"The nation’s highest bench today [Friday] rejected lobstering groups’ call to unwind fishing restrictions designed to protect endangered whales off the coast of Maine.
In an emergency application docketed Tuesday, the Maine Lobstering Union called on the Supreme Court to reverse a decision by a federal appeals court that preserved a NOAA Fisheries prohibition on the use of vertical buoy ropes in nearly 1,000 square miles of federal waters each winter.
Justice Stephen Breyer today rejected the request without comment.
The federal restrictions were designed as a safeguard for North Atlantic right whales, which can become entangled in the ropes. Scientists estimate that only about 400 of the whales remain.
Attorneys for the lobster fishermen said the prohibition unfairly burdens the industry."
