ENVIRONMENT MAINE • February 28, 2023
In the final weeks of 2022, Congress enacted a must-pass spending bill that threatens the survival of the endangered North Atlantic right whale. On Monday February 27, Representative Raúl Grijalva (AZ) introduced the RESCUE Whales Act to fix damaging language in that legislation. With fewer than 340 of these whales alive and deaths outweighing births, we need to do more. Scientists say the species can tolerate fewer than one death a year, yet we are in the midst of what NOAA calls an ongoing “unusual mortality event.” The leading cause of death and serious injury is fishing gear entanglements. The problematic amendment that was thrown into the spending bill paused the need for further protections by undercutting a 2022 court ruling. In so doing, it undermined two bedrock species laws, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.