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King_O_Walpole t1_ixi34jl wrote

Reply to comment by Bywater in Whole Foods to pause sales of Maine lobster by bostondotcom

Your opinion is bullshit.

The lobsterman are scapegoats/low hanging fruit so the government can “appear” to actually be doing something.

Where are all the new regulations on cargo/oil ships that strike and kill the most whales?

Lobstering has minimal impact on right whales, that is a proven fact.

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Bywater t1_ixi7dg5 wrote

You can find countless pictures of them swimming around covered in gear, all most all of those they track show injury's from entanglement, so your "low hanging fruit" is clearly more than just a scapegoat. The regulations to protect them from strikes is right here, but hey, don't let what is actually going on get in the way of your "Proven fact" provided by the lobster industry...

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Engineering_is_life t1_ixifprh wrote

Whenever I see a picture of a tangled up whale it's never Maine lobster gear, it's usually Canadian crab fishing gear.

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Bywater t1_ixigeup wrote

>Where are all the new regulations on cargo/oil ships that strike and kill the most whales?

I was answering the question King asked. I agree, it does look like snow crab gear, which is why I suggested a more joint approach to solve the problem. Instead the fuckwits went with "Fixed lines don't drown whales in Maine!" which is clearly some bullshit. They get bound up and either tear themselves up breaking free or end up a whalefall.

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Engineering_is_life t1_ixijqwe wrote

Then why are Maine lobstermen supposed to take the fall on this?

Maine lobstermen operate in the Gulf of Maine, not Georges Bank. Right whales migrate through Georges Bank and not the Gulf of Maine. There's little to no interaction between them.

Only the fishing gear that's present in Georges Bank is harming the whales, and it's all Canadian. Give them shit, not Mainers.

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Bywater t1_iximoyd wrote

They absolutely migrate through the Gulf, how much is still in question but back before they were hunted almost to extinction they were present.

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Engineering_is_life t1_ixiou0u wrote

That paper you linked doesn't say anything about finding right whales in the Gulf. It just says they're going to use passive acoustic sensors to listen for them. If anything it'll probably prove how rare it is.

You can look at the interactive map on whalemap.orgwhalemap.org and see just how uncommon it is for Right whales to enter the Gulf.

And why would they? It's far out of their way to come out of the Gulf of st Lawrence, loop around nova Scotia and come back up into the Gulf of Maine, then swim down and around to Nantucket sound. Georges Bank on the other hand is directly along their route. So that's where the damage is done

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Bywater t1_ixjnbk1 wrote

>That paper you linked doesn't say anything about finding right whales in the Gulf.

The literal title of the link was "Listening for Right Whales in the Gulf of Maine" so if you are not even going to question your own bullshit enough to even read the title, I will just leave you to it. Also they follow food as they migrate, not a GPS for fucks sakes.

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ServiceMX t1_ixjsgpx wrote

"Listening for Right Whales in the Gulf of Maine" is not the same as "Hearing Right Whales in the Gulf of Maine"

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eLearningChris t1_ixm6x1r wrote

I hate to be a conspiracy guy but I wonder how much of this is a distraction from the damage about to be done by the offshore wind. Now don't get me wrong I think we need offshore wind and think the environmental damage is a reasonable price to pay. But I'm frustrated by the lack of honesty with the whole situation.

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eLearningChris t1_ixm77si wrote

And Maine lobster gear needs to be marked with identification that can trace it back to the lobster boat. So if there were ever a whale that was killed by Maine lobster gear they would be able to ID the boat in question. This is why when anyone says they have evidence I tend to want to ask for the identification details on the recovered gear.

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