NOAA Plan To Protect Right Whales Creates Backlash
Politics is like sausage, some people say. You don’t really want to see how the process works. The current battle over ato protect whales from being struck by surface vessels is a perfect example of how messy policy-making can be.
One of the causes of whale deaths is being struck by the hull or propellers of power boats, many of which routinely travel at speeds of 30 to 40 mph in the transit zones used by the Atlantic right whales. “We need seasonal slowdowns to protect right whales in danger zones, just like we have lower speed limits to protect children near schools,” said Jane Davenport, senior attorney with Defenders of Wildlife.
Earlier this year, Brogan said there was “blood on NOAA’s hands” after the agency rejected an emergency request to protect the whales from speeding vessels and a 20-year-old adult male whale was found dead off Virginia Beach. It was later determined that the animal had died from a traumatic blunt force injury consistent with a vessel strike.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida, said the rule could affect up to 63,000 registered boaters and threaten 340,000 jobs. “I think that it’s kind of an elitist perspective to propose a rule that’s going to actually hurt people,” she said, before adding that “a human being is obviously more important than an animal.”
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