Tag Archives: Chris Oliver – AA – NMFS
Maine’s lobstermen willing to work with feds to protect whales
The Maine Lobstermen’s Association is one of the key stakeholders in an effort to better protect the North Atlantic right whales,,, A federal plan that’s being developed to help save the whales would remove miles of lobster trap rope from the waters off Maine.,, regulators have also recently expressed desire to work with the lobstermen, who have said the whale protection plan placed too much onus on their business, which is an industry vital to Maine’s economy. Chris Oliver, NOAA’s assistant administrator for fisheries, said this month that federal managers are also “diligently working with our Canadian counterparts to address both ship strikes and entanglements in Canadian waters.” >click to read< 14:18
A Trump official said seismic air gun tests don’t hurt whales. So a congressman blasted him with an air horn.
A hearing on the threat seismic testing poses to North Atlantic right whales was plodding along Thursday when, seemingly out of nowhere, Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.) pulled out an air horn and politely asked if he could blast it. Before that moment at a Natural Resources subcommittee hearing, Cunningham had listened to a Trump administration official testify, over and over, that firing commercial air guns under water every 10 seconds in search of oil and gas deposits over a period of months would have next to no effect on the endangered animals, which use echolocation to communicate, feed, mate and keep track of their babies. It’s why the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave five companies permission to conduct tests that could harm the whales last year, said the official, Chris Oliver, an assistant administrator for fisheries. >click to read<11:29
