Twenty-six humpbacks, three minkes, a fin whale and a North Atlantic right whale: that is the roster behind the count of 31 whales seen entangled in fishing gear off the East Coast so far in 2026. The tally comes from the Center for Biological Diversity, which built it from federal data and released it on October 1.
Its timing is deliberate. Public comment on whether to allow ropeless fishing gear in New England waters closes on October 14.
The Center for Biological Diversity’s count
The group’s release says its figure covers only whales seen actively entangled, which means animals with scars or healed wounds but no gear attached are not in it. The count is the group’s own analysis of federal data, and the release does not name the specific federal dataset behind the 2026 total.
The same release counts 335 entanglements across the Northeast and mid-Atlantic from 2017 through 2026. It also cites NOAA Fisheries for a separate number, at least 111 right whales affected by entanglement, a total that does include whales with wounds or scars and no rope on them.
Rachel Rilee, an oceans policy specialist at the group, framed the figure as an argument for new gear. “Federal officials and the fishing industry need to stop making excuses and start embracing safer gear,” she said.
The number is not NOAA’s official tally. When the agency publishes its confirmed large-whale entanglements, it does so as an annual report, calling entanglements a continued threat to the welfare and recovery of many whale species, and the most recent one found, as SeafoodSource reported, 76 confirmed cases nationwide in 2025, down from 95 in 2024, with 78 percent of them in the Pacific.
NOAA Fisheries’ request for information
What NOAA has actually put out is a request for information, not a rule. A bulletin from NOAA Fisheries’ Greater Atlantic Region, dated July 20, asks fixed-gear and mobile-gear fishermen and others with specialized knowledge about potential voluntary use of ropeless gear, meaning on-demand gear and other fixed gear without persistent buoy lines. Comments are due by October 14, 2026, through the regulations.gov docket NOAA-NMFS-2026-2080. The agency says it will summarize the responses and share the summary publicly.
The Federal Register notice, published July 16, runs to 52 questions in ten topic areas. They include whether to authorize one-end ropeless and grappling-only gear, how to handle premature releases of on-demand gear, digital alternatives to physical gear marking, data-sharing for vessels and shoreside users, gear conflicts between fleets, training, law enforcement and data governance. Caroline Potter at the Greater Atlantic Regional Office is the named contact.
Buoy lines and the right whale
Traditional lobster and crab pots are tied to surface buoys by long vertical lines, and those lines can wrap around a whale’s flippers, mouth or tail and sometimes anchor the animal. Ropeless gear removes the standing line; the buoy is released or raised only when a fisherman is ready to haul. The Federal Register notice states that buoy lines on fixed gear can cause serious injury or death to large whales and that restricting them lowers risk for protected species, including right whales.
For right whales the stakes are population-wide. NOAA’s species page puts the population at about 380, up roughly 20 since 2020, with only about 70 reproductively active females. It says more than 85 percent of right whales have been entangled at least once, and that at least 46 have been confirmed dead or seriously injured from entanglement since 2017, a total NOAA says is likely closer to 100 because some deaths go unseen.
The same page describes the agency’s own work on the alternative: it is working with fishermen and gear makers to develop and test on-demand gear, through the New England Gear Innovation Fund, exempted fishing permits for testing in restricted waters and an On-Demand Gear Guide. NOAA has also published a proposal for functional data specifications for such gear, drawn from input by fishermen, state managers and enforcement officers.
The 2028 deadline behind the comment period
The legal clock explains the interest. According to the Federal Register notice, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023, requires NMFS to put additional whale protections in place by December 31, 2028. If fixed-gear fisheries keep exceeding legal thresholds, new or modified buoy-line restrictions may be considered, and authorized ropeless gear could let fishermen keep working in areas that would otherwise be closed to lines. NMFS had already amended the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Plan in 2021 to restrict buoy lines in high-risk areas when right whales and lines are most likely to overlap.
The Center for Biological Diversity adds a congressional wrinkle: it says the House passed a bill in May 2026 to extend that deadline to 2035, and that the measure awaits action in the Senate. Whatever the comment period produces, NOAA has said only that it will publish a summary of the responses, with 31 entangled whales, by one group’s count, already logged before the year’s end.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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