This is Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Jason Goldman.There's a lot of cash crawling on the seafloor.American lobsters bring in more money than any other U.S. fishery―a record $670 million in 2016, mostly through Maine and Massachusetts.The fishery relies on traditional lobster harvest techniques:a series of traps are dropped to the ocean floor with a long rope attached to a floating buoy."During peak fishing season, there's over 900,000 vertical lines right in the middle of right whale habitat."Graduate student Hannah Myers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.Those vertical lines entangle and kill endangered sea turtles and multiple whale species―including the North Atlantic right whales.Only about 400 individuals remain.And recent analyses show that the species won't survive if humans kill an average of just one whale each year.Some estimates indicate that lobstering gear kills more than three whales each year on average."Management problems surrounding the North Atlantic right whale and entanglements are pretty significant and have been really challenging to move forward.And a large part of that is due to expected negative economic impacts on the lobster fishery."But right whale protections don't have to mean lobster losses.Canada's lobster harvest operates with fewer traps and a shorter, six-month-long season.
