Trump Just Made Life More Dangerous for One of the Rarest Whales on Earth

Add endangered whales to the list of things the Trump administration doesn’t give a rat’s ass about. On February 20, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, an agency belonging to the Department of the Interior, announced it was cancelling a notice that recommended ship operators in waters occupied by Rice’s whales to restrict their speed to 10 knots (11.5 miles per hour) or less. The notice, which affects a large swath of the Gulf of Mexico, was put in place in 2023 to specifically protect Rice’s whale, an endangered marine mammal. While the exact number of Rice’s whales remaining in the Atlantic Ocean is unknown, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates there are likely fewer than 100 of them. That makes them one of the rarest whale species on the planet, one that’s protected under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Their numbers, already low, are estimated to have fallen by 22% as a result of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to NOAA. The notice a ... Read full article.