They also communicate, are involved in courtships and play. This process is particularly important as phytoplankton captures about 40% of all carbon dioxide produced and generates over 50% of the atmosphere’s oxygen.
While they consume large amounts of plankton, their waste products provide nutrients that support the growth of that same plankton. Right Whales are symbiotic with the ocean. We cannot let Right Whales go the way of the passenger pigeon, dodo bird, Stellar’s sea cow and hundreds of other species because of human activities. Because females do not become sexually mature until 10 years of age and give birth to a single calf after a yearlong pregnancy, populations grow slowly.Įxtinction is forever. Northern right whales are being killed faster than they can reproduce. And future legislative efforts need to be thwarted. That’s why language trying to prohibit the rule needs to be removed from the FY2024 budget immediately. Political efforts to override NOAA’s updated rule endanger the future of these whales and undermine our nation’s bedrock wildlife protection laws. NOAA is estimating that the proposed changes may affect just under 16,000 vessels.Ĭurrently, vessels 65 feet in length or greater must travel at 10 knots or less in specific areas and during specific times of year to avoid lethal vessel strikes. Three of the four known vessel strike events that involved mothers and calves since 2020 involved vessels between 35 and 65 feet in length. These changes are necessary because the climate crisis has caused Right Whales to shift their habitat use into areas and time of year not protected by the current rule. NOAA is proposing to amend its 2008 Right Whale ship strike rule to cover broader geographic areas and the fall and winter when the whales are known to be most at risk, and to apply the rule to vessels 35 feet in length or greater. We don’t let cars speed through school zones. It is a national disgrace that some legislators will stop at nothing to exempt the fishing industry and other commercial interests from regulatory requirements like reducing speed limits. This means a six-year freeze on rules to protect whales from fish gear entanglement. The Maine delegation and fishing industry amended the FY2023 budget to defy a federal court order and prohibit NOAA from regulating lobster fishing gear.ĭemocrats Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), dubbed the “extinction Democrats,” Politicians are using the budget bill to prevent protection of one of the world’s most endangered whales. House Republican members of Congress have the gall to introduce legislation and insert language into the FY2024 budget to prohibit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) from protecting right whales by making sure more more boats slow down. Right Whales are at heightened risk for blunt force trauma and laceration injuries from hulls and propellers because they spend a lot of time at or close to the water surface, and they can be very difficult to spot due to their dark color and lack of a dorsal fin. Pleasure boats, passenger boats, tour boats and commercial fishing boats refusing to slow down are putting Right Whales on a fast track to extinction.įishing gear entanglement from lobster and Jonah crab fishers and strikes by vessels traveling too fast are killing so many North Atlantic Right Whales that about 340 remain, including fewer than 70 breeding females. It’s high time the federal government apply this mindset to the North Atlantic Right Whale.
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