Deadline Sought on Overdue Protections for North Atlantic Right Whales

Filed in 2021, the case challenges the federal government’s unreasonable delay in protecting these critically endangered whales.

Only around 360 North Atlantic right whales survive today. The population is declining faster than birth rates can keep up because of vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglements throughout their U.S. and Canadian habitats.

Since the groups filed suit in January 2021, vessel strikes in the United States have killed a first-time mother and her calf and an adult male. A more recent strike seriously injured a newborn calf, who was spotted in early January with devastating head and face wounds from a boat propeller and is unlikely to survive.

In November pregnant right whales begin their annual migration from northern feeding grounds to their only known calving grounds in the warm, shallow waters off the southeastern U.S., between North Carolina and Florida. Mother-calf pairs spend a great deal of time at or near the water’s surface, making them particularly vulnerable to vessel strikes. For the past two years, the Biden administration has denied petitions by conservation groups calling for an emergency rule expanding protections for mothers and calves in the calving grounds.

A 2008 vessel speed rule is the only protection right whales have from vessel strikes in U.S. waters. The rule applies only to vessels 65 feet and longer, requiring a speed limit of 10 nautical miles per hour in times and places right whales were considered most at risk in 2008. Since then, right whales have shifted their habitat in a changing climate, and new data shows that vessels between 35 and 65 feet long have struck and killed right whales. NOAA Fisheries has repeatedly stated that a vessel speed rule expansion is necessary to safeguard right whales from extinction.

In 2012 and 2020 the conservation groups petitioned the federal government to expand the 2008 rule. When the government failed to respond to those petitions, the groups filed suit in 2021. NOAA Fisheries published a proposal to expand the 2008 regulation in August 2022, but the rule has yet to be finalized.

In August 2022 conservation groups reached an agreement with the federal government to put the case on hold after NOAA Fisheries released its proposed rule. This new action by conservation groups was prompted by an ongoing delay, coupled with the recent vessel strike on the calf in the southeastern calving grounds, which NOAA Fisheries found was likely caused by a vessel between 35 and 57 feet long.

If finalized, the proposed speed rule would apply to any vessel 35 feet in length or longer and would update seasonal speed zones to match right whale distribution. It would also require vessels to comply with temporary dynamic speed zones triggered by visual or acoustic right whale detections.