Tell NOAA: Designate critical Rice’s whale habitat to protect them from extinction

Critically endangered Rice’s whales may be the most endangered whale on the planet, with only about 50 critically endangered Rice’s whales left in existence. NOAA must designate critical habitat protections for the Rice’s whale – where they feed, rest, and calve – before we lose these great whales to extinction.

Urge NOAA to protect critically endangered Rice’s whales

Urge NOAA to protect critically endangered Rice’s whales with strong actions to help bring this species back from the brink.

Close-up photo of a Rice’s whale surfacing for air.

Photo: NOAA

Only about 50 critically endangered Rice’s whales remain – threatened by oil and gas development, habitat loss and degradation, ocean noise pollution, and vessel strikes. We must act immediately, and decisively, if we have any chance to save them.

Under the Endangered Species Act, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is required to designate “critical habitat” for these whales on the razor’s edge of extinction – and save their narrow strip of habitat free from destruction from seismic blasting and dirty drilling.

NOAA must designate critical habitat protections for the Rice’s whale – where they feed, rest, and calve – before we lose these great whales to extinction.

CTA

Your Message

Subject Designate critical habitat for the endangered Rice’s whales

Dear Janet Coit, Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, NOAA:

Message Body

Rice’s whales are among the most endangered whales in the world. Only approximately 50 whales are estimated to remain, all in the Gulf of Mexico. Major threats to the whales include oil spills, vessel collisions, and chronic noise from seismic blasting and other oil and gas development activities.

The Endangered Species Act requires NOAA to designate "critical habitat" for listed species – an action that provides species with additional protection from human activities. Here the Fisheries Service has proposed to designate most of the whales' limited Gulf habitat: a strip of water between 100 meters and 400 meters depth, running along the continental shelf break from Florida to Texas.

The science is clear: This habitat is vital to the whales’ survival and recovery, and should be designated as critical habitat.

Last fall, a group of 100 scientists sent an open letter to the Biden administration, warning that, without “significant conservation action” to sustain Rice’s whale, “the United States is likely to cause the first anthropogenic extinction of a great whale species.”

I urge you to push back against the oil and gas industry and stand up for the whales.

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