A federal judge in Washington blocked the use of gillnet fishing in key North Atlantic Right Whale feeding grounds Oct. 28, finding that federal authorities didn’t adequately weigh its adverse impacts on the endangered species.
Only an estimated 400 North American Right Whales swim in the cold waters off of the New England coastline and they are at considerable risk of entangling themselves in commercial fishing gear like gillnets, Judge James E. Boasberg said for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The species’s low numbers and the public interest in preventing its extinction justifies “beyond dispute” that ...