US agency to study protecting more habitat for rare North Pacific right whales

Environmental groups are desperate for NOAA to expand critical habitat for the whale, which is at risk of imminent extinction.

by Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech | Jul. 13, 2022

This 2009 photo provided by NOAA Fisheries shows a North Pacific right whale surfaces during the Priest Survey in the waters off Alaska. The federal government on Monday, July 11, 2022, agreed to a request from environmental groups to study increasing critical habitat designations in Alaska waters for one of the rarest species in the world, North Pacific right whales. (Brenda Rone/NOAA Fisheries via AP)

Story at a glance

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries is considering increasing critical habitat in Alaska for the endangered North Pacific right whale.

The whale is the most endangered large whale species on the planet, with NOAA estimating that there are only 30 left in the wild.

The decision comes roughly three months after two environmental groups petitioned the federal government to act and help save the dwindling whale population.

The federal government plans on reviewing a request to increase critical habitat in Alaska waters for North Pacific right whales.

North pacific right whales were hunted for centuries for their oil, meat and baleen — or the teeth-like bristles they use to filter ocean water and capture food — and are now the most endangered large whale species on the planet.

Now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that there are only 30 North Pacific right whales left in the wild.

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The decision comes to a petition filed in March by two environmental groups, the Center for Biological Diversity and Save the North Pacific Right Whale, asking the federal government to expand critical habitat designations for the whale under the Endangered Species Act, according to a statement.

“Safeguarding the North Pacific right whale’s habitat is crucial to protecting these magnificent animals,” said Kristin Carden, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The threats to North Pacific right whales grow with each passing day. This review has come not a moment too soon.”

NOAA Fisheries have already designated about 1,175 square miles in the Gulf of Alaska as critical habitat for the North Pacific right whale and about 35,460 square miles in the Southeast Bering Sea.

But petitioners hope that NOAA will connect these two critical habitat areas by extending the Southeast Bering Sea boundary westward and south to the Fox Islands and extending it east to the Gulf of Alaska critical habitat area off Kodiak Island.

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