Federal Judge Restores Ban on Fishing Net That Entangles Whale Species

WASHINGTON (CN) – Environmentalists hoping to save the North Atlantic right whale won a case in federal court in Washington, D.C., Monday, banning walls of fishing net that entangle the species, which has been on the brink of extinction since the 1970s.

Only 400 North Atlantic right whales – and 100 breeding females of the species – remain on the planet today.

The decision by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg speared changes made by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) earlier this year to rules governing New England’s fisheries.

Boasberg ruled the government’s decision in April to allow gillnet fishing gear in two of the whale’s feeding grounds violated the Endangered Species Act, and he restored a ban on the apparatus.

“Between the hardship to the North Atlantic right whale of its fast approaching extinction and the hardship to NMFS of completing its legislatively mandated consultation to ensure that Congress’s priorities as to endangered species are carried out, there can be no confusion,” Boasberg wrote in his ruling in favor of the Conservation Law Foundation.

The whale, which grows to be as long as 52 feet and weighs as much as 70 tons, has been listed under the Endangered Species Act since the law’s passage in 1973 — a longstanding protection Boasberg made note of in his 36-page opinion.

https://www.courthousenews.com/federal-judge-restores-ban-on-fishing-net-that-entangles-whale-species/