The Sept. 30 ruling came in a suit filed by Defenders of Wildlife and The Humane Society of the United States over the NMFS decision to eliminate certain provisions of the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan (ALWTRP) that allowed the agency to temporarily ban lobster and gillnet fishing gear from areas where protected whales were spotted.

These Dynamic Area Management (DAM) zones can be established on extremely short notice to fishermen. The ban can last as long as large whales remain in the zone.

NMFS made the decision to roll back the DAM zone program in conjunction with its decision to require lobstermen fishing in the Gulf of Maine to use only sinking rope for the groundlines that connect their traps together on the sea floor.

The rationale for the requirement was to reduce loops of floating ropes that may entangle feeding whales.

Initially, the sinking rope requirement was to become effective at the beginning of this month. In September, in the face of continuing pleas from the Maine lobster industry, NMFS announced that it would delay imposition of the sinking rope requirement for six months, until April 2009.

Although the agency pushed back the groundline rule, it did not reinstate the DAM zone process during the intervening period.

Last Thursday, NMFS sent a letter to the holders of lobster or gillnet fishing licenses advising them that the DAM program was being reinstated immediately for the entire Gulf of Maine north of the entrance to Marblehead Harbor in Massachusetts.

As before, most areas close to shore along the Maine coast are exempt from the DAM provisions.

The exemption does not, however, include the heavily fished areas around such offshore islands as Matinicus, Isle au Haut and Frenchboro. The exemption line also touches shore at Schoodic Point and runs extremely close to such Downeast harbors as Corea, Jonesport, Beals Island and Cutler.

Fishermen setting lobster gear offshore in a DAM zone may be required to make a number of modifications to their gear while the DAM zone is in effect. Even before next April, all groundlines must be made of sinking line. In addition, all but the bottom third of each vertical buoy line must also be made from sinking rope.

Lobstermen are also limited to using no more than two buoy lines on each trawl, or group, of traps, no matter how many. Each buoy line must also be rigged with a weak link with a maximum breaking strength of 1,500 pounds so that any whale that becomes entangled can break free.

According to most estimates, there are fewer than 350 endangered Northern right whales left in the North Atlantic. These whales reproduce slowly. Females reach sexual maturity around 8 years of age and usually bear one calf approximately ever four years. The whales regularly migrate through New England waters, northward to their summer feeding grounds, then southward to their breeding grounds off the coast of Florida.