This time last year, the National Marine Fisheries Service had Maine lobstermen in a stranglehold with ruinous proposed rules to protect endangered whales. After subjecting the industry to unnecessary anguish for months, NMFS finally listened to Maine and produced a plan whales and fishermen could live with.

Now, the feds and the locals are squaring off again, with overfishing the concern. NMFS proposes a variety of measures, including a drastic cut in the number of traps allowed in federal waters and the creation of a 10-mile buffer zone offshore where traps are banned but draggers allowed.

NMFS has used this approach of curtailing fishing in one specific sector before and it inevitably fails. It merely shifts the pressure elsewhere. It causes a lot of pain with no discernable gain.

Maine fishermen have a better idea. Rather than pack more fishermen into a smaller area, rather than give destructive draggers their own private turf to demolish, NMFS should focus upon protecting the brood stock, the egg-bearing female lobsters.

That’s what Maine has done through its state regulations and that’s why Maine has the biggest, strongest and healthiest lobster industry in the nation and in the world. Maximum and minimum size gauges, zoned management, a moderate trap cap, gear designed to protect young lobsters, limited entry based upon completion of an apprenticeship, and — here’s the key — a complete, total ban on dragging for lobsters and on landing dragged lobsters on Maine docks.

Dragging, as Mainers are fond of saying, is much like raking leaves with a bulldozer. Actually, it’s much worse. Undersize and egg-bearing lobsters that should be thrown back often are too damaged to survive. The heavy drag gear destroys habitat that only decades can restore. Dragging is an indiscriminate and wasteful practice that has no place in lobstering.

A few years ago, the job of managing the lobster fishery in eastern seaboard federal waters was turned over to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, a congressionally chartered confederation of states. This winter, ASMFC adopted a plan based upon Maine’s strong conservation measures. NMFS has rejected that plan, saying it fails to spell out what other measures would be taken if it fails to rebuild egg production.

But Maine’s conservation measures have a long record of boosting egg production. For years, Maine lobstermen have said they have never seen so many juvenile lobsters, so many eggers. Unfortunately, their standing invitation to take NMFS out for a look-see has gone unaccepted. Rejecting a plan that works because it does not specify what would be done if it doesn’t work simply makes no sense.

The worthwhile goal of protecting whales from fishing gear near turned into a debacle because NMFS initially treated fishermen as enemies instead of allies. As a result, fishermen, their families and their communities spent the better part of a year in needless worry.

That must not happen again. NMFS is charged with preserving marine resources. When the resource is lobster, Maine lobstermen have the expertise to do it. NMFS should listen to the experts.