An international nonprofit that sets sustainability standards for commercial fisheries management has suspended a certification it awarded Maine’s lobster industry over concerns about harm to whales.
Representatives of the London-based Marine Stewardship Council said Wednesday that the suspension of the Gulf of Maine lobster fishing certificate will take effect Dec. 15. The organization said in a statement that the danger facing right whales in the North Atlantic due to entanglement. in fishing gear is a “serious and tragic situation” of “great concern for all those involved in the fishing sector”.
MSC’s decision to withdraw its certification from the U.S. lobster fishery marks the second time a sustainability organization has downgraded the industry’s status this year. Seafood Watch, based at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, said in a report late this summer that it has added the American and Canadian lobster fishery to its “red list” of species to avoid concerns about risks to whales.
Some retailers pulled lobster from their inventory after Seafood Watch’s decision, and the industry could face further repercussions from MSC’s move. MSC runs the world’s largest seafood certification program and its logo, a blue and white fish, features prominently on many seafood counters.
An external evaluator that monitors fisheries’ compliance with MSC standards conducted an audit of the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery in September and found the fishing industry to be out of compliance, MSC said in a statement. The auditor found the fishery out of compliance because of a federal court ruling that said rules governing the industry do not comply with the Endangered Species Act or the Maine Mammal Protection Act , the organization said.
“To meet the requirements of the MSC Fisheries Standard, fisheries must comply with all relevant laws,” the MSC statement said.
There are about 340 right whales and their population is declining. They are vulnerable to entanglement with fishing gear and collisions with large vessels.
The whales give birth in Florida and Georgia and come as far north as New England and Canadian waters to feed. Once abundant, they were decimated during the era of commercial whaling generations ago. More recently, warming oceans have emerged as a threat to the species, as scientists have said it has led the animals to move away from protected areas in search of food.
The U.S. lobster fishery is based primarily in New England and is one of the nation’s most lucrative fishing industries, valued at more than $700 million off Maine docks alone last year. The Maine Lobster Association believes the decertification of MSC is the “direct result of the federal government’s overreach and misuse of science to overestimate the risk to Maine’s lobster fishery,” MLA Executive Director Patrice McCarron said Wednesday.
The lobster fishing group has an active lawsuit against the federal government over lobster fishing regulations.
The MLA “is working to hold the federal government accountable through our lawsuit and force it to revise its plan so that it truly protects whales without ruining Maine’s historic lobster fishery and inflicting unnecessary economic harm on our state and thousands of working families”. McCarron said.
Whales are also a major focus of conservation organizations. Some US fisheries, including the lobster industry, “are operating in seasonal hotspots where North Atlantic right whales are known to occur, and using excessive gear, which creates an unacceptable risk and illegal entanglement,” said Gib Brogan, a fisheries campaign manager at the non-profit conservation organization Oceana.