NOAA Fisheries has agreed to reevaluate right whale habitat in response to petition for more protected areas near the Aleutians and Alaska Peninsula.
, is an area that is considered essential to conservation of a listed population. The act requires that any endangered or threatened listing be followed by a designation of critical habitat, as long as there is enough information available to do so. Within critical habitat, any activities requiring federal permits must be vetted for potential impacts to the listed species.
A map shows existing critical habitat for North Pacific right whales in Alaska waters and an expansion proposed by environmental groups in a petition submitted in 2022 to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries service. The map also shows many of the locations where the rare whales were spotted in recent years.
Since 2008, there have been visual sightings or acoustic recordings of right whales in areas outside of that designated critical habitat, according to NOAA Fisheries.well to the north of existing designated critical habitat in waters off St. Lawrence Island at the southern tip of the Bering Strait, then later in nearby waters off Russia. Another St. Lawrence Island sighting occurred in 2019.feeding in waters near Unimak Pass, according to NOAA.
Now the major threats cited are, along with climate change, ship strikes and entanglements in fishing gear. Such events have been documented among the North Atlantic right whale population, but so far not among the tiny Eastern North Pacific population swimming off Alaska, Malek said. But given the remoteness of the habitat, incidents are possible, she said. “We don’t have any evidence, but that’s not to say that it’s not happening.
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