No protection yet for Bering Sea whales

Citing a lack of basic biological information about the feeding habits and migration patterns of the endangered North Pacific right whale, the National Marine Fisheries Service ruled last week that it doesn’t know enough yet to set aside part of Bering Sea off Alaska for special protection.

The decision prompted an angry reaction from the Center for Biological Diversity, which had petitioned the agency last year to designate about 70,000 square miles in the southeast Bering Sea as critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act.

“The marine agency has failed to take the most basic steps to protect this population,” Brent Plater, the center’s lawyer, told the Anchorage Daily News.

Once thought to number 11,000 in the North Pacific, the slow-swimming right whales were almost wiped out because they are easy to harpoon and float when killed.

U.S. government biologists plan to conduct an extensive survey this summer, the agency reported.