The Maine Lobstermen’s Association has issued a statement this morning on US District Court’s Judge James E. Boasberg’s stinging rejection of the Association’s lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued yesterday.  The statement from the Association is as follows:

“The federal district court and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) have failed Maine’s lobster industry.  It has become crystal clear that neither grasp the devastating impacts their decisions will have on the Maine lobster industry, our coastal communities and the State of Maine.  The court’s decision provides a blank check for NMFS to continue to use admitted “worst case scenarios” and disregard actual data in its regulation of a fishery that has zero documented right whale entanglements over the last 18 years.  This disappointding decision puts the future of Maine’s lobstering heritage at great risk and along with it, the livelihoods of thousands of hard-working men and women.  But this is not the end.  We won’t go down without a fight,” according to a press release issued by Kevin Kelly, Director of Advancement for the Association.

Please see the previous post for a statement on the Judge’s decision by Governor Janet T. Mills (D).