Maine residents are outraged that a programme called Seafood Watch, which warns customers to stay away from lobster, may damage or perhaps kill endangered right whales, according to their claims.
The program’s operator, the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, released their most recent guidelines on what to eat on Tuesday, saying that American lobster should be avoided because the lines from the traps used to collect them might entangle the right whales, harming or killing them.
The September 6 study states that owing to population decline, threats to the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, and inadequate controls to mitigate these risks, “Seafood Watch advises to AVOID American lobster collected by trap from the Southern New England stock.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that there are just 350 right whales left in the world and fewer than 100 breeding females.
Since 2017, entanglements have been linked to 9 fatalities and 20 severe injuries, according to NOAA Fisheries. Over the last five years, ship strikes or unidentified reasons have been the main causes of whale fatalities.
For the last six years, Seafood Watch has graded the sustainability of seafood with the goal of halting overfishing, extinction, and other detrimental effects on the ocean.
The tend to recommend diners eat farmed seafood and avoid fish caught wild.
The designation met with immediate backlash from Maine public officials and industry groups.
The decision made by Seafood Watch today to “Red List” Maine lobster is illogical and defies logic.
Independent Maine State Senator Angus King said on Tuesday that the Maine lobster sector, one of the state’s most significant economic generators and a source of pride, has long been devoted to ecologically responsible, sustainable fishing.
There is no doubt that this judgement will have a real-world effect; thousands of families and companies across our state will suffer as a result of the charges given the difficulties the sector currently faces. I’m hoping that the many people who appreciate lobster throughout the globe will see through this absurd decision, continue to support the well-known sector, and join me in calling on Seafood Watch to reverse this careless action and remove lobster off the purported “Red List.”
According to a court in Washington, D.C., “the biggest human-caused harm comes from entanglement in fishing gear,” and she concluded in July that federal officials had not done enough to aid the endangered species.
The Maine Lobster Industry retaliated, claiming that the court and Seafood Watch were out of touch with the recent changes to lobster trapping.
In its reaction to the designation, the organisation said that “the evaluation utilises obsolete data, fails to account for the many precautions lobstermen have taken to protect whales, and gets some fundamental facts incorrect.”
According to the group, “80% of rope recovered from right whales between 2010 and 2018 is not consistent with the rope used in the Maine lobster fishery most frequently (greater than 1/2″ rope recovered from right whales, the fishery uses smaller than 1/2″).”
According to the lobster industry, it has also eliminated floating rope that could entangle the leviathans and replaced it with breakaway lines, or “weak links,” which will further prevent harm.
Jason Mann, a filmmaker from New England, emphasised that the whales are at much greater risk from the shipping industry.
He wrote on Twitter, “It seems like BS to me until they start blacklisting the cargo ships and the tankers that actually hit whales.”
Steve Train, a fisherman, urged the aquarium’s programme to double-check its information.
He claimed on Twitter that the nation’s lobster fisheries were among the best run and most sustainable. “The Maine lobster fishery has NEVER been responsible for the death of a right whale.” This NGO’s publicity stunt could harm whale harvesters while doing nothing to help whales, and it is an overreaction!
According to WMTW news, Whole Foods and Red Lobster use the “red-listing” to determine which seafood to sell.
Train informed the station that “there are definitely industrial buyers for restaurants and retail who follow these lists and I don’t think they understand that we’re being mislabeled.” “We are resilient.”
According to a 2017 Colby College study, the lobster business supports more than 5,500 jobs and gives Maine’s economy a $1 billion boost.
The crustacean was harvested in 2016 in quantities totaling 130 million pounds, with an estimated retail value of more than $547 million.
Fred Terry, co-owner of the Lobster Roll in Southhampton, New York, said, “It isn’t well-researched.”
“A right whale could break the line of any lobster trap in Maine and swim straight through.”