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On September 24th, WDCS provided testimony to the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, led by White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley. Using the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale as an example, WDCS emphasized the need to consider cumulative impacts to species before permitting ocean development.

This year, President Obama declared the need for “a national policy that ensures the protection, maintenance, and restoration of the health of ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes ecosystems and resources, enhances the sustainability of ocean and coastal economies, preserves our maritime heritage, provides for adaptive management to enhance our understanding of and capacity to respond to climate change, and is coordinated with our national security and foreign policy interests.”

As a result, an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force was created. The Task Force is responsible for developing recommendations that will create a national policy to protect, maintain and restore our oceans and Great Lakes.   They will also recommend a framework for marine ocean zoning.

“We are encouraged by the forward thinking of the Obama Administration to consider the need to protect the oceans” said Regina Asmutis-Silvia, Senior Biologist for WDCS. “But we also want to remind them that the ocean is a dynamic ecosystem and impacts from development reach far beyond the site where the construction takes place.”

Public comment can be submitted online at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/oceans

Statement from WDCS:

My name is Regina Asmutis-Silvia and I am the Senior Biologist for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society and I offer my comments on behalf of WDCS and our supporters throughout the US.

This afternoon I will use the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale as an example of the need for effective, and comprehensive, ocean planning to prevent conflicts that will be harmful to this species. The entire habitat for this species ranges from the waters off Florida to the Gulf of Maine.

Currently fewer than 400 North Atlantic right whales remain from a population that once exceeded 10,000. Initially decimated by whaling, NA right whales now risk extinction from vessel strikes, entanglements in fishing gear, pollution, climate change, and habitat loss. According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, the loss of one right whale per year from human causes jeopardizes the species survival. Yet, in less than a 2 year period, at least 12 right whales were killed from anthropogenic causes.

Risks to this species continues to escalate as proposals for offshore energy generation off the US east coast increase with sites off the coasts of Georgia, New Jersey, Delaware, Massachusetts and Maine now in consideration. The US Navy is currently requesting an undersea warfare training site off Jacksonville, Florida, just east of the only known calving area for the species. And near coastal shipping proposals are being considered along the entire east coast of the US.

As a result, on September 15, 2009, WDCS along with the Center for Biological Diversity, Humane Society of the United States, Ocean Conservancy, and Defenders of Wildlife petitioned the Secretary of Commerce to increase Critical Habitat for this species.   Our petition encourages more appropriate protections for the species in the most needed areas and requests an effective use, and enforcement of existing laws, including the Endangered Species Act.
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For right whales as well as other whales, waterfowl, migratory passerines, fish and turtles, it is critical to do more forward thinking, and consider cumulative impacts to species and habitats, rather than proceeding with site specific development, only to regret it later. The promise made by President Obama, to return to science –based management and act as a steward for the ocean, must be kept.

I will submit my comments as well as a copy of our petition for your review. Thank you for the opportunity to speak before you this afternoon.

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