The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against a lobster fishers groups who wanted the court to block new fishing restrictions in the Gulf of Maine designed to protect endangered whales. Justice Stephen Breyer, who oversees emergency applications over issues before the 1st Circuit, on Dec. 3 rejected the appeal by the Maine Lobstering Union and two lobster fishing companies without comment. The new restriction bans the use of lobster traps—vertical buoy ropes—each winter from October to January in federal waters of the Gulf of Maine covering an area of about 950-square-miles. NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency overseeing national marine resources, announced the ban on Aug. 31 in efforts to protect North Atlantic right whales—one of the planet’s most endangered species—because they are at risk of dying from being entangled in the ropes. The estimated number of whales stood at 366 in 2019, and was thought to have dropped to 336 in 2020, a …