The endangered North Atlantic right whale population took a big hit last year, with a record number killed by fishing gear entanglements and ship strikes. That’s giving new urgency to an ongoing debate over threats posed by Maine's lobster industry.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientist Mark Baumgartner says that to help the whales survive much longer, the rope Maine lobstermen use to tend their traps must be modified or even eliminated. And it's not just for the whales' sake.

"I feel the industry is in jeopardy,” Baumgartner says.

He was in Maine this month for the annual lobstermen's association meeting, to detail the whale's plight. If the lobster industry doesn't respond effectively, he says, the federal government will step in.

“As the population continues to decline and pressure is put on the government to do something about it, then they're going to turn to closures, because that's all they'll have," Baumgartner says.

There were about 450 North Atlantic right whales estimated to be alive in 2016. Only five calves were born last year, while there were 17 deaths caused by rope and gear entanglement or ship strikes.

Baumgartner says with no new births and another death already this year the trend-line is tipping toward the whale's effective extinction within 20 years.

The head of a North Atlantic right whale peers up from the water as another whale passes behind in Cape Cod Bay near Provincetown, Mass. in 2008. (Stephan Savoia/AP)

His warnings are getting a somewhat frosty reception from Maine lobstermen such as Bob Williams, who’s been hauling traps off Stonington for more than 60 years.

"There was a lot of deaths on the right whales this year, but none in the Gulf of Maine," Williams says, reflecting a complaint heard from many Maine lobstermen.

None of the dead whales were found near Maine's coast. But three were found off Cape Cod (which is part of the Gulf of Maine), where Baumgartner uses passive recording devices to help track their movements.

Massachusetts' already-diminished lobster fishery in recent years has been closed during the height of right whale migrations.

Williams says the industry in Maine has stepped up too, adopting expensive gear required by regulators. Now scientists are proposing new modifications, such as weaker ropes or even rope-less technology that relies on radio signals to locate traps. But Williams says those are likely unworkable off Maine.

"Because we have heavy tides and all that and the farther east you go down towards eastern Maine, the extreme tides down there," he says.

Many fingers in Maine are pointing the blame at Canada.

"Canada needs to step up," says Patrick Kelliher, the commissioner of Maine's Department of Marine Resources.

Kelliher says that while the Gulf of Maine is a known part of the whales' territory, their paths lie mostly far off Maine's coast. Meanwhile, he says, Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence has suddenly become a killing ground.

"With what's going on in the Gulf of St. Lawrence right now with the Canadian crab fishery, that's where most of that gear is,” Kelliher says. “If you looked at the diameter of that rope, that's not Maine fishing gear; [it] could be offshore lobster gear but a lot of it is known to be Canadian."

In an unusual new circumstance, most of the whales found dead last year turned up in Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence, rather then U.S. waters.

Scientist conjecture that the whales could be ranging more widely, following the ebb and flow of their traditional food sources, or looking for new ones. Their staple is a tiny crustacean called Calanus finmarchicus, whose abundance changes with the currents and the climate.

Scientist Mark Baumgartner and colleagues tagged 18 North Atlantic right whales and used satellite telemetry to chart their movements. What they found surprised them: The whales ranged far more widely around the Gulf of Maine than they had expected. (Courtesy Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

"The reason whales died last year is because they were utilizing relatively new habitats, where there's no protective legislation in place, " says Erin Meyer-Gutbrod, a marine scientist at the University of California Santa Barbara. "They're facing waters that aren't protected by vessel speed reductions, fishing gear regulations, seasonal fishery closures, they don't have any of those protections because we didn't realize they were going to be there."

Earlier this year the Canadian government did impose new requirements that would be familiar to U.S. lobstermen, like strictures on floating rope and mandatory reporting of lost gear. And late last month Canada Department of Fisheries and Oceans biologist Matthew Harding floated a new idea to skeptical fishermen in New Brunswick's growing snow crab industry.

He told a CBC reporter that the government could shut down a large swathe of the fishery when whales might be present, or it could take more dynamic action — smaller temporary closures that could be could be more mobile and more tailored and specific to certain areas.

Similar strategies are being explored in the U.S. But there may not be much time. Last month the New England-based Conservation Law Foundation filed a federal lawsuit against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for violating the Endangered Species Act. CLF says the feds are failing to regulate Maine's lobster fishery in a way that protects the whale from extinction.

CLF lawyer Emily Green says it's a vital issue for the organization's members.

"The majesty of this incredible species that they've been able to experience. Those are moments the these people really treasure,” Green says. “They would experience it as a personal loss, if they knew that was something they could never experience again because in their lifetime their own government had failed to protect the preservation of the species."

Stakeholders in both countries are working to prop up the struggling species without sinking the lobster and crab industries.

But the question now is whether legal action could hasten new fishery closures, and whether that would do enough to save the whales.

This story comes via the New England News Collaborative and was first published by Maine Public.