Contributor: It’s time to save the whales again

Recently, I dived in a moss forest in the Gulf of Monterey, watched a 200 -pound port seal and followed a nibbling diver on the pallets. Diver, a graduate student, used sponges to collect DNA samples from the ocean base. The curious seals told me that it could be a problem. When they strive and placed their sponges on the collecting network, they sometimes bite them, pierce the bags and break their examples.

In accordance with the Naval Mammal Protection Act, it is considered harassment to approach seals and dolphins from 50 meters, but they are free to harass you, which seems fair before a generation of changes in the way we see the world for centuries.

Shift, in 1969, the year when a large oil spill covered the coastline of Santa Barbara and the flame of the Cyahoga River in Cleveland. These two events helped to close the first World Day in 1970 and the last whale hunting station of America in 1971. Protecting the environment from pollution and loss of wildlife, the transfer of the keystone of America’s keystone, written by a democratic president, was written by Richard Nixon, also signed by Richard Nixon.

Among these laws include the National Environmental Policy Law (1969), Clean Air License (1970), Clean Water Law (1972) and Marine Mammal Protection Law (1972), and all the sea mammals (1973), which were threatened by US citizens in the high seas (1973), who were only threatened by US citizens in the high seas (1973).

All these “green” laws and more have been attacked by corporate opponents of environmental guards, including Trump administration, congress slaves and oil and gas industry. The undisputed argument of the Republicans to weaken the extinct species law and the Law on the Protection of the Marine Mammals is time to loosen the regulations for a better balance between nature and human business, where the legislation works so well in rebuilding the populations of wildlife. When it comes to marine mammal populations, this premise is wrong.

At the meeting of the Natural Resources Sub -Committee of Natural Resources on July 22, Nick Begich, Alaska Republican Representative, introduced the draft legislation that would take back the Naval Mammal Protection Law. In addition to other things, his proposal would limit the federal government to “coincidence”, the ability of whales, dolphins and seals to be killed by sonic explosions from ship and boat strikes, or the ability to suffocate as an accident -capture in fishing gears. Begich complained Marine mammal guards intervene in basic projects such as energy development, port construction and even fishing operations ”.

Representative Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) says the ranking member of the Assembly Sources Committee for the Location of the Mazzuata Naval Mattages.

It is true that the law of maritime mammals is successful in many ways. Since its passage, no marine mammal has been extinct, and some species have healed significantly. The number of northern elephant seals that migrated to California beaches for Mate and Molt increased from 10,000 to approximately 125,000 in 1972. When the law of the naval breastfeeding became a law, there was an estimated 11,000 gray whale from the West coast; Until 2016, the population reached 27,000.

However, not all species developed. Historically, there were about 20,000 North Atlantic Right Whales from the East coast. They took their names because they were “right” whales for harpoon – they swam for easy recovery after their bodies were killed. In 1972, their estimated fell to 350 people. After a federal legal protection of more than half a century, the population is estimated to be 370. It continues to be exposed to high mortality rates from ship strikes, fishing equipment, occupancy and noise pollution and other reasons, including finding hunting in the seas of heating.

Apart from Florida, a combination of boat strikes and algae pollution threatens 8,000-10,000 manufacturing. Healing of the population (approximately 1,000 in 1979) In 2017, it was important enough to remove them from extinct species list, but only 500 people have died since the beginning of this year. Scientists want to see that they are revived, but at least within the scope of the law of the maritime mammal protection.

A 2022 Working in the Gulf of Mexico 12 years ago, BP Deepwater Horizon found that the dolphin population fell 45% and the recovery could take 35 years. In the Arctic Ocean in Alaska, Sea Ice Loss Polar bears (considered as marine mammals) threaten Bowhead and Beluga whales, Mors, seals and harp seals.

On the West coast, more than half in the last decade, the number of gray whales – the maritime mammal action success story and now a stimulating fairy tale – recently fell to less than 13,000 compared to a recent time. Report by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa, the country’s main ocean agency, is a species that was extinct on its own during the Trump period). It is thought that the whales in the North Pole, which is probably caused by warming, have a significant contribution to hunting deaths and lower birth rates, including small shrimp -like amphipods in summer feeding areas.

The dive numbers of the whale are just a signal that climate change alone makes the Naval Mameli Law urgent. Common marine heat waves, connected to a heated ocean contributes to the loss of algae forests, where sea otters and other marine mammals trust. It blooms from Algal California, and the first time it was supercharled by warmer waters and food pollution, Alaska leads to the death of thousands of dolphins and sea lions.

The Trump administration and its antireregulation, what anti-environmental protection supporters do not recognize is the loss of marine mammals, a sign of the diminishing health of the natural world, where we are a part of our oceans and a part of the natural world. This time it will be about saving the whales to save ourselves.

David Helvarg is the general manager of Blue Frontier, an ocean policy group. His next book “Sea Forest: The remarkable life and the necessary future of KELP,” It is planned to be published in 2026.