NOAA Memorandum on Whales Lays Basis for Much Stricter Regulation of Trap Fisheries
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [SeafoodNews] by John Sackton – September 27, 2018
A recent technical memorandum from NOAA on right whale recovery in 2018 could push the agency to require new limits on trap fishing technology.
In short, the memorandum says that the measures adopted to reduce the number of rope lines in the water have backfired.
Although the number of lines to individual buoys have been reduced, the remaining trawl strings have more traps and stronger rope.
The result is that whales are suffering more for entanglements than they were before the new rules were introduced.
The memorandum says that “stronger rope contributed to an increase...
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