We’re voyaging out on our new initiative, Friends of the North Atlantic Right Whale National Marine Sanctuary!
Every April, right whales break their winter fast on zooplankton, including small animals like copepods that drift over the sandy shoaling waters of New England. Let’s look at this seascape and what we hope to accomplish.
We propose establishing a sanctuary adjacent to and south of Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary that would stretch about 6,000 square miles with a perimeter of 550 miles that includes 200 miles of coastal Massachusetts, including Cape Cod Bay and around the outer Cape across Nantucket Shoals to Block Island, Rhode Island.
This area has beautiful, blue-green-gray waters and some of the country's busiest shipping lanes – and it seems like every industry wants a piece of it for windmills, cargo ships, fishing, lobstering, aquaculture, high-speed recreational boating, and more.
Our unique approach is to help protect right whales and their critical marine habitat through education, research, and resource protection efforts informed by an active advisory council.
We’re bringing together stakeholders in industry, government, and local communities, including conservationists, scientists, fishers, windmill and boat operators, regulatory agencies, as well as Narragansett and Wampanoag Aquinnah representatives to form a broad and deep advisory council where everyone not only has their voice and interests heard, but better understands each other.
The last two years have indicated the right whale population leveling off. To restore the right whale population, slowing vessels and sinking buoys is just the beginning. The real work is how to share ocean realms with whales, think holistically, and better adaptive ecosystem-based management to restore phytoplankton populations, water quality, and the conditions where whales may thrive once more.
I’m happy to see you onboard for this journey. Please invite others to join us as our right whale sanctuary gets underway.
Stay tuned!
Rob
