A federal appeals court has blocked proposed restrictions aimed at saving a vanishing species of whale, saying they could put thousands of commercial fishermen out of work. The fishermen harvest lobsters and crabs off New England and they are opposed to tough restrictions on the way they fish that are intended to protect the North Atlantic right whale. The whale numbers only about 340 in the world and it’s vulnerable to lethal entanglement in fishing gear. The fishermen and the state of Maine appealed their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after losing in a lower court. The appeals court said Friday it disagreed with the lower court’s ruling.
