Six nongovernment agencies—the Center for Biological Diversity, National Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife, Healthy Gulf, New England Aquarium, and Earthjustice—suggested NOAA use the Marine Mammal Protection and Endangered Species Acts to enact a continuous 10-knot maritime speed limit and additional boat restrictions to preserve the Rice’s whale, a newly named species that is unique to the Gulf of Mexico and the United States.
Marine experts say the Rice’s whale primarily lives in northeastern gulf waters. The proposed rules would have affected four of Florida’s seaports in this region—Port Tampa Bay, SeaPort Manatee, Port Panama City, and the Port of Pensacola.
NOAA filed a formal notice in the Federal Register on April 7, 2023, opening a 90-day public comment period to advise the agency on the petition and potential rulemaking. It had received more than 75,500 comments when the comment period closed on July 6, 2023.
After extensive review, the agency said it denied the petition.
The agency is instead underscoring other preservation efforts for the Rice’s whales, such as mapping the species’ critical habitat, identifying vessel-strike risks, and creating a “recovery plan for the species.”
“While it’s, you know, a valid petition—we agree with the substance of it—we have some other priorities like finalizing the critical habitat designation [and] crafting a recovery plan for the species, which really outlines kinds of the threats that are most important to the species, [the] biggest threats to the species that we can work to address,” Grant Baysinger, marine mammal branch contractor for NOAA’s southeast region, said.
“And those may include vessel strikes or mitigation measures in the future. So for those reasons, we denied the petition.”
Mr. Baysinger told The Epoch Times that the agency fielded comments from various parties that would be affected by the proposed rule changes.
“We received comments from industries that are going to be affected, like boats, boat builders, shipping companies, oil and gas companies. So it was really kind of everything we were looking for. And it really hit a lot of different audiences,” he said.
NOAA also acknowledged comments emphasizing education and outreach with “fishermen, vessel operators, and other stakeholders to discuss voluntary protection measures before considering regulatory measures.”
“These shipping lanes are vital not only to the region but to agricultural producers shipping their products, to energy producers shipping energy cargo that fuels the state of Florida, essential medical supplies, and so much more,” FPC said.
FPC spokesperson Edie Ousley told The Epoch Times that these vessel restrictions would have had disastrous repercussions on Florida’s supply chain.
“And the reason this is particularly harmful for Florida is because Florida is not an oil refining state. We must ship in all of our fuel—fuel for automobiles, jet fuel for planes. And, you know, that fuel is particularly important during times of hurricanes and tropical events,” she said.
“But when you think about all of the importing and exporting of goods and products that come into these ports, everything from food, fuel, and medication—that puts Florida in a more precarious position because the movement of those goods and products from ship to shelf is going to take a much longer time period.”
Ms. Ousley also indicated that a 10-knot maritime speed limit would reduce critical nighttime shipping traffic and create “extremely dangerous, low speeds” for ships traveling during the day.
There was also confusion regarding the naming and designation of the Rice’s whale, initially thought to be a Gulf of Mexico-based subspecies of the Byrde’s whale until scientists gave the Rice’s whale its distinct classification in 2021.
Some of the petition’s detractors expressed skepticism over the intentions behind its recent naming and endangered status, pointing to potential involvement from the White House.
However, Mr. Baysinger explained that NOAA had no role in these proposed rule changes.
“So, that was part of the confusion was that we received this petition and [unlike suggested], this wasn’t something the agency took on, on its own, to go do. We had to address that in some way,” he said.
The non-government agencies that united to put forth this petition are the same entities that sued NOAA when it did not immediately list the Rice’s whale as endangered when given its unique species name separate from the Byrde’s whale, Mr. Baysinger said.
Additionally, Vicki Cornish, energy policy analyst for the Marine Mammal Commission, said that scientists have seen Rice’s whales for at least 100 years.
Still, marine biologists lacked a complete skeleton to prove their observation that it is genetically distinct from the Byrde’s whale.
According to the Smithsonian, that opportunity came in 2019 when a Rice’s whale beached in the Florida Everglades, providing researchers with the first complete skeleton.
Scientists named the new whale species after marine mammal biologist Dale Rice, who first identified and documented the whales in 1965.
Ms. Cornish said that vessel speed restrictions have been used in other parts of the country before to protect large whales.
“We do know a little bit about [Rice’s whale] behavior; they seem to dive down to depths during the day, but at night, they come up to the surface and they kind of rest, but they’re below the surface.
“And so that resting behavior just below the surface, out of sight of vessels, puts them in a very vulnerable situation, to be hit by small vessels, large vessels—you name it,” she said.
“So slowing vessels down is always probably going to be a good idea around large whales, both for the vessels and for the whales.
“Nobody wants to hit a whale, especially small vessels, recreational vessels, which are the predominant types of vessels that are in the eastern gulf.”
She noted that Rice’s whales, like other large whales, play an important environmental role.
Gray whale skeletons have been seen at the bottom of the ocean, providing rich ecosystems for countless fish and organisms. The carcass provides a food source, and the skeleton becomes a habitat for deep-water creatures.
But we may learn more about Rice’s whales and their effects on the environment, Ms. Cornish said.
“We may find even more benefits in the future the more we look, you know, we find the benefits of plants having just been discovered in the Amazon, and all of a sudden, we’ve been able to cure certain diseases with [and] never know until we look.”
“But it’s not always about us; you know, it’s about the ecosystem as a whole and doesn’t have to benefit us for us to keep it alive,” she said.
“Maybe just keeping the ocean thriving as an ecosystem, as a really healthy ecosystem, is really important.”
