(Reuters) – U.S. commercial fishing practices must change to prevent the extinction of North Atlantic right whales, the administration of President Joe Biden said on Thursday, as it prepares a list of new regulations to prevent whale entanglements in lobster… Read More ›
Right Whales
Air Guns Threaten Right Whale Extinction
In June 2017, NOAA Fisheries published proposed whale protections for the surveys. By winter the division’s biologists saw a problem: The protections for the North Atlantic right whale were too weak and put airguns in their direct path.
The agency had proposed a seasonal ban on using airguns up to 47 kilometers (about 29 miles) from shore between November and April, when the whales were known to migrate and give birth along the mid- and south-Atlantic coast.
But peer-reviewed research led by a NOAA Fisheries analyst concluded the whales were traveling farther from shore than ever before — and directly into the path of the proposed survey activity. A draft report for the Navy reached a similar conclusion.
Right Whales in “perilous decline”
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 ›
Atlantic Ocean Seismic Exploration Concerns Conservationists
WASHINGTON — Oil and gas companies hoping to drill in the Atlantic Ocean will have to contend with a new federal proposal to declare waters off the Carolinas and Georgia as critical for endangered whales. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric… Read More ›
A Whale’s Fluke of Identity
Editor’s Note: The following post on the “Whale Savers” from the Christian Science Monitor, is posted in part. It is a lengthy article, and we encourage readers to link to the original report (The Whale Savers) The photos posted here… Read More ›
Right Whale Calving Down Again
Highly endangered North Atlantic right whales number about 500 individuals. They’re so-named because their slow-moving, shore-hugging habits and tendency to float when dead made them the “right” whale to kill. They were hunted to near extinction by the early 1900s.
Neptune 911! 