WASHINGTON – The National Marine Fisheries Service has agreed to a plan advanced by the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team designed to reduce whale entanglements and mortality, U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe announced Friday.

The agreement provides for a down payment of $150,000 to assist Maine in setting up a pilot initiative to coordinate surveillance and monitoring of right whale sightings, and provides for an immediate response by state officials with targeted closures.

“The state of Maine has advanced a dynamic approach that will target our efforts to protect the right whale in areas where we know whales have been sighted,” said Snowe, chair of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans and Fisheries. “This plan makes sense, and takes advantage of existing technology – instead of broad, seasonal closures that attempt in vain to predict where whales might congregate.”

The state’s approach would coordinate surveillance and monitoring of right whale sightings, and assist fishermen in responding to these whales. It also would be augmented by the ability of the Maine Marine Patrol to respond immediately to any entanglement.