Marine Mammals

The International Association of Geophysical contractors republished the following article entitled “Debate Simmers Over Atlantic Oil, Gas Exploration”:

“Mount Pleasant, South Carolina – On this dock, where captains and first mates are freshening their boats with coats of white paint and rigging up new shrimp trawling gear to take to springtime Atlantic waters, the debate over drilling for oil in East Coast waters divides colleagues and, occasionally, families.

Much of Capt. Wayne Magwood’s pro-offshore drilling stance comes down to a pocketbook issue. Burning through 1,000 gallons of diesel a week in his boat Winds of Fortune is manageable with low diesel costs, but past high fuel prices have made the economics of shrimping nearly impossible.

CBC News Nova Scotia recently published following article about protecting marine mammals from commercial fishing imports into the United States:

“Canadian researchers say they have a solution to a new U.S. government requirement that its seafood imports be caught in a way that minimizes harm to marine mammals.

A recently released paper recommends summertime closures in two fishing grounds off Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to protect one of the most threatened marine mammals in Atlantic Canadian waters — the North Atlantic right whale.

The idea is to get fishing gear and lines out of the water when endangered whales are in the area.

The U.S. Department of the Interior published the following Federal Register notice:

“On November 18, 2016, the U.S.-Russia Polar Bear Commission (Commission), established under the Agreement Between the Government of the United States and the Government of the Russian Federation on the Conservation and Management of the Alaska-Chukotka Polar Bear Population (2000 Agreement), unanimously agreed to maintain the annual taking limit adopted in 2010 for the Alaska Chukotka polar bear population. In 2010, the Commission established an annual taking limit of the number of bears that may be removed from this population as a result of human activities, such as bears taken for subsistence purposes and in defense of human life. This annual taking limit, which corresponds with the annual sustainable harvest level for this population, is 58 polar bears per year, of which no more than one-third will be females. Under the 2000 Agreement, the annual taking limit is to be shared equally between the United States of America and the Russian Federation.

The International Association of Geophysical Contractors published the following article, “Science-Based Decision-Making’ Means Supporting Arctic Energy Development,” on the IAGC website:

“Last fall, we made the case for continued Arctic oil and gas development in these pages, explaining that the body of scientific knowledge about the Arctic environment more than justifies why exploration and production should continue.

Unfortunately at the end of last year, the Obama Administration issued a ban on new Arctic leases in the energy-rich portions of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Shortly before that decision, the former President also signed an executive order withholding 40,300 square miles of the Bering Sea off Alaska from oil and gas leasing, in order to advance “science-based decision-making.”