{"id":2173025,"date":"2024-02-10T06:00:30","date_gmt":"2024-02-10T05:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2173025"},"modified":"2024-01-19T07:54:57","modified_gmt":"2024-01-19T06:54:57","slug":"u-s-auctions-off-endangered-whale-habitat-for-oil-and-gas-drilling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/u-s-auctions-off-endangered-whale-habitat-for-oil-and-gas-drilling\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. auctions off endangered whale habitat for oil and gas drilling"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Dec. 20, the U.S. government auctioned off oil and gas drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico despite concerns the move could endanger a newly described and very rare baleen whale known as the Rice\u2019s whale (Balaenoptera ricei).<\/p>\n

The sale, mandated by the nation\u2019s Inflation Reduction Act, took place after months of legal wrangling. In August, the administration of President Joe Biden announced its decision to remove Rice\u2019s whale habitat from the sale after research found that the range was larger than previously believed, stretching across nearly the entirety of the gulf\u2019s continental shelf. This research was also the basis for the critical habitat designation for the whale currently being proposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Environmental groups and the Biden administration also supported additional protections for the species, including the enforcement of vessel speed limits in whale territory.<\/p>\n

The oil and gas industry then sued the administration to reinstate the whale range, which encompasses about 2.4 million hectares (6 million acres), into the sale area, and a Louisiana federal court judge ruled in its favor. Environmental groups and the U.S. Interior Department tried to postpone the sale by lodging an appeal, although, according to environmentalists, the interior department did not ultimately defend the inclusion of these protective measures in the lease sale.<\/p>\n

On Nov. 14, the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed this appeal and ordered the federal auction of the drilling rights, known as lease sale 261, to go on within 37 days \u2014 without any protections for the Rice\u2019s whale in place. At the end of the auction held on Dec. 20, bids were received for 311 tracts covering 688,000 hectares (1.7 million acres) of federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico, generating $382 million in sales. Twenty-six companies participated in the lease sale, including Shell, Chevron and BP.<\/p>\n

George Torgun, a senior attorney in the ocean program at Earthjustice, a California-based NGO that legally represented the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Turtle Island Restoration Network, said there still may be legal avenues to protect the Rice\u2019s whale, which the IUCN lists as critically endangered. But he added that \u201ctime is running out\u201d to save the species and that the government needs to enact protections as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

Conservation experts have also raised concerns about the greenhouse gas emissions associated with this lease sale, as well as three forthcoming lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico that will be part of Biden\u2019s five-year plan for oil and gas drilling. According to a 2021 analysis by the Washington, D.C.-based NGO Oceana, the permanent protection of federal waters from offshore drilling could prevent the release of 19 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, which is the equivalent of keeping every car off the road in the U.S. for 15 years.<\/p>\n

\"Experts<\/a>
Experts say the oil and gas industry is the primary threat to the Rice\u2019s whale. Operations during the Deepwater Horizon oil response in the Gulf of Mexico in July 2010. Image by U.S. Coast Guard \/ Petty Officer 1st Class Tiffany Carvalho (CC BY-ND 2.0 DEED).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018They could be gone\u2019<\/h2>\n

Millions of years ago, layers of algae and plankton accumulated on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, eventually turning the basin into a modern-day hotbed of oil and gas resources. Today, the gulf is a primary offshore source of oil and gas for the U.S., yielding about 97% of the nation\u2019s oil and gas produced along its outer continental shelf, according to the U.S. Interior Department\u2019s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).<\/p>\n

Yet this same area is also the one and only habitat for the Rice\u2019s whale.<\/p>\n

Scientists only designated the Rice\u2019s whale a species of its own two years ago. Before this, the whale was considered a subpopulation of the Bryde\u2019s whale (Balaenoptera edeni), a species with populations in tropical, subtropical and warm temperate areas around the world. It\u2019s understandable, given the strong resemblance between the two species: Both are small for baleen whales, with a maximum length of around 17 meters (55 feet), both have three prominent ridges in front of their blowholes, and they even display similar behaviors.<\/p>\n

Then in 2014, a genetic analysis of the population then known as the Bryde\u2019s whale of the northern Gulf of Mexico suggested that these whales might actually be a species of their own. But it wasn\u2019t until scientists were able to collect and analyze a skeleton, after a carcass washed ashore in the Florida Everglades in 2019, that they officially described the species as the Rice\u2019s whale. They named it after Dale Rice, the first biologist to identify the whales in the northern Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n

But this newly described species might disappear as quickly as it appeared. Scientists believe there are fewer than 50 Rice\u2019s whales left, including about 25 mature individuals.<\/p>\n

John Ososky, a scientist at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., who helped process the Rice\u2019s whale carcass that became the holotype for the species, said the current Rice\u2019s whale population is \u201calready below a number that you would want in order for it to bounce back effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time you lose an animal, you could lose what\u2019s left of the genetic diversity,\u201d Ososky told Mongabay. \u201cAnd that makes it more vulnerable to all of the threats that it faces. Plus, when you\u2019re that low in population, you just can\u2019t afford to lose any members of your population. One catastrophic event and they could be gone. It is dire.\u201d<\/p>\n

