Saving Seafood

Feds seek to reauthorize marine mammal harassment rule

September 30, 2025 — A bureau at NOAA is pushing the agency to reimplement an existing rule for how seismic testing affects marine mammals in the Gulf of Mexico ahead of the rule’s expiration next spring.

If extended, the rule would reauthorize harassment of marine mammals by oil and gas industry companies that conduct seismic tests in the Gulf, which President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of America earlier this year.

In an August letter, Director Jennifer Wallace of NOAA Fisheries’ Office of Policy wrote to the head of the Office of Protected Resources asking that the current rule be reimplemented going forward. That rule includes monitoring requirements, efforts by companies to detect marine mammals and maximum harassment levels.

Read the full article at E&E News

US delays rule on Gulf of Mexico whale protections by two years

July 15, 2025 — U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration will delay by two years a final rule designating protections for the endangered Rice’s whale in the oil and gas drilling region of the Gulf of Mexico, according to an agreement with environmental groups filed in a federal court.

The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Marine Fisheries Service agreed with green group Natural Resources Defense Council to finalize by July 15, 2027 the geographic area deemed critical for the Rice’s whale survival. The previous deadline had been Tuesday, July 15, of this year.

The agreement filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on July 3 was seen by Reuters on Monday.

Read the full article at Reuters

Lawsuit filed in effort to protect endangered Rice’s whales in the Gulf

May 22, 2025 — A lawsuit has been filed to force the federal government to protect endangered Rice’s whales in the Gulf. Scientists believe there are fewer than 50 remaining.

Federal regulators recently released a “biological opinion” that found strikes by oil tankers and vessels in the Gulf’s well fields are likely to threaten the existence of Rice’s whales.

The lawsuit is asking for stronger restrictions on speeds and for ships to keep at least 500 yards from visible whales.

NOAA Fisheries Service estimates that nine Rice’s whales would be killed and three seriously injured over the next 45 years. Chris Eaton, an attorney with the environmental group Earthjustice, said that might doom the species.

“The Fisheries Service has said because the population is so low that if just one female dies, that could send the species to extinction,” Eaton said. “And the problem with this biological opinion is that it recognizes that risk, but doesn’t provide adequate measures to prevent that risk to those species.”

The Department of the Interior can lease areas of the Gulf to oil and gas drillers. But first, the Fisheries Service must study how endangered species are likely to be harmed.

NOAA Fisheries said the proposed rule would make lethal vessel strikes “extremely unlikely to occur.”

Read the full article at WUSF

US finds endangered Gulf of Mexico whale threatened by oil and gas vessel strikes

May 21, 2025 — The Trump administration published a long-awaited environmental assessment on Tuesday that found that vessel strikes related to oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico are likely to jeopardize the existence of the endangered Rice’s whale.

The analysis, known as a biological opinion, governs how endangered and threatened marine species should be protected from oil and gas activities in the region, which President Donald Trump has renamed the Gulf of America.

Federal judge blocks offshore lease sale, says feds failed to consider impacts on Rice’s whales

March 31, 2025 — A federal judge on Thursday blocked an oil and gas lease sale in Gulf waters off the coast of Louisiana, finding that a federal agency didn’t adequately take into account how new offshore drilling would impact the highly endangered Rice’s whale.

The ruling from Judge Amit Mehta in the U.S. District court for the District of Columbia will require the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management, which oversees the sale of oil and gas leases in federal waters, to conduct additional environmental reviews before the lease sale proceeds. The current lease sale is not canceled, but will be subject to additional environmental review.

The court also ruled that BOEM did not fully take into account the impact of greenhouse gas emissions that would result from the new oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico, also referred to as the Gulf of America after President Donald Trump moved to rename it via executive order.

“BOEM acted arbitrarily by failing to address the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS’s) determination that the whale’s habitat range extends into the western and central Gulf,” Mehta wrote in his ruling.

Read the full article at NOLA

New protections for the Rice’s Whale in the Gulf of Mexico delayed until December

August 29, 2024 — The Gulf of Mexico is haunted by a ghost. The animal is as big as a school bus, but glides unseen through the ocean’s twilight zone, its low moans echoing in the dim water. A creature so elusive, researchers can spend days searching without ever glimpsing one.

This is the Rice’s whale, one of the Gulf of Mexico’s largest and most mysterious animals. Found nowhere else on Earth, it is the only baleen whale that lives in the Gulf year-round.

Previously thought to be a sub-species of the Bryde’s whale, the Rice’s whale was only declared a unique species in 2021. Yet experts fear it could disappear before people ever get to know it. NOAA Fisheries researchers estimate that fewer than 100 Rice’s whales remain in the Gulf, with recent counts putting that number as low as 50.

“Our scientists have not been seeing many calves when they do surveys for Rice’s whales, which is obviously problematic,” NOAA Fisheries Southeast Large Whale Recovery Coordinator Clay George said.

NOAA Fisheries was to publish a new critical habitat designation for the species this week under a settlement agreement with environmental organizations to better protect the endangered whale. But the parties have agreed to extend the deadline to no later than Dec. 2

Read the full article at WUFT

Judge orders feds to protect endangered whale from oil drilling

August 22, 2024 — Marine species advocates scored a long-awaited legal victory this week, after a judge found the federal government had underestimated the risks of offshore oil and gas development to the critically endangered Rice’s whale and other wildlife.

On Monday, a federal district court in Maryland tossed out NOAA Fisheries’ Trump-era assessment — known as a biological opinion, or BiOp — effective Dec. 20, forcing the federal government to develop a new plan for protecting marine life like Gulf sturgeon and sea turtles.

Read the full article at E&E News