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respaaaaaj t1_ixi8w2g wrote

That's fucking idiotic. There has never been a Maine lobstering related whale death.

This is just window dressing, taking it out on a small part of the market, a luxury good in most of the world, instead of targeting large scale fishing and transportation that actually is killing whales.

And celebrating this because some lobstermen are Republicans is literally the kind of elitist bullshit that people like Trump and LePage cash in on to play grievance politics when they can't get votes on issues.

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Bywater t1_ixieel7 wrote

>That's fucking idiotic.

Look out before that moment of critical thought catches up to you. You do know what happens when a whale dies of entanglement right? It drowns and gets dragged down to the bottom. Lobsterman know this, scientists know this, most people with half a clue know this. The talking point that "there has never been a Maine related death" is so fucking stupid that only the worst of us repeat it. The only time you get entanglement kills washing up is when infection from the horrific line wounds kills them, the rest of them just end up as whalefalls on the bottom somewhere feeding crabs. They track it by how many of those they study are entangled or show wounds from it (80%) and how many go missing every year.

Fixed line traps kill wales, arguing against that in this day and age? Ya, good luck with that Bub.

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respaaaaaj t1_ixim6yc wrote

There is lots of evidence that Maine lobstermen, unlike Canadian ones, have adopted safer gear in large part because Maine has stricter regulations on it than Canada or other US states (looking at you Massholes). This is punishing Mainers for Massholes and Canadians recklessness

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West_Ad_8279 t1_ixlif9r wrote

savemainelobstermen.org here is a site that’ll help straighten out some of your facts

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Bywater t1_ixmhj7s wrote

> savemainelobstermen.org

Because they clearly would have no bias...

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FreedomXFromme t1_ixilzwo wrote

Can you prove that?

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respaaaaaj t1_ixinabu wrote

There's no evidence of a Maine lobster trap ever killing a whale, and the most recent evidence of one injuring a whale is more than a decade ago. Canadian (and for that matter other states with weaker regulations on traps) traps on the other hand there is plenty of evidence of injured and dead whales. You're right of course, you can't prove a negative, but when there isn't evidence of Maine lobster traps harming whales but there is evidence of other states and countries traps doing it, the solution isn't to assume Maine is just as bad as the others and getting lucky, but to look at what Maine is doing that they aren't.

Maine has far stronger whale safety regulations than other states and especially fucking Canada, which are widely if not universally observed, because even if lobstermen don't give a shit about whales, they want the industry to be sustainable.

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eLearningChris t1_ixjxdzu wrote

Yes. Right whales are all tracked. And the council admits their concern is a “potential” risk to the whales. They are also advocating a 10 mile per hour limit on all boats in East Coast waters.

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West_Ad_8279 t1_ixliggx wrote

Right whales are not tracked

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eLearningChris t1_ixm4f2y wrote

http://rwcatalog.neaq.org/#/

Did not mean that they all have radio trackers on them. They are closely monitored as an endangered species. With all of this they have still never actually found a single right whale that has been killed by Maine lobster gear. The actual danger these days is a combination of pollution and ship strikes from larger ships that often go 30+ knots when offshore and actually are tracked via AIS. It will be interesting to see what happens when the 10-knot speed limit eventually passes for most of the US East Coast out to 10 miles.

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