Federal Judge Finds Lobster Fishery Threatens Endangered Whale

Courthouse News • April 9, 2020

Finding federal management of the American lobster fishery threatens to drive the North Atlantic right whale — one of the first animals protected by the Endangered Species Act — into extinction, a federal judge Thursday ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service to comply with the act. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said in a 20-page orderThursday a 2014 finding by the National Marine Fisheries Service the American lobster fishery would not jeopardize the North Atlantic right whale population — of which there are 400 left in the world — violated the Endangered Species Act, granting summary judgment in favor of several conservation groups.