Marine

NOAA Withdraws New Speed Limits for Boats; Mariners Cheer, Others Fear for Right Whales’ Survival

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has withdrawn a plan to expand vessel speed limits to protect North American Right Whales. (istock)

A package of new speed limits on boats and ships off the Atlantic coast – intended to reduce boat strikes on North Atlantic Right Whales – has been languishing in Washington, D.C., for two and a half years. On Wednesday, NOAA withdrew the proposal, saying it could not fully evaluate the 90,000 comments it received about the proposed rules.

Much of the commentary, from boaters and commercial operations from Massachusetts to Florida, was vigorous opposition. Protests came from operators of fast ferries, recreational fishermen and charter boat companies, boat pilots that maneuver big ships through ports and harbors, and other marine service businesses.

Expanded speeding rules “are a sledgehammer approach, when we don’t need a sledgehammer,” said Richard Hittinger, a member of the Rhode Island Saltwater Anglers Association.

Support for the speed rules came from environmentalists and defenders of the endangered right whale, which now includes only 370 individual animals and fewer than 70 breeding females. Entanglement in fishing gear and boat strikes are the two major sources of injury and death of right whales in the commercially busy and urbanized ocean off the East Coast. The whales move through the waters off New England from November to May to follow food and bear their young.

“This a setback, but I am not giving up hope,” said Dr. Jessica Redfern, a whale scientist at the New England Aquarium in Boston. “Science shows us that we can change this trajectory away from [whales’] extinction if we just stopped killing them.”

Whale scientists say the potential biological removal for the right whale is less than one animal. That means if even a single animal dies of human causes in a year, “the long-term prospects for the species are dim,” said Mark Baumgartner, a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

“If a species is on the brink and if we care about the species, we should be precautionary,” said Baumgartner, “and that is what the ship speed rule is.”

Opponents of the proposed speed limits argued that the rules were excessive and misdirected. Some said that, instead of blanket speed limits, the government should promote the use of advanced technology, like overhead drones and in-water listening devices, to locate and track whales, and warn mariners away from them.

NOAA first imposed speed limits for boats in 2008, and the 2008 rules will remain in effect. The proposal that was withdrawn Wednesday would have expanded the existing rules.

Speed limits are in two categories: seasonal management areas and dynamic speed zones. Seasonal management areas are specific areas of the ocean where right whales are mostly found. In seasonal management areas, boats larger than 65 feet may not travel faster than 10 knots from November to May. There are exceptions for federal vessels and emergencies. (Whale scientists say whale movements have shifted since 2008, and some of those areas are not aligned with where whales are moving now.)

Dynamic speed zones are designated on the spot in any place where three or more whales are spotted. In those cases, a perimeter around the whales is designated and mariners must travel 10 knots or slower in that perimeter for two weeks from the time of the sighting.

The speed limit proposal was designed to protect right whales from collisions with fishing vessels such as this one. (istock)

Under the proposed new rules, announced by NOAA in August 2021, seasonal management areas would have been expanded to larger patches of the ocean and the speed limit would have applied to boats 35 feet and longer. The 10-knot speed limit and the months that the rules apply – November through May – would not have changed. (The public comment period for the rules ended Oct. 31, 2022.)

Objections

In and around Rhode Island, opposition was strong from operators of fast ferries and charter fishing boats, who said a speed limit of 10 knots per hour would slow travel time so severely that it could devastate their businesses. (In New England there was less outcry from commercial fishers, largely because those boats usually travel below 10 knots.)

Christian Myers is port captain for the Block Island ferry, which operates six regular and two high-speed ferries, running two or three round trips a day for summer vacationers and a year-round island population. The new rules would have imposed a seasonal management area for the first time ever on the route of the ferry from Port Judith to Block Island.

Myers called the rules “a serious overreach of regulation” and a “blanket of regulations over an area where there has not been a history of right whale migration.”

He said the Block Island service is considered a “lifeline ferry service” that must conform to state and federal regulations, including a minimum number of daily trips. Ferries normally travel at 16 knots and make the crossing in an hour. Traveling at 10 knots would increase the crossing to 90 minutes, Myers said. That would increase daily operations by up to four hours.

“The cost of everything on the island would go up because of increased delivery time,” Myers said.

Regarding the protection of whales, Myers said his pilots listen to VHS Channel 16, where sightings of whales by NOAA or the Coast Guard are broadcast immediately.

