Federal Task Force Formed To Reduce Pacific Humpback Whale Entanglements
Image by: NOAA
The National Marine Fisheries Service has announced that it will form a federal task force to curb Pacific humpback whale entanglements in fishing gear. Each year, dozens of humpbacks are entangled off the Pacific Coast, threatening their survival.
Last week’s announcement follows a 2023 legal victory by the Center for Biological Diversity, which requires the Service to establish a “take reduction team” by Oct. 31, 2025, and convene the team before Nov. 30, 2025.
“I’m thrilled that our Pacific humpbacks will finally get action to keep them a bit safer from sablefish pot gear,” said Kristen Monsell, oceans legal director at the Center. “These whales migrate hundreds of miles to feed off the West Coast, and they need to arrive in safe waters. The agency has been authorizing the fishery without any measures to ward off entanglements for far too long. I look forward to working with other team members to develop protections for humpbacks.”
The team is composed of commercial fishermen, state and federal regulators, scientists, and staff from environmental organizations. It is tasked with developing recommendations for regulatory measures. According to the court, the team’s establishment, required under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, means the Service must issue regulations within 13 months to reduce deadly humpback whale entanglements in commercial sablefish pot gear.
In a 2023 federal court opinion, U.S. District Court Judge James Donato stated that the Service “cannot indefinitely delay developing a take reduction plan while continuing to authorize permits for the incidental take of endangered and threatened humpback whales.”
According to agency estimates, the sablefish pot fishery kills or seriously injures roughly three humpback whales every two years. On average, about 25 humpback whales are entangled each year off the West Coast of the United States, and more than half of these entanglements cannot be traced to a specific fishery.
The Trump administration has narrowed the scope of the team from including other West Coast pot fisheries that entangle humpback whales to addressing only the sablefish pot fishery, which was the subject of the lawsuit. Last week, a federal court also upheld the agreement’s deadlines despite the government’s request for a pause during the shutdown.
The sablefish fishery deploys strings of 30 to 50 pots stretching up to two miles. To make pot fishing safer for whales, the Center has urged the Service to require a transition to ropeless or “pop-up” gear.
Most trap and pot fisheries use static vertical lines that can wrap around whales’ mouths, fins, or tails, entangling them, draining their energy, and often causing them to drown as they drag heavy traps and rope. Pop-up traps, by contrast, use bags or buoys attached to coiled ropes that are triggered by remote or time-release sensors, allowing the traps to float to the surface, eliminating static, entangling lines.
