American lobster industry threatening whale population

A new report is recommending that American lobster fishermen use less traps to reduce their impact on the North American right whale population, which currently numbers around 350 on the east coast. According to one of the study’s authors, the changes would reduce the number of whales who get caught in the equipment each year, without having much impact on the annual lobster catch. The fishermen (I can’t say “lobstermen,” it’s too scary) replied, “uh, you know we boil these little puppies alive, right?” OK, that’s not what they said, and they actually claim that they’d like to help the whales, but without an economic reason to change anything, it’s not likely that the whales will be getting much help from this report. Link.