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A federal judge ruled yesterday that the National Marine Fisheries Service’s authorization and management of the American lobster fishery violates the federal Endangered Species Act. The court held that the agency failed to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales and that its biological opinion on the fishery violated “straightforward” requirements of the Act, putting the whales at greater risk of entanglement.

Today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that an independent peer review of its “decision support tool”—developed to evaluate the effectiveness of various management measures in reducing entanglement-related mortalities of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales in the American lobster fishery—confirmed that it is an “appropriate and valuable tool to assess various mitigation measures in a common risk-reduction metric, and has proven useful in determining possible management actions with stakeholders.”

The fourth North Atlantic right whale calf born this season has already been severely wounded. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) announced Thursday morning that the calf had two “parallel and s-shaped” injuries along its body, consistent with wounds caused by boat propellers.

After weeks of negotiations, Congress unveiled the $1.4 trillion package that will raise discretionary federal spending by $49 billion for the rest of fiscal 2020.

Today, National Marines Fisheries Service (NMFS) Assistant Administrator Chris Oliver responded to the Maine Lobstermen’s Association’s September 4 letter announcing its withdrawal of support for recommended measures to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale from fishing gear entanglements.