Colossal numbers of plastic bottles and bags float around the earth, and their severe impact on marine life has been extensively documented. But there’s another, lesser-known killer plastic lurking in our oceans. Every year, more than 136,000 whales, dolphins and… Read More ›
The commercial Dungeness crab fishery will open north of Sonoma County on Monday after several delays needed to allow the crustaceans to mature before the harvest begins. The northern season, which usually starts Dec. 1, is opening two months after… Read More ›
By Adam Wagner GateHouse Media Posted Nov 24, 2017 at 10:33 AMUpdated Nov 24, 2017 at 10:33 AM One of the world’s most endangered animals used to be routinely seen off the NC coast. Not anymore. WILMINGTON — After years of steady improvement, one of the Atlantic ocean’s most at-risk… Read More ›
“The Trump administration has declared war on whales, dolphins and turtles off the coast of California,” Todd Steiner, director of the California-based Turtle Island Restoration Network, told the LA Times.
“The situation is completely out of control,” says Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho, a cetacean expert at the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change in Ensenada, Mexico, and member of the International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita, an international advisory group to the Mexican government. “Of course, there’s a risk in capturing the vaquitas. But it’s clear now that they will be killed [in gillnets] anyway.”
Entanglements have surpassed ship strikes as a leading danger to right whales in recent years. Forty-four percent of diagnosed right whale deaths were due to ship strikes and 35 percent were due to entanglements from 1970 to 2009, the study said. From 2010 to 2015, 15 percent of diagnosed deaths were due to ship strikes and 85 percent were due to entanglements, it said.
Crab fishermen have taken the lead on this issue and many are already taking part in a limited basis pilot project that was initiated two years ago. Approximately 1,500 lost crab pots have been collected in that program. SB 1287 will build upon the successful pilot project by advancing a statewide solution to the growing problem.
