A federal map shows that about 62,000 square miles of ocean off the Northeast coast are seasonally off-limits to traditional lobster fishing. The cause is straightforward and excruciating: for decades, North Atlantic right whales have been silently strangled by the vertical ropes that connect surface buoys to seafloor traps. Over 85% of the species have entanglement-related scars. When a line is first wrapped around their bodies, some whales manage to survive. Before they pass away from their injuries, others drag hundreds of pounds of equipment through the water for months.
Aerial survey crews captured a young female right whale (catalog number 5132) entangled in fishing gear off the coast of North Carolina in late 2024. She was three years old. According to records, the rope had been around her tail for about half of her life. The picture is hard to look at. It’s the kind of thing that makes you want a quicker response than conservation policies usually provide.
In fact, there might be. The static vertical rope is completely eliminated by on-demand fishing gear, also known as ropeless or pop-up gear. Fishermen use an acoustic signal from their boat to a release mechanism on the ocean floor rather than hanging a rope in the water column for days. Depending on the system, a buoyant spool of rope, a pop-up buoy, or an inflatable lift bag will rise to the surface when activated. Similar acoustic systems have been recovering scientific instruments from the seafloor for fifty years, so the technology itself is not new. It is perplexing that adoption has progressed so slowly given that its application to commercial fishing has been discussed for nearly as long.
Through its Northeast Gear Lending Library, NOAA Fisheries has been steadily gaining traction. For eligible fishermen, the library currently has over 750 individual units and more than ten distinct on-demand systems. The model is useful: a fisherman learns how to use the system, borrows the equipment, fishes in waters that would otherwise be prohibited, and shares operational data in exchange. With a similar mindset, Maine established its own Innovative Gear Library in 2023 to collect practical input on which systems withstand the erratic conditions that the Gulf of Maine frequently produces.
Field trial results have been more positive than skeptics had anticipated. In Northeast trials, fishermen have successfully recovered their gear over 90% of the time. This figure surprised some conservationists who had been concerned that the technology wasn’t ready for widespread commercial use. For their part, fishermen were concerned that if the equipment performed too well, authorities might require it everywhere. Since then, NOAA has made it clear that this won’t occur; rather than replacing all conventional gear, the goal is to provide fishermen with a tool to access restricted areas. The tension that had developed throughout the entire conversation seemed to subside after that clarification.
Whether voluntary adoption will proceed quickly enough to be significant is still up in the air. Calving rates of right whales are decreasing. Chronic entanglement stress appears to be directly affecting reproduction, resulting in weaker mothers and fewer births, which is why the species is becoming physically smaller over generations. Researchers who have studied this population for decades feel that, despite advancements in intervention tools, the window for significant intervention is getting smaller.
The gap between what’s technically feasible and what’s actually happening on the water makes it difficult to watch this unfold without feeling a little impatient. The equipment functions. It is being used by fishermen in trials. There are libraries, training programs, and restricted areas. The broader cultural shift in fisheries, where on-demand gear ceases to feel like a conservation concession and begins to feel like standard equipment, appears to be lacking.
In this tale, the fishing villages along the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts are not antagonists. No one sets a trap with the intention of capturing a whale. Fishermen lose money and equipment as a result of entanglements, and the ensuing widespread closures deprive entire communities of their means of subsistence. If widely implemented, on-demand systems would allow those fishermen to reenter areas that have been closed to preserve a species that both parties say they wish to preserve. It may be the best place to start because there is a genuine shared interest.
