WASHINGTON, DC, June 26, 2008 (ENS) - Today, three conservation
groups filed a lawsuit to force NOAA's National Marine Fisheries
Service to require ships to slow down to 10 knots in certain areas to
avoid fatal collisions with endangered North Atlantic right whales.

Hunted nearly to extinction by the early 20th century, the North
Atlantic right whale has yet to recover to healthy populations despite
the protections of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal
Protection Act.

Of the thousands that once swam the waters of the North Atlantic, only
around 300 of these large whales remain, according to the International
Whaling Commission. Human activities cause at least 50 percent of all
right whale mortalities, and ship strikes are the leading human cause
of right whale injuries and death.

Defenders of Wildlife, The Humane Society of the United States,
and Ocean Conservancy filed the lawsuit, which seeks to have the
Fisheries Service either complete the rulemaking process it began in
2006 or implement speed restrictions on an interim basis until the
rulemaking is complete.

North Atlantic right whale with calf in Florida waters (Photo courtesy Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission / NOAA)

The legal action in federal court comes two years after the
Fisheries Service proposed regulations needed to ensure the continued
survival of the right whale and a year after the agency promised to
finalize those regulations.

"We have been forced by the Bush administration's inaction to
once again return to court in order to gain protections for a species
that hangs on the brink of extinction," said Andrew Hawley, staff
attorney for Defenders of Wildlife. "Our litigation is necessary
because this administration is more willing to listen to the shipping
industry than it is to listen to its own scientists."

Jonathan Lovvorn, vice president of animal protection
litigation for The Humane Society, said, "Right whales are literally
being run into the ground by the commercial shipping industry."

"They can't afford to wait for any more broken promises," he said.

It has been seven years since the Fisheries Service acknowledged that
"the loss of even a single individual may contribute to the extinction
of the species," and four years since the agency announced its
intention to slow and reroute ships in right whale habitat.

Since then, at least 10 right whales have been reported dead, and the
proposed rule remains stalled on the desk of the White House Office of
Management and Budget.

In order to reduce the threat of ship strikes, scientists have
determined that the Fisheries Service must set vessel speed limits at
10 knots within right whale habitat, when whales are present. The
Fisheries Services has agreed with these determinations.

"It is clear that the Bush administration has no intention of
moving forward with a ship strike rule, a rule firmly rooted in science
to keep imperiled whale populations from going extinct," said Vicki
Cornish, vice president of marine wildlife conservation at Ocean
Conservancy.

"We have been waiting for well over a year for the Office of Management
and Budget to act, but now it's time to work past the obstacles and
follow the law to protect endangered species like the North Atlantic
right whale," she said.

The North Atlantic right whale is found in the waters off the
entire East coast. Their habitat is crisscrossed by busy shipping
lanes, and these waters are traversed by thousands of ships that make
hundreds of thousands of port calls in the United States annually.

As a result, while several factors, including the species' feeding,
resting and socializing behaviors appear to make right whales
particularly vulnerable to ship strikes, the high density of shipping
traffic in right whale habitat increases the risk.