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Nearly 40,000 square miles of protection granted for last 500 Right Whales

Nearly 40,000 square miles of protection granted for last 500 Right Whales

WASHINGTON— In response to the efforts of conservation and wildlife protection groups, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) today protected 39,414 square miles of ocean as critical habitat for North Atlantic right whales. Only about 500 of the critically endangered whales exist today, and without additional protections the species faces a serious risk of extinction.…

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First North Atlantic right whale calves of season sighted

The first two North Atlantic right whale calves of this winter have been seen off the coast of Florida. With less than 500 whales surviving, every addition to the population is of vital importance. Entanglement in fishing gear and collisions with boat traffic are the two major threats to this species, which saw its numbers…

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Weaker ropes could save whales from entanglement

A new study in the US has concluded that switching fishing gear to use ropes that break at 1700 pounds or less, could reduce potentially life-threatening entanglements for whales by over 70%. At the same time the ropes would still be effective for many types of fishing activities. The study examined live and dead whales…

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A Long Road in the Right (whale) Direction

Thank you National Marine Fisheries Services! On October 15th the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) officially denied a request to reduce protections from ship strikes designed to protect the fewer than 500 remaining critically endangered North Atlantic right whales.   Since 2004, WDC has been championing a rule which mandates that vessels 20 meters or larger to slow to 10kts…

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Just A Whale? I don’t think so.

Here in WDC’s North American office we always laugh when someone asks us what a typical day is like. The reason we laugh is because on any given day anything can come up, and last week was a perfect example of that.  We got a call from the harbormaster here in Plymouth on Wednesday about…

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New technology to aid right whale research

Scientists from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and other researchers are using the latest advancements in technology this summer to track one of the world’s most endangered whales – the North Atlantic right whale. Hunted close to extinction, 80 years of protection have only seen the whale population slowly recover to around 500. Collisions…

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