan 31 LMA1 Restricted Area), so that fishermen can keep fishing even when whales are present.
• Maine DMR is working with lobstermen to test this gear across a range of bottom types and oceanographic conditions. Collaboration with the industry is key to put the smartest solutions in place.
• We advocate that the transition to alternative fishing gear needs to be supported by government subsidies and grants – such that fishermen do not bear the cost.