Bipartisan House bill would study whale feeding, migration

A bipartisan House bill introduced Wednesday would require NOAA Fisheries to conduct new research on whales to provide more accurate information about their core feeding and calving habitats as well as migration patterns.

The “Whale Conservation Habitat Analysis, Research and Technical Strategies (CHARTS) Act of 2024” from California Democratic Reps. Doris Matsui and Jared Huffman and Republican Reps. Nicole Malliotakis of New York and Vern Buchanan of Florida, would authorize $3 million and focus on eight species and subspecies.

It would pay additional attention on the sperm whale and baleen whales, whose scientific status is not fully known or outdated, according to the lawmakers.

The bill would require NOAA to create “predictive maps that forecast future shifts in whale habitats in response to changing environmental conditions, and conduct specific research on understudied baleen whale species,” according to a press release issued by Matsui’s office.

Matsui is co-chair of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition and its Nature and Oceans Task Force. Huffman is ranking member of the Natural Resources Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee.

The sperm whale is the world’s largest toothed whale and is distributed widely throughout the global oceans. It was pushed to near-extinction by commercial whaling through 1986, when a moratorium was placed on commercial hunting, according to NOAA.

Sperm whales are recovering but they remain listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act and depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Baleen whales, which do not have teeth but sieve plankton organisms through plates in their mouths, include over half a dozen subspecies, including the blue whale, bowhead whale, Bryde’s whale, fin whale, humpback whale, minke whale and sei whale. All have some level of protected status, though some are recovering, according to NOAA.

A 2020 study of baleen whales using acoustic recordings of whale calls in 2020 found that six species in the western North Atlantic Ocean — humpback, sei, fin and blue whales — have changed their distribution patterns in the past decade.

One stand-alone species in the baleen family, the Rice’s whale, has gained recent attention as NOAA moves toward designating final critical habitat in its only known habitat in the Gulf of Mexico. Some of those areas ares considered ripe for offshore oil and gas production.

NOAA is under a court order to complete a biological opinion on oil and gas impacts on the whale by May 21, 2025. The biological opinion will be a key determinant of critical habitat.

“Climate change and habitat degradation are impacting wildlife migration patterns, leading to increased risk for marine mammals, said Huffman, whose California district spans the California’s North Coast from Marin County to the border with Oregon.

While knowledge of whale behavior and habitat protection are primary goals of the bill, the sponsors drew attention to the risk outdated maps pose to mariners crossing through whale-rich areas.

Buchanan, whose upland district spanning the east side of Tampa Bay and includes coastal areas around Bradenton, said that “with a thriving global maritime industry, it's critical that vessels can travel alongside whale populations without risking dangerous collisions."