Nuts and bolts

At first glance, the $100 million lawsuit filed by whale activist Richard Max Strahan against the federal and state officials responsible for fixed-gear fisheries seems like a new round in the old and tiresome death match between intractable opponents. The central issue initially seems almost cosmic: Does the survival of a species — in this particular case, the northern right whale — put on the brink of extinction by a past human activity — whaling — justify the extinction of a current human activity — lobstering?

The true situation is neither a fight to the finish between environmentalists and fishermen, nor is it a matter for philosophers. It’s a hardware issue; the development of fishing gear that does not entangle whales is a nuts-and-bolts problem that can and must be solved by engineering, experimentation, commitment and, of course, money.

Nor is it a new problem. Mr. Strahan prevailed in a virtually identical suit he brought against the state of Massachusetts in 1996. The resolution was not the demise of that state’s lobster fishery he sought, but the implementation of a plan, developed by environmentalists, regulators and fishermen, that keeps fishing gear out of migration routes during migration seasons and that will eventually lead to the deployment of gear that greatly reduces the frequency and severity of entanglements.

At the time of that resolution, the same time Mr. Strahan threatened to come to Maine to kill its fishing industry, there was a flurry of activity in the development of whale-friendly gear — breakaway connectors, knotless, neutral-buoyancy line, even the use of garage-door-opener technology for retractable buoys. The flurry waned, perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, with Mr. Strahan’s failure to follow through immediately with his threat.

Activity peaked this March when Mr. Strahan filed notice of his intent to sue and when the Conservation Law Foundation filed suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service for not moving fast enough on whale protection. The actual gear-development activity was modest, and being done by the same fishermen who always lead on conservation issues. Far more energy was expended in pointing fingers at NMFS.

Maybe NMFS hasn’t done enough, but at least it’s done something — there are new programs in place to reduce the incidence of ship strikes (the leading cause of human-inflicted whale deaths), new information gathered on migration patterns and new research on why the 300 remaining northern rights whales are failing to reproduce in significant numbers. There has been money spent on gear technology, although, in a rather stunning example of ingratitude, some fishermen criticize NMFS for frittering away some of its research budget on efforts to disentangle whales from fishermen’s gear.

In the four years since Mr. Strahan won in Massachusetts and gave Maine unofficial notice of his intentions here, there has been no substantial, or even modest, legislation or industry-wide initiative on gear research. His heated rhetoric aside, the most damaging part of the suit is a self-inflicted wound — lawmakers and fishermen long knew whale entanglement is a serious problem and did precious little about it. Even the two court filings in March, coming in the midst of a legislative session swamped in surplus, failed to produce any appropriate emergency legislation.

There still is opportunity. Lawsuits take time, Maine still can go into court with a solid, concerted and well-funded plan to develop and implement whale-friendly fishing gear. It’s only a matter of nuts and bolts; to do nothing is just nuts.