A North Atlantic right whale appears at the surface of Cape Cod bay off the coast of Plymouth, Mass. Seismic testing maps the ocean floor and estimates the whereabouts of oil and gas, but only exploratory drilling can confirm their presence. “We are very concerned about the future of North Atlantic right whales,” Barb Zoodsma, right whale biologist for NOAA Fisheries, said in a Nov. 15 statement. “We lost 20 right whales in U.S. and Canadian waters since 2017 during an Unusual Mortality Event. The Obama administration denied six permits for seismic testing weeks before Trump took office in 2017 out of concern for wildlife and fisheries.

Source: Washington Post November 30, 2018 16:51 UTC