US agency studies rare whale habitat expansion request

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. authorities on Monday agreed to a request from environmental teams to review rising essential habitat designations in Alaska waters for North Pacific proper whales, one of many rarest whale species on the planet.

The Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries estimates there are about 30 of the whales left after centuries of looking, ship strikes and fishing gear entanglements have devastated the species.

The company in 2008 designated about 1,175 sq. miles (3043 sq. kilometers) within the Gulf of Alaska and roughly 35,460 sq. miles (91841 sq. kilometers) within the southeast Bering Sea as essential habitat for the whales.

Two teams, the Heart for Organic Range and Save the North Pacific Proper Whale, in March petitioned the company to increase the habitat by connecting the present two areas.

This could prolong the Bering Sea boundary west and south to Alaska’s Fox Islands, by Unimak Cross to the sting of the continental slope, the company mentioned in a press release.

The proposal would additionally prolong the essential habitat space off Kodiak Island east to the Gulf of Alaska to incorporate new feeding grounds the Heart for Organic Range has mentioned had been confirmed by new analysis.

“Safeguarding the North Pacific proper whale’s habitat is essential to defending these magnificent animals,” Kristin Carden, a senior scientist on the Heart for Organic Range, mentioned in a press release. “The threats to North Pacific proper whales develop with every passing day. This evaluate has come not a second too quickly.”

The scale of the proposed new habitat was not instantly obtainable from NOAA Fisheries or the environmental teams.

The prolonged habitat would overlap with productive fishing areas and high-volume marine transit routes, NOAA Fisheries mentioned, but it surely additionally coincides with visible sightings and acoustic information of the massive whales.

They environmental teams mentioned of their petition that bodily and organic options within the proposed essential habitat require particular administration concerns and protections, which may embrace vessel pace limits like these which are already enforced to guard North Atlantic proper whales.

“I feel it might be a tragedy to allow them to go extinct with out doing all we will, and we see this as a step in the direction of doing the issues that we will,” mentioned Kevin Campion with the Save the North Pacific Proper Whale group.

He added: “Definitely it’s not every little thing, however it’s a step in the correct course for ensuring these animals get to exist on the planet.”

North Pacific proper whales have been listed as endangered since 1973.

NOAA Fisheries is taking feedback on the proposal till September and should publish its resolution inside a 12 months.