Court Order Sought to Protect Whales From Ship Collisions

Hunted nearly to extinction by the early 20th century, the North Atlantic right whale has yet to recover to healthy populations despite the protections of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Of the thousands that once swam the waters of the North Atlantic, only around 300 of these large whales remain, according to the International Whaling Commission. Human activities cause at least 50 percent of all right whale mortalities, and ship strikes are the leading human cause of right whale injuries and death.

Defenders of Wildlife, The Humane Society of the United States, and Ocean Conservancy filed the lawsuit, which seeks to have the Fisheries Service either complete the rulemaking process it began in 2006 or implement speed restrictions on an interim basis until the rulemaking is complete.

North Atlantic right whale with calf in Florida waters (Photo courtesy Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission / NOAA)

The legal action in federal court comes two years after the Fisheries Service proposed regulations needed to ensure the continued survival of the right whale and a year after the agency promised to finalize those regulations.

"We have been forced by the Bush administration's inaction to once again return to court in order to gain protections for a species that hangs on the brink of extinction," said Andrew Hawley, staff attorney for Defenders of Wildlife. "Our litigation is necessary because this administration is more willing to listen to the shipping industry than it is to listen to its own scientists."

Jonathan Lovvorn, vice president of animal protection litigation for The Humane Society, said, "Right whales are literally being run into the ground by the commercial shipping industry."

"They can't afford to wait for any more broken promises," he said.

It has been seven years since the Fisheries Service acknowledged that "the loss of even a single individual may contribute to the extinction of the species," and four years since the agency announced its intention to slow and reroute ships in right whale habitat.

Since then, at least 10 right whales have been reported dead, and the proposed rule remains stalled on the desk of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

In order to reduce the threat of ship strikes, scientists have determined that the Fisheries Service must set vessel speed limits at 10 knots within right whale habitat, when whales are present. The Fisheries Services has agreed with these determinations.

"It is clear that the Bush administration has no intention of moving forward with a ship strike rule, a rule firmly rooted in science to keep imperiled whale populations from going extinct," said Vicki Cornish, vice president of marine wildlife conservation at Ocean Conservancy.

"We have been waiting for well over a year for the Office of Management and Budget to act, but now it's time to work past the obstacles and follow the law to protect endangered species like the North Atlantic right whale," she said.

The North Atlantic right whale is found in the waters off the entire East coast. Their habitat is crisscrossed by busy shipping lanes, and these waters are traversed by thousands of ships that make hundreds of thousands of port calls in the United States annually.

As a result, while several factors, including the species' feeding, resting and socializing behaviors appear to make right whales particularly vulnerable to ship strikes, the high density of shipping traffic in right whale habitat increases the risk.

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