The hope and heartache of right whale calving season

Slowing down saves lives

Those vessel strikes that have taken the lives of so many right whales are avoidable. Like a school zone where traffic passes through areas populated with children, implementing speed restrictions in active whale areas is critical to help ships and whales avoid colliding.

Since 2008, vessels 65 feet and longer have had speed restrictions in designated areas along the coast when whales are present. In 2020, the assessment of the federal speed restriction concluded that while the legislation had reduced whale fatalities from vessel strikes, more needed to be done if the species is to survive.

In the fall of 2022, NOAA proposed an amendment to the 2008 speed rule to update designated areas to match new whale migration patterns and include vessels 35-65 feet long, which account for 40% of known vessel strikes. IFAW strongly supports this long overdue amendment, which has been moving through the legislative process at a glacial pace for over a year and a half. It reached the Final Rule Stage at the OIRA just this March, and meetings regarding its impact are scheduled throughout April and May. IFAW continues to push for the amendment to be finalized, implemented, and enforced as quickly as possible.

It's up to us

North Atlantic right whales cannot sustain any more fatalities as evidence that change needs to happen. The path to their protection and our peaceful coexistence is clear-through technology, science, rescue, and legislation, North Atlantic right whales can safely live, raise their young, and migrate through the waters they share with humans. On-demand gear and innovations in predicting whale location are helping to make the ocean safer for them. But if lawmakers continue to drag their feet on life-saving legislation, they are dooming whales to extinction.

With 19 births, the whales have been incredibly successful this season. It is us, humans, who have failed. Legislation is needed to slow vessels down and prevent deaths. The whales have done their part; now we need to do ours, quickly. We-and they-don't have a single second to spare.