“We don’t have a habit of willy-nilly running things over,” Myer said. “We change course when we see something that is a threat for safe navigation.” He wrote in comments to NOAA that it is “awkward to speak about costs” when the safety of whales is involved, but the Block Island ferry has an obligation to customers “to meet their transportation needs.”

Hittinger, of the Saltwater Anglers Association, and Rick Bellavance, active in the Rhode Island Party and Charter Boat Association, also argue that expanded speed limits are an excessive response. Hittinger said, “We think more limited restrictions that follow where right whales are likely to be is a much more logical plan.”

They say slower travel times would reduce fishing time at destination fishing grounds and would be very unappealing to fishermen and charter boat customers. Hittinger gave an example using fishing grounds that might be 50 to 100 miles offshore, which a fishing group would typically travel to at 20 to 30 knots. Slowing the trip to 10 knots would lengthen the fishing day and “it would be unrealistic to fish anymore.”

North Atlantic right whale
Most North Atlantic right whales are killed by human causes, such as entanglement with fishing gear. (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission)

He predicted that boat manufacturers and tackle shops also could be hurt by new speed rules because of a reduction in sport fishing.

Bellavance, a charter boat captain who also serves on the New England Fishery Management Council, said a lot of private boat owners have boats between 35 and 65 feet, and they would have been newly affected by the expanded speed limits. Because of longer travel times to fishing destinations, he said many fishermen would be very unhappy.

Enforcement

Both Hittinger and Bellavance brought up the topic of enforcement of vessel speed laws, which is the job of NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement.

Bellavance said illegal speeding does happen. He mentioned social media posts he has seen that name charter boat companies and declare: “Come on this boat because they don’t follow the speed limit and you get an extra half-hour of fishing.”

(In fact, the Office of Law Enforcement has produced a report on violations that received penalties in seasonal management areas in 2021-2022, by vessel type. The largest number by far was 24 violations by recreational pleasure boats. Behind that was 12 violations for container ships; six for passenger ships and ferries; and one violation each for charter fishing and offshore tug/supply.)

(NOAA)

Hittinger said, “There is no enforcement. The only enforcement for speed is in the harbor and no-wake zones.”

The Office of Law Enforcement might beg to differ.

One insight into the activities of the law enforcement office is its activity reports of the quarterly meetings of the New England Fishery Management Council. The enforcement office reported last year that from 2022 to 2024, NOAA’s Office of General Counsel assessed $1,444,556 in civil penalties across 88 cases for speed rule violations.

Since November 2021, the enforcement office used satellite technologies to send more than 700 alerts in real time to vessels operating near right whales.

In its normal activities, NOAA law enforcement monitors automatic identification systems (AIS), which are required on commercial vessels; uses portable radar units to detect speeding by vessels not carrying AIS; actively patrols seasonal management areas; sends compliance letters to vessel owners who violated speeding rules; and conducts public outreach to publicize speed rules.

The enforcement office uses satellite-based technologies to send Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) alerts to vessels operating near whales. When whales are sighted, the office creates a geofence (a virtual perimeter around a physical location) and alerts vessels of the presence of whales for up to 48 hours via Channel 16. The office encourages boaters to report sightings of whales at 866-755-6622 or via the WhaleAlert App.

In addition, in 2024, enforcement officers met with a representative of a large recreational pleasure boat organization to discuss recreational pleasure boat compliance with the speed rule; met with a yacht manufacturing company to discuss speed rules; worked with sales representatives to price out unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) to help enforce the speed rule; attended a training and demonstration by FlightWave Aerospace on the operation and capabilities of the Edge 130 drone; and began working with NOAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Division to develop an unmanned aerial surveillance program within the Office of Law Enforcement. One purpose of the drones would be to identify non-AIS signaling vessels during speed patrols.

Whales in trouble

The number of North Atlantic Right Whales has been dropping, leading NOAA to declare an Unusual Mortality Event starting in 2017. “Endangered North Atlantic Right Whales are approaching extinction.  … Human impacts continue to threaten the survival of this species,” NOAA declared.

In 2017, this female North Atlantic right whale died off Canada’s coast after dragging snow crab traps for days. (NOAA)

Scientists say the present population of 370 whales includes whales that are unsized or underweight. The 70 or so breeding-age females are stretching out the time between pregnancies, possibly because they are undernourished. The population’s survival would be severely threatened if it sustained even one death a year, a phenomenon called potential biological removal.

