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Right Whale Safety Debated

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By JULIET EILPERIN, The Washington Post

Published: October 21, 2007

WASHINGTON - Sixteen months ago, a federal agency proposed slowing ships in certain East Coast waters to 10 knots or less during parts of the year to save the North Atlantic right whale, one of the world's most endangered marine mammals, from extinction.

Nine months later, officials at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration said the situation was so dire that the loss of one more pregnant female might be the death knell for the species, whose surviving population numbers fewer than 400.

Today, however, the rule remains the subject of intense debate among senior White House officials, and the toll keeps rising: Since NOAA published the proposed rule, researchers have found three of the whales dead from ship strikes, and another two suffering from propeller wounds.

The question of how best to protect right whales - which got their name as the 'right whale' to kill in the heyday of whaling because they floated after being harpooned - has proved vexing to regulators, since attempts to protect them have economic consequences for powerful political constituencies, including international shipping interests and Maine lobstermen.

Equally important, administration officials have yet to be convinced that slowing ships as they cross paths with the migrating whales is an effective way to protect the imperiled species.

The slow pace of federal action on the NOAA proposal, however, has triggered suspicions among advocates that political interests are blocking a regulation that the scientific evidence amply justifies.

'It looks like an economic decision, not a scientific decision,' said Scott Kraus, vice president for research at the New England Aquarium in Boston. 'The science behind this rule is airtight.'

In March, shortly after the Office of Management and Budget started reviewing the ship strike rule, NOAA published its assessment that the 'potential biological removal' the species could tolerate - the number of animals it could afford to lose to an untimely death - was 'zero.'

Experts say it is far from certain that one more death will doom the species to extinction, but they emphasize that a single ship strike can have a ripple effect.

NOAA officials stand by their proposal, which took five years to draft and involved an analysis of more than 100 policy options.

The World Shipping Council, however, has criticized NOAA's ship strike proposal - which affects ships at least 65 feet long and traveling within 30 nautical miles of ports between Savannah, Ga., and New York City between Nov. 1 and April 30 - as ineffective and costly.

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