At the behest of environmentalists, the federal government ordered East Coast lobster harvesters from Maine to Cape Hatteras to alter their gear, lest they ensnare the endangered Northern Right Whale. The mandated equipment changes enraged lobstermen, since the costs alone could kill their industry.

Robin Alden, Maine's commissioner of marine resources, says the federal plan "is more extreme than anything ever proposed by the most extreme conservationist." Lobsterman Jack Merrill of Northeast Harbor, Maine, says that what "once seemed ludicrous is now a nightmare."

• A judge ordered Massachusetts to enforce the laws so that lobster fishermen "restrict, modify or eliminate fixed gear."

• Economists at the University of Maine estimated the equipment change would cost the state's $100 million lobster industry about $177 million in the first year alone -- even though there is little evidence the new equipment would make much of a difference.

• By the federal government's own reports, no Northern Right Whale has died in Maine waters as a result of contact with lobster gear in the past 27 years.

• The evidence even suggests that the whales shun Maine, since of the 10,000 Right Whale sightings in the past 25 years, only five have been in that state's waters.

Under political pressure, the National Marine Fisheries Service has come up with more flexible and less costly rules. However they contain threatening language to the effect that their goals will not be met "If one Right Whale suffers serious injury or mortality incidental to commercial fishing."

Source: Editorial, "Lobster Quadrille," Wall Street Journal, August 29, 1997.