Gray whales are starving as the Arctic warms. Will the US protect them?
Thousands of them have died in the last decade, and environmental groups might sue the Trump administration for ignoring their plight.
Several hundred experts met in Newport, Oregon, for a conference dedicated to the gray whale, a species facing a severe crisis due to climate change. The number of gray whales along the U.S. West Coast has plummeted by thousands in recent years, dropping by half in the last decade. The primary theory is that climate change is causing the whale's food source in the Arctic to diminish.
Recently, 187 dead gray whales washed up along the coast. The Trump administration has largely ignored the issue, despite many attendees at the conference being government scientists or federal-funded researchers. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has missed deadlines for responding to a petition to relist the gray whales under the Endangered Species Act.
Conservation groups have threatened to sue if the administration does not respond within two months. Climate change is causing the Arctic to warm at a rate four times faster than the rest of the planet, leading to a decline in the whales' prey and malnutrition, which makes them more susceptible to threats such as ship collisions and fishing gear entanglements.
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