• Animals

Right Whale Protections Amped Up in New England

• conservation
• Endangered Species Act
• extinction
• right whales
• science

A federal judge in Boston ruled late Thursday that Massachusetts is violating the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by granting permits to lobster fishers to use vertical buoy lines, the ropes that connect lobster traps on the seafloor to buoys at the surface, without federal permission because the fishing lines are the leading cause of death of highly endangered right whales over the past decade.

Why This Matters:  The Boston court ruling will likely disrupt the lobster industry in the short run.

• Animals

One Cool Thing: First Ever Recording of a Right Whale Singing

• NOAA
• right whales
• singing
• whales

Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have recorded for the first time ever the “singing” by a rare and endangered North Pacific Right Whale.  Humpback whales are known for their songs, but no one has ever before recorded right whales of any type singing.  The government scientists heard four distinct songs over […]