Saving the Right Whale – Animal Protection League of New Jersey

HelpRightWhalesNow.com

With two clicks, you can make your voice heard:

Click here to send an email to your U.S. senator and representative in Washington, D.C.: Ask each to support the Rescue Whales Act (HR1213) which will repeal Senator Susan Collins’ (R-ME) prohibition on emergency fishing gear rules until 2028. Tell your Senator to oppose Senator Joe Manchin’s attack on the right whale (S1833).

Click here to contact NOAA: Ask NMFS to finalize the 10-knot vessel speed rule delayed by fishing and recreational boating interests. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/endangered-species-conservation/reducing-vessel-strikes-north-atlantic-right-whales

The North Atlantic right whale needs immediate results. New Jersey’s Congressional delegation must act.

“NOAA: Right whale closer to extinction than previously thought.” “Since 2017, there have been 36 dead right whales, 33 seriously injured and 45 sub-lethally injured or ill, as reported by NOAA Fisheries. ‘The species is approaching extinction with fewer than 350 individuals remaining and fewer than 70 reproductively active females remaining,’” the report reads. (July 21, 2023) (link):

Photo credit FWC, NOAA Fisheries permit #18786 This North Atlantic right whale calf was 1 month old when it was found dead on the beach of Anastasia State Park on Feb. 13, 2021.

The North Atlantic right whale will be functionally extinct by 2035.
In Congress and administratively, the U.S. has allowed business interests to stymie the emergency rules needed to prevent extinction.
Update: once again, politicians are using the federal budget bill to prevent protection for the world’s most endangered whale.
As people risk their lives at sea to disentangle right whales from fishing gear, the Maine Congressional delegation, the lobster industry, and recreational boating interests block life-saving, emergency regulations, courtesy of the U.S. Congress.
We must fight lobbying with lobbying.

Time is the one thing the North Atlantic right whale does not have. There are 340, or fewer, alive today, down from 481 in 2011. Deaths exceed births. With only 70 breeding females left, the right whale will be functionally extinct by 2035.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently said the right whale is “closer to extinction than previously thought.” Since 2017, there have been 36 dead right whales, 33 seriously injured and 45 sub-lethally injured or ill.

NOAA report s that the greatest risk of vessel strikes occurs in the mid-Atlantic and southern New England, particularly during colder months of the year when the majority of right whales are in U.S. waters.

That’s us: protecting the right whale falls squarely on New Jersey’s members of Congress and its citizens. NOAA also identifies “smaller boats”—35-feet and above—as part of the problem.

Through federal legislation (S.1833, despicably named the “Protecting Whales, Human Safety, and Economy Act of 2023,” drafted, said sponsor Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), on behalf of the “sportsmen” lobby run by firearms, boating, and fishing equipment manufacturers); budget mark-ups, and pressure on NOAA, self-interests are working to run out the clock.

They seek to prohibit NOAA from finalizing critical vessel strike rules to prevent extinction of the world’s most endangered whale.

The goal is business as usual by tying up government, in which case, the whale is lost. Unspeakable? Yes, and so far, successful.

The leading causes of right whale deaths are entanglement in line/rope fishing gear used for lobster and Jonah crab and vessel strikes in U.S. and Canadian waters.

At Maine’s behest, Congress has already prohibited rules addressing entanglement in lobster fishing gear. In 2022, the Maine delegation led by Susan Collins (R) slipped a rider onto the 2023 budget bill that prevents NOAA from issuing stricter lobster gear rules until 2028, when Maine will try to block it again. Key Democrats were complicit: Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) inserted the language in the budget for political reasons.

Now, anti-wildlife forces are busy blocking NOAA from issuing its proposed vessel strike regulation. The rule, already delayed for one year, would extend the existing, seasonal 10-knot speed limit to boats 35 feet and above, and extend mandatory seasonal protection zones.

House Republicans have inserted language in the FY2024 budget* to prohibit NOAA from issuing a rule that modifies or replaces the North Atlantic right whale vessel strike reduction regulation until technological solutions recently authorized by Congress can help better track whales and avoid strikes. This mirrors the aforementioned Manchin bill.

The hitch: NOAA cannot do so because the technology does not exist and is nowhere near the full deployment stage. For a whale in a real time extinction crisis, the delay is a death sentence. The provision has been marked up in the Commerce-Justice-Science Committee and has yet to be voted on. Judging from Schumer’s past actions, can we count on the Democrats to stop it? Especially with Manchin sponsoring the bad bill?

Meanwhile, New Jersey Congressman Jeff Van Drew (R-2) last seen publicly decrying wind power and whale strandings, recently attempted to amend the FY 24 National Defense Authorization Act to slow down the vessel speed rule process and make it more difficult for the government to use technology to protect marine mammals. The committee rejected the amendment. Opponents of the vessel speed rule say technology should be the solution and at the same time try to subvert investment and use in those same technological aids.

Senator Cory Booker has represented public concern and championed the North Atlantic right whale.

Congressman Donald Payne has signed on as a cosponsor of the RESCUE Whales Act.

Other New Jersey Democrats are “keeping an eye” on developments as Maine and trade associations mark-up budgets and push amendments. A few are making the hands-off choice that voters know allows industry to run out the clock on this whale.

Animal Protection League of New Jersey and our sister organization, the League of Humane Voters-NJ, conducts public outreach every weekend at local venues, educating the public on major animal welfare and environmental issues. Our team reports widespread public concern about what is happening to whales. This public concern makes marine boating and recreational fishing manufacturers ability to hold up vital protections even more of a travesty.

The maze of regulations and stealthy budget amendments protect hypocritical anti-whale forces and craven politicians. The North Atlantic right whale needs daylight and lawmakers with spines, or it’s gone. “Saving the whales,” in real terms, means results – laws, rules, and regulations – now, not next year or the year after that, let alone the six-year delay allowed by Congress. This whale does not have the time. Stand with Senator Booker.

Again, with two clicks, you can make your voice heard:

See the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) North Atlantic right whale updates page here: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/endangered-species-conservation/north-atlantic-right-whale-updates

Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch red-listed Canadian and U.S. lobster because the rope/line fisheries posed a “dire threat” to the endangered North Atlantic right whale. The lobster industry responded with a misinformation campaign and a lawsuit. See Seafood Watch’s rebuttal here.