ASSOCIATED PRESS • September 14, 2021
Maine will continue pressuring the federal government with the message that an endangered species of whale faces numerous threats that have nothing to do with Maine’s lobster fishing industry, the head of the state’s fisheries department said Tuesday. The lobster fishing industry in Maine and the rest of the East Coast is the subject of numerous new restrictions as part of a federal push to save the North Atlantic right whale. Maine Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher said Tuesday that the rules represent a major challenge to the state’s lifeblood industry. Keliher said the industry is “looking for some level of certainty” as it contends with the new harvesting rules.