December 1, 2014 — Under a court-sanctioned settlement, federal biologists say they will shape a new critical habitat proposal for North Atlantic right whales by early 2016.
Each year most of the 500 North Atlantic right whales remaining on Earth migrate from their feeding and breeding grounds off the U.S. Northeast to their nursery areas off the Southeast.
Conservation advocates want to see critical habitat for the whales expanded from about 4,000 square miles to more than 50,000 square miles to help protect the marine mammals from ship strikes, oil drilling and commercial fishing.
“If these whales are going to survive in the long run, we need to protect the most important waters where they live, eat and raise their young,” said Sarah Uhlemann, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Every year these endangered whales have to navigate a virtual obstacle course of threats on their migration along the coast — an ocean dense with fishing nets and lines, crisscrossed by speeding vessels and increasingly roaring with underwater noise.”