Around New England

Environmentalist Seeks Emergency Injunction Against Vertical Lobster Trap Lines

May 8, 2018

An environmentalist is asking a federal judge to issue an order prohibiting vertical lobster trap lines while right whales are off the coast of Massachusetts.

Right whales, considered endangered, sometimes wrap themselves around the lines, which run from the trap on the bottom to a buoy floating on the surface. The whales are sometimes injured and some die, according to the lawsuit.

Richard Maximus Strahan wants the temporary restraining order in effect “until state marine fisheries officials and the Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association could show that there are no more right whales, a migratory species, in the state’s coastal waters,” according to The Cape Cod Times.

The Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries has enacted an emergency measure delaying lobstermen from setting traps in Cape Cod Bay until Wednesday, May 16, which is two weeks later than usual, according to the Cape Cod Times.