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Conservation and wildlife-protection groups today filed an emergency rulemaking petition to protect critically endangered North Atlantic right whales from becoming entangled in commercial fishing gear.

Today, the U.S. Senate released its fiscal year 2021 Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill, increasing funding for monitoring and protecting the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale by $2 million over FY 2020 levels. The additional funds will also help develop and test new anti-entanglement fishing gear technologies. The funding levels are similar to those adopted in the House’s companion CJS bill. The House and Senate now must work to reach agreement over the final appropriations bill levels and language.

An already-dire situation became dramatically more alarming Monday, as the federal agency responsible for protecting the North Atlantic right whale substantially reduced its past population estimates for this critically endangered species. Although the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) originally estimated that there were 412 right whales alive as of January 2018, it has now reduced that number to 383 based on new scientific analysis of an unprecedented number of right whale deaths. Even more alarmingly, it announced an estimate of only 366 right whales alive as of January 2019.

A status conference on seismic litigation revealed today the industry will not pursue efforts to employ seismic blasting to search the Atlantic Ocean for offshore petroleum deposits this year, and possibly for several years.

As a result of a successful lawsuit by several environmental and animal organizations, a federal judge today ordered federal fishery managers to issue a new rule for critically endangered North Atlantic right whales no later than May 31, 2021.