As climate change alters our oceans, North Atlantic right whales and other endangered animals are being pushed into fisheries where old-fashioned gear takes a devastating toll. In 2018 alone, more than 100 large whales were reported entangled in fishing gear in the United States — probably only a fraction of the actual number, since most entanglements go unobserved.
Ropeless gear is the only way to prevent entanglements while allowing fishing to continue. It’s been tested and used in the United States, Canada, and Australia, and the National Marine Fisheries Service calls it “game changing.”
But change is happening too slowly, so we need a federal push to convert to ropeless gear. That will protect both right whales and lobstermen’s ability to make a living in a changing ocean.
Catherine Kilduff
Senior attorney
Center for Biological Diversity
Oakland, Calif.
Protecting whales is worthy goal, but well-being of working people should be our priority
Re “The lobster trap” (Page A1, Dec. 12): What has become of our country when the well-being of whales takes precedence over the well-being of working people? How many so-called environmentalists have ever spent more than an hour or two on the ocean, have ever held a job that requires manual labor or is paid by the hour?
Protecting whales is a worthy goal, but why must the burden be put on those who harvest lobsters for a living? Replacing a line and float that costs only a few dollars with a possibly unreliable high-tech gadget that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars would be a substantial burden to the small operator.
If the nation believes that entanglement of whales in lobstering gear is a problem that needs solving, then all of us, through our taxes, should bear the cost. The alternative is to alienate working people from their own government and enable demagogues like Donald Trump.
Barry Needalman
Framingham
Global warming is the overarching threat
Global warming giveth lobstering wealth, and global warming will taketh it. Regardless of what right whale regulations turn out to be, the future of Maine’s lobster industry (and ski industry, for that matter) is in jeopardy because of global warming. Far from protecting their livelihood for future generations, opposing wind farms will only hasten their industry’s decline.
The good folks in Maine are not the only ones working against their own livelihood, but for the sake of Johnny McCarthy’s 9-year-old son and his generation, we all need to make changes to reduce carbon emissions as fast as possible.
Robert Banta
Andover
Lobstermen’s choices are few
The phrase “move, adapt, or die” is a very brief summary of the theory of evolution, when applied to a niche ecology. I believe it applies to both the lobsters in the Gulf of Maine and to the lobstering industry of Vinalhaven, Maine.
The lobsters came en masse to the Gulf within the last couple of decades, and it appears that they will be gone in a few decades, moving north, because of warming ocean temperatures.
I believe the Vinalhaven fishery will end, as catches become smaller over time. To move is not a solution, the lobstermen say. That leaves adapt or perish as a way of life as their only choices.
To adapt by suing the government will not succeed. The government cannot order the lobsters to remain where they are.
I feel compassion for the lobstermen, faced with monumental changes. But my compassion does not change their choices, which are limited to three.
Bill Torcaso
Cambridge
In warming world, we are all essentially the lobster in a boiling pot
Re “Protests and prayers”: Thank you to The Boston Globe and the Portland Press Herald, in partnership, for this excellent series on the effects of climate change on the lobster industry. The industry’s struggles are a microcosm of what our planet is facing now and in the coming years.
Since we seem to be the proverbial lobster in the boiling pot, can we see what is happening and then act quickly and decisively enough to avert the worst effects of a warming planet? It will be a challenge, particularly when many of our politicians and our populace refuse to acknowledge what we can see and feel every day.
Prayers won’t be enough, except perhaps to give us the strength to act to protect our only home, planet Earth.
Edwin Andrews
Malden
Series brings the impact of climate change home
Your series about the impact of climate change on the lobstering community of Vinalhaven, Maine, was one of the best articles I have read in the Globe over my 30 years as a subscriber. The writing and accompanying photographs put a human spin on the impact of climate change on this small community, providing many different viewpoints in a wonderfully told tale of the struggles people face in a quickly warming world.
It would be great to see more articles like this one that are so well-researched and well-presented and that make the reader connect with climate change through storytelling. I hope to see a follow-up to this article in a year to learn more about decisions this community makes in order to survive.
Susan Erickson
Maynard
The creaking sounds of nature changing, and the lives within it
I want to note two vastly different articles about the same state, both excellent.
Durin Chappe’s musings on a Maine seaside hike with his mother (“Looking for cranberries — and finding meaning — at the water’s edge,” Ideas, Dec. 12) is a quiet, and yet forceful, reminder of the soul-enriching experience of immersing oneself in the natural world. While I live in a much more developed place, I, too, am reminded of the pre-Colonial-era Native Americans who used to roam this area, especially when I spy ducks on the water in winter.
Meanwhile, Jenna Russell and Penelope Overton’s series about Vinalhaven brings us into a world facing changes both climatic and cultural. We are brought up close to those whose lives — not unlike those of coal miners — affect the rest of us tangentially, whether through our daily assumption of the availability of energy or our casual consumption of a lobster roll. We need to be reminded of these lives.
Pamela Kirkpatrick
Swansea
