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Share your thoughts: Protests and prayers

Cathy Watt broke down after learning of the new regulations that were passed including a seasonal closure for off shore lobstermen on Aug 31. “These kids did it right. The men who are offshore did it right. They work their way up. They work hard. And then someone comes and just flips it upside down on you... You’re out of a job, that’s it. You’re too high for the birds.”Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff

VINALHAVEN, Maine — When she heard the news, in the middle of her shift selling tickets at the ferry terminal, Cathy Watt broke down in tears.

The US government had just ordered the unprecedented closure of a 1,000-square-mile swath of ocean off Maine’s coast to traditional lobster fishing for four months a year, starting in October. It was a crushing consequence of climate change: Warming oceans have hastened an endangered.