Saving whales from the lobsters

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist Mark Baumgartner said that to help the whales survive much longer, the rope Maine lobstermen use to tend their traps must be modified or even eliminated. And it's not just for the whales' sake.

"I feel the industry is in jeopardy,” Baumgartner said.

Baumgartner was in Maine this month for the annual lobstermen's association meeting, to detail the whale's plight. If the lobster industry doesn't respond effectively, he said, the federal government will step in.

"As the population continues to decline and pressure is put on the government to do something about it, then they're going to turn to closures, because that's all they'll have," he said.

In four separate summers, the latest in 2000, scientist Mark Baumgartner and colleagues tagged 18 North Atlantic right whales and used satellite telemetry to chart their movements. What they found surprised them: the whales ranged far more widely around the Gulf of Maine than they had expected.CREDIT WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION

There were about 450 North Atlantic right whales estimated to be alive in 2016. Only five calves were born last year, while there were 17 deaths caused by rope and gear entanglement or ship strikes. Baumgartner said with no new births and another death already this year the trend-line is tipping toward the whale's effective extinction within 20 years.

But, his warnings are getting a somewhat frosty reception from Maine lobstermen.

"There was a lot of deaths on the right whales this year, but none in the Gulf of Maine," said Bob Williams, who has been hauling traps off Stonington, Maine for more than sixty years.

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