"Right Whales Remain At Risk"

Proposal to slow ship speeds in effort to save endangered sea mammals stalled in agency fight.

Sixteen months ago, a federal agency proposed slowing ships in certain East Coast waters to 10 knots or less during parts of the year to save the North Atlantic right whale, one of the world's most endangered marine mammals, from extinction.

Nine months later, officials at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the situation was so dire that the loss of one more pregnant female might be the death knell for the species, whose surviving population numbers fewer than 400.

Today, however, the rule remains the subject of intense debate among senior White House officials, and the toll keeps rising: Since NOAA published the proposed rule, researchers have found three of the whales dead from ship strikes, and another two suffering from propeller wounds.

The question of how best to protect right whales - which got their name as the "right whale" to kill in the heyday of whaling because they floated after being harpooned - has proved vexing to regulators, since attempts to protect them have economic consequences for powerful political constituencies, including international shipping interests and Maine lobstermen.