WASHINGTON— NOAA Fisheries announced today that fishing gear found entangling a dead North Atlantic right whale that washed ashore on Martha’s Vineyard in late January is linked to the state of Maine.

Preliminary results confirmed that the juvenile female suffered from a chronic entanglement from rope tightly embedded in the animal’s tail. Experts found no signs of blunt force trauma and will continue to conduct tests to determine the cause of death. The agency concluded that the fishing gear found on the whale is consistent with trap/pot buoy lines used in Maine’s state waters.

“This poor whale’s plight is heartbreaking proof that Maine fishing gear is putting North Atlantic right whales and other marine animals at risk, despite the industry’s longstanding denials,” said Ben Grundy, oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “I’m infuriated that efforts to stop these magnificent animals from going extinct have become so politicized, undermining solutions like pop-up gear and commonsense ship speed limits.”

Members of Maine’s congressional delegation and industry stakeholders have repeatedly stated that strengthened regulations to protect right whales are misguided.

Scientists at the New England Aquarium reviewed several images of the deceased right whale and identified her as a juvenile born in 2021. The whale’s entanglement was first observed in August 2022 by a Canadian aerial team. Prior to her death, the whale’s last sighting was in June 2023 by Northeast Fisheries Science Center aerial observers, who noted a decline in her overall condition.

This whale’s death marks the second likely human-caused serious injury or mortality of a North Atlantic right whale this year. In early January, one of only nine right whale calves born this calving season was struck and seriously injured by a vessel and is not expected to survive. Scientists have estimated that just one human-caused death per year threatens the species’ recovery.

Entanglements in fishing gear and vessel strikes are two leading causes of mortality and serious injury of North Atlantic right whales.

In December 2022 Sen. Chuck Schumer and then-Sen. Patrick Leahy inserted an unprecedented right whale policy rider into the Senate omnibus funding budget. The measure, championed by Sen. Susan Collins and Maine’s congressional delegation, gives the U.S. lobster fishery a six-year exemption from necessary actions to prevent fishing gear from entangling and killing critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Prior to the 2022 rider, a federal court ruled in a long-running case that NOAA Fisheries had failed to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales from deadly entanglements in American lobster fishing gear.