The oil and gas industry poses the primary threat to the Rice\u2019s whale, not only in the future but also via its past activity. About half of the pollution footprint from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill overlapped with the whale\u2019s territory, ultimately decreasing the population by 22%, scientists say.<\/p>\n

Rice\u2019s whales are also threatened by entanglement in fishing gear, vessel strikes, marine pollution, and various kinds of anthropogenic noise, including the high-decibel explosive impulses made by seismic surveys for oil and gas deposits.<\/p>\n

In July, NOAA proposed establishing an area of critical habitat for the Rice\u2019s whale covering about 7.3 million hectares (18.1 million acres) in the northern Gulf of Mexico \u2014 a thin, snake-shaped zone that crawls along the gulf\u2019s continental shelf. In October, NOAA ended its comment period on this proposal, and environmental groups expect the agency to make a decision early next year. Environmental groups working to establish protections for the Rice\u2019s whale in the lease area drew on NOAA\u2019s research to support their case.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

NOAA did not respond to Mongabay\u2019s request for an interview.<\/p>\n

John Hildebrand, a professor of oceanography at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, said the critical habitat designation proposed by NOAA is \u201cpretty reflective\u201d of where Rice\u2019s whales are known to reside.<\/p>\n

\u201cOriginally, there was just a small box in the eastern Northeastern Gulf where most of the whales are encountered,\u201d Hildebrand told Mongabay. \u201cBut they\u2019re also encountered all the way off to the west, off of Texas and off of Louisiana.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019s mainly concerned about the vessel traffic that would accompany oil and gas production in Rice\u2019s whale habitat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey tend to forage in the day, and at night, they tend to rest right at the surface,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re very quiet and they just stick their rostrum up and take a breath and then sink down maybe just a couple of meters. So, it\u2019s a really, really horrible situation for ship strikes because \u2026 even if you had a spotter, you probably wouldn\u2019t see them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hildebrand said ideally there would be rules in place to restrict vessel traffic to protect Rice\u2019s whales, especially at times when they\u2019re known to be resting. At the same time, he acknowledged that it would be nearly \u201cimpossible to exclude ships from that zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Biologists<\/a>
Biologists documenting the carcass of a Rice\u2019s whale, previously known as a Gulf of Mexico Bryde\u2019s Whale. Image by FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How much protected space should the Rice\u2019s whale get?<\/h2>\n

For its part, the oil and gas industry maintains that the drilling activities associated with lease sale 261 would not ultimately endanger the whales. Erik Milito, president of the National Offshore Industries Association (NOIA), an offshore energy lobbying group, said he believes the species already has sufficient protection in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which was previously described as its core habitat. Oil and gas activities are currently excluded from most of this region, known as the Eastern Planning Area, or EPA, due to it being under congressional moratorium.<\/p>\n

The Rice\u2019s whale is \u201calready afforded protections under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act \u2014 specifically in the core habitat area where the species actually exists,\u201d Milito told Mongabay in an emailed statement. \u201cExpanding the Rice\u2019s whale core habitat to include areas where there is only a negligible or no presence at all will dilute federal resources that should be committed to protecting actual core habitat areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Milito said it was important for oil and gas drilling activities associated with this sale to go forward to fulfill the energy, economic and security needs of the U.S., adding that the recent U.S. Court of Appeals ruling to push the lease sale forward was a \u201cnecessary and positive\u201d step.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe previous removal of millions of highly prospective acres, along with the imposition of excessive restrictions, resulted from a voluntary agreement with activist groups that sidestepped legal processes, disregarded scientific considerations, and neglected public input,\u201d Milito said.<\/p>\n

Yet Torgun of Earthjustice said it\u2019s becoming increasingly urgent to establish protections for the Rice\u2019s whale to ensure its survival. He added that environmental groups are pursuing several legal and political avenues to make this happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have one of the most critically endangered marine mammals in the world,\u201d Torgun said. \u201cIt is crucial that we have these protections in place as soon as possible. I wish we had that in place today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citation:<\/h2>\n

Soldevilla, M. S., Debich, A. J., Garrison, L. P., Hildebrand, J. A., & Wiggins, S. M. (2022). Rice\u2019s whales in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico: Call variation and occurrence beyond the known core habitat. Endangered Species Research, 48, 155-174. doi:10.3354\/esr01196<\/p>\n

This article<\/a> by Elizabeth Claire Alberts was first published by Mongabay.com on 21 December 2023. Lead Image: Bryde\u2019s Whale. Image by Tom Benson \/ Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED).<\/i><\/p>\n

What you can do<\/h2>\n

Help to save wildlife by donating as little as $1 – It only takes a minute.<\/p>\n

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