A Race to Extinction: Right Whales or Maine Lobstermen?

 

By David K. Shipler 

              A significant struggle, invisible to most Americans, is occurring along the northern New England coast to save both an endangered species of whale and an endangered way of life. It is a clash of priorities, values, and even basic facts, that could leave both North Atlantic right whales and Maine lobstermen as victims. You can see the high stakes when tough men of the sea have fear in their eyes.

              New federal regulations, enacted and in the works, are being challenged by Maine officials and lobstermen as unjustified. And the private sector has now escalated the conflict with a call to boycott lobsters. Issued from the other side of the country by the Monterey Bay (California) Aquarium’s Seafood Watch, it is based on information that is far from conclusive about the danger posed to the whales by ropes used in lobstering. The move seems wildly excessive, has undermined the conservationists’ credibility, and has further polarized the players in an effort that cries out for sensible solutions.

Also, by the way, boycotting lobsters won’t save the whales.

              The problem looks clearcut on its face. The estimated number of North Atlantic right whales has declined precipitously from about 480 in 2010 to under 350 today. Their mortality rate is high, mostly because of interaction with humans: many are struck by ships, and many others are entangled in rope from both gillnets and lobster gear, which can open wounds and lead to lethal infection. The demise of females has led to a decline of newborn calves below the 50 per year needed for the population to recover. Fifteen have been born so far in 2022.

              From here, the problem gets complicated. Climate change contributes, because as the Gulf of Maine warms faster than any other part of the earth’s oceans, the whales have followed their main food source—the tiny shrimplike calanus finmarchicus—northward into Canadian waters, notably the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a shipping area where collisions are likely.

The Names of Lobster Boats

By David K. Shipler

       The men and women who go out on the water in Maine before dawn to haul lobster traps come up with some inspired names for their boats. Many call them after their children or spouses. Others have painted on their hulls the fragments of life that speak to them: the anxious hope for a good catch, the sassy wit that brushes off danger, the reverence for divine force, the flinty swagger of independence, the poetry of the sea. In sailing the coast of Maine the past few months, I collected names, and put them here into something of the rhythm of the winds and tides. (There really was an up arrow beside the final name, seen near Jordan Island in Blue Hill Bay.)

                                                Kyle Thomas, Buggin’ Out,

                                                Seanior Moment, Get It Done,

                                                Wildest Dreams, Final Round,

                                                Karma, Twilight, Sea Chimes

                                                Autumn Dawn Faith,

                                                Family Tradition,

                                                Illusion, The Gambler,

Never Enough, Learning Curve

The Politics of the Beard

By David K. Shipler

            Here’s the short version: Since I grew a beard on a whim in the summer of 1978, I have been mistaken for many kinds of people in several different countries: a KGB agent, a Maine lobsterman, a Jewish settler, a member of ISIS, and a homeless person. I was told in Kabul that if I added a turban, I could be a mullah, and a conservative in Israel suggested that I put on a yarmulke and go to the West Bank to see how a religious Jew would feel among hostile Palestinians. Each misidentification carried an interesting little lesson.

So did the beard’s absence, for when I went without it for a few months in 1995, I became unrecognizable in certain quarters. When I attended an event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where I’d worked from 1988-90, nobody greeted me; they simply didn’t know who I was. And my older son’s wedding pictures, taken during that interlude, show this mysterious fellow among the family members, like some interloper. Who is that guy? A woman I know slightly did recognize me bare-faced and quipped, “You’re in disguise!”

The Amorality of the Market

By David K. Shipler

The lobstermen on the Maine island where I spend summers stayed home yesterday. They did not leave port to haul traps in the season that is usually the busiest and most lucrative of the year. It wasn’t the weather. The windless sea was as calm as gray glass, and the patchy fog burned off soon after sunrise—not that fog ever stops these guys anyway.

The reason they left their boats on their moorings, as many of their colleagues on the Maine coast have done from time to time this summer, was the ruthless market. Their co-op told them it wouldn’t be buying yesterday, because the price has fallen to the lowest since the 2008 economic collapse—at this moment, just $2.05 a pound “at the boat,” as they say. It’s slipped below $2.00 on other parts of the coast.

The Door From Reality to Etheria

By David K. Shipler

Years ago, a simple footpath encircled the island. I believe this without being certain. Perhaps I am remembering what I merely wished had been true, but I would like to think that I used to circumnavigate this island on foot without difficulty. The trail led clearly as it does now from the little beach on the northeast corner clockwise along the eastern length, meandering through spruce woods close enough to the shore to see the sparkle of the water through the trees, then around the southern tip, slightly inland up the western side, and finally to the sweeping flat rocks on the north. Surely I walked that route with ease.