From 2017 to 2024, NOAA says, there were 15 whale deaths from boat strikes, three serious injuries from boat strikes, and seven sublethal (damaging, but not life-threatening) injuries from boat strikes.

For the same period, impacts from entanglement in fishing gear included 10 deaths, 35 serious injuries, and 54 sublethal injuries. Entanglement in fishing gear can cut into the animals’ flesh, cause infections, or exhaust them until they drown.

Right whales, dark in color, are hard to see and hard to track. Underwater listening devices are not entirely effective, because whales may stay silent for long periods, especially mothers with calves. Documented deaths and injuries from human sources are likely, scientists say, to be a fraction of the total.

Redfern, the scientist with New England Aquarium, said scientific evidence has shown that the proposed lower speed limits would, in fact, reduce deaths and injuries of whales.

She said she would not like to see people stranded on islands or marine businesses hurt because of vessel speed limits, just as no mariners want to see whales hurt. Speaking of advanced technologies being developed to track whales, Redfern said, “Protecting whales through methods known to be effective – that is, lower boat speeds – and developing other techniques are not mutually exclusive.

“But the right whales need to survive long enough to benefit from these other approaches.”

Technology to the rescue?

Opponents of the speed rules spoke in favor of using advanced technologies to detect whales, thereby eliminating the need for blanket speed restrictions. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts is one organization on the forefront of this area.

Suzanne Pelisson, director of public relations at Woods Hole, described a few projects in the works. Marine biologists and engineers have developed a device that listens for and identifies the sounds whales make underwater. This digital acoustic monitoring (DMON) instrument is equipped with underwater microphones called hydrophones and can be deployed on fixed buoys or autonomous underwater vehicles called gliders. Information collected by the DMON is transmitted every two hours via satellite back to a lab at Woods Hole. The data from the buoys are analyzed to determine which species are present, and results are displayed publicly on Robots4Whales and shared in near real-time with mariners and other stakeholders.

Baumgartner, the scientist from Woods Hole, emphasized the limitations of this listening technology, which, he said, can “hear” whales for a distance of about five miles. The proposed new seasonal management areas cover about 1,800 miles of coastline, so that would require many more functioning systems to detect whales than the nine or 10 now operating along the coast.

Woods Hole researchers also are developing infrared thermal technology, which uses thermal imaging to detect a whale’s body or spout. The machinery provides information on the whales’ distance and direction from a vessel. This real-time reporting allows ship captains to slow down or change course. Woods Hole’s whale detection cameras are now being used and tested in waters off Hawaii and Alaska.

NOAA is using tags to track whales, but these devices have limitations. Tags are attached to whales via suction cups or implantable darts. They can document the animal’s location, behavior, movement, and other data. Most tags stay attached for several hours to a few days. Drawbacks are that tags are expensive and they require permits to use. It isn’t possible to find or approach every whale; many are not seen at all during a season. Whales must be tagged from a boat during calm weather; it can be stressful and risky. They are wild animals, and not always approachable.

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  1. The speed issue is important, though really important is overall traffic reduction. The ongoing industrial activities have increased traffic within NARW paths, and with well established consequences including harassment that may result in injury or death. These activities are federally permitted Incidental Take Authorizations as variances to the MMPA. The permitted number of harassments for the NARW exceeds the number of living specimens – meaning that the government has amplified pressure on the endangered species. This pressure has nothing to do with speed, rather volume of activity.

  2. Under the withdrawn proposed rule, dynamic speed limits would have been mandatory, but under the current rule they are voluntary.

  3. Offshore wind turbines could provide fixed stations for monitoring efforts, another irony in the offshore wind harming whales misinformation campaign.

  4. It is truly numb to announce that NOAA is making the world more dangerous for right whales while they are gracing us with a visit.

  5. The reason the speed restrictions were lifted, allegedly, was for the benefit of offshorewind developers. I have been personally told by an employee of one of these developers that the added time is a huge expense to them.

  6. Indeed, many offshore wind projects have investments from fossil fuel companies. Those companies are hedging their energy supply and profit future on potentially beginning to transition as Ørsted has completely done. Some fossil fuel companies have no early commitment in renewables and there is peer review publication evidence of their dark money participation to lobby against renewables and offshore wind. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629624004201?via%3Dihub=

  7. excellent reporting giving information and multiple perspectives.
    My takeaway is I believe right whales are likely doomed by human activities

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