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Conservation Headlines
2/1/2026
Innovative Technology Links Lobstermen and IFAW Conservationists in Battle to Protect Endangered North Atlantic Right Whale
CAPE COD, Mass., Feb. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Fund for Animal
Welfare (IFAW - www.ifaw.org) today announced a partnership with members of
the Massachusetts Lobsterman Association (MLA) to develop and implement new
technologies that will create a safer habitat for the highly endangered North
Atlantic right whale. Right whales are the world's most endangered large
whale species and spend a portion of their lives in Cape Cod Bay and
surrounding waters. This joint effort will develop innovative solutions to
upcoming government regulations to minimize right whale entanglement in
fishing and lobster gear.
According to IFAW Habitat Director Jared Blumenfeld, "Lobstermen and
conservation groups working together is good news for the right whales.
Together we can develop solutions that will work for the fishing community and
protect the world's most endangered whales. Together we can make a
difference."
As a first step, IFAW is distributing to lobstermen one thousand newly
developed "slip links", which provide a knot-free method of tying line between
a lobster trap and buoy. The link is calibrated to "slip" at five-hundred
pounds of pull - resulting in the buoy falling off and the knot-free line
passing through the right whale's baleen without getting caught - thus
reducing the chance of a whale becoming entangled.
The survival of the right whale rests in large part to designing and
implementing pragmatic solutions that prevent whales from getting caught in
fishing gear and from being by hit ships. IFAW is working in both these
areas. Last year, IFAW joined with the Cape Cod Lobsterman's Association in
highly successful pilot-program to remove lost, illegal and discarded gear
from Cape Cod Bay, a critical winter and spring habitat for right whales.
This project is being continued this year with over fifty derelict lobster
traps having already been removed.
There are further plans in Massachusetts to propose a replacement line to
the one currently used by the lobster fishing community in critical whale
habitats. The current buoyant line connects one pot to another on the ocean
floor, and the slack from these lines floats, creating an entanglement hazard
to right whales that dive to the bottom when feeding. The new line does not
float, making it safer for animals to travel through areas where fishing
occurs.
If the new line is approved, IFAW will begin a recycling program for the
old polypropylene line, a move that if successful would reimburse lobstermen
for their old line, while ensuring that the dangerous line is not used for
fishing elsewhere in right whale habitat.
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