WASHINGTON – Citing recent weather conditions that could put fishermen at risk, the National Marine Fisheries Service has extended the Jan. 22 deadline for required gear changes in Maine’s lobster and gill-net fisheries.

The new deadline for gear modifications to protect the endangered Atlantic right whale is Feb. 21, according to a Jan. 19 notice in the Federal Register.

The National Marine Fisheries Service announced the extension in a press release Friday, saying that the decision is not expected to adversely affect the whales because available data indicate the animals are now congregated in Cape Cod Bay.

Rough weather in January has made it impossible for some Gulf of Maine fishermen to come into compliance with the new regulations, the service said.

U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, the chair of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans and Fisheries, said she was very pleased with the extension and felt the previous schedule was “overly aggressive.”

“In order to properly secure the new gear, fishermen need to remove their gloves – and doing so under a tight deadline in these unpredictable winter months could have severely threatened the safety of fishermen in the Gulf of Maine – at a time when most right whales are elsewhere,” Snowe said in a prepared statement.

Snowe and others members of Maine’s congressional delegation have pushed for an extension since the National Marine Fisheries Service announced the deadline in the Dec. 21 edition of the Federal Register.