Protection plan stalls for rare Gulf whale

A dead Rice's whale washed up on a Florida beach in 2019. It was found to have been killed by a plastic fragment lodged in its stomach. (National Park Service photo)

The first significant effort to protect the habitat of an exceedingly rare Gulf of Mexico whale is getting pushback from several members of Congress who represent the Gulf Coast region.

A plan from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would designate just over 28,000 square miles of the Gulf as critical habitat for the approximately 50 remaining Rice’s whales.

A final review of the Rice’s whale habitat plan by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget has slowed as opposition mounts from some of the region’s most powerful leaders, including Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy and John Kennedy of Louisiana. In a letter to NOAA and other federal agencies, they contend that habitat protections will hurt the economy and hamper military operations.

“Imposing restrictions on development in the Gulf of Mexico would directly harm the economic activity and jobs across coastal communities,” they said in a letter also signed by Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Senators Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, and Senators Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt of Alabama.

Deemed endangered by NOAA as soon as it was discovered to be a distinct species in 2021, the whale needs immediate protection against ship strikes, oil and gas exploration and other industrial activities, according to environmental groups.

“While we wait for the designation, the threats to the Rice’s whale aren’t slowing down,” said Daniel Moss, a government relations manager with Defenders of Wildlife .

Designating an area as a critical habitat does not close it off or turn it into a wildlife refuge. Rather, it triggers a process in which NOAA and other federal agencies develop plans to ensure that actions they authorize, such as oil drilling or deepwater mining, won’t harm the whale’s habitat.

Environmental groups note that much larger critical habitat areas have coexisted alongside industries and the military. The proposed area for the Rice’s whale is a bit smaller than the 29,800 square miles for the similarly imperiled North Atlantic right whale, and is a tenth the size of the critical habitat designated for the loggerhead sea turtle in the Gulf and along the East Coast.

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., has taken aim at Rice’s whale protections via the defense budget. He recently added an amendment to the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act that would allow the Air Force to revive missile and other weapons testing in a 120,000-square mile area that overlaps part of the whale’s proposed critical habitat area off Florida’s west coast.

President Joe Biden’s administration had closed the testing zone over concerns about the whale’s safety. If approved by the full Congress, the amendment would exempt the military from penalties for the unintentional killing of Rice’s whales in an area that stretches from the Alabama coast to the Florida Keys.

“There’s not been any reported injury or taking of a Rice’s whale during any of my time in Congress, yet the concern over these 51 whales has led to a real negative impact on [weapons] testing,” Gaetz said during a congressional hearing in May.

But at least one Rice’s whale has died from human-related causes since Gaetz was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2017. In 2019, a nearly 40-foot-long male Rice’s whale washed up near the Florida Everglades with a jagged piece of plastic lodged in its stomach. Scientists determined that the 2.5-inch plastic shard had cut up the whale’s insides, damaging organs and causing internal bleeding.

The whale’s body offered a rare close-up look at the species and helped scientists determine that it was distinct from the similar Bryde’s whale.

Both species grow to around 55 feet and weigh about 30 tons. The more scientists study the Rice’s whale, the more clear the distinctions with the Bryde’s whale become, particularly in their behavior. While Bryde’s whales hunt for a variety of tiny sea creatures near the water’s surface, Rice’s whales dive deep for a much more selective menu of fish. Rice’s whales like to stick to the Gulf, while Bryde’s whale wanders the planet, popping up in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

Scientists realized in recent months that they’d been wrong to assume the Rice’s whale only inhabited a narrow section of the eastern Gulf surrounding DeSoto Canyon. A NOAA-led analysis of underwater recordings detected the whale’s distinctive song numerous times in the western Gulf, including off the coast of Louisiana.

Indications of the whale’s wider range were cause for concern. NOAA scientists say the western Gulf is far more industrialized, with busy Texas and Louisiana ports and oil and gas operations that put the fragile species at high risk.

Designating critical habitat will both boost the whale’s safety and draw more public attention to a species that may disappear before it’s fully understood.

“We hope the day will come when the Rice’s whale is associated with the Gulf as strongly as its famed beaches, fishing, cities and industries,” Moss said. “But that day will only happen if we fight to protect its habitat and save [it] from extinction.”

This article first appeared on Verite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The post Protection plan stalls for rare Gulf whale appeared first on Louisiana Illuminator .