Chapter II — Species of Special Concern 



organization's approval of the proposed system was to 

 be decided at a meeting of its Maritime Safety Com- 

 mittee on 7-11 December 1998. Given the Coast 

 Guard's lead role in representing the United States at 

 this meeting, the Commission's 3 December letter 

 recommended that Coast Guard officials participating 

 in the meeting seek the committee's approval of the 

 proposal as a matter of highest priority. As noted 

 above, this was done and the committee unanimously 

 approved the proposal on 7 December 1998. 



As a related matter, the Commission wrote to the 

 Coast Guard on 23 December 1997 about the need to 

 improve the Coast Guard's NAVTEX broadcasting 

 system in the northern portion of the right whale 

 calving grounds off Florida and Georgia. Existing 

 NAVTEX facilities for this area have been unable to 

 provide complete or dependable coverage and, be- 

 cause of reliance on the system to transmit regional 

 right whale advisories, as well as other navigational 

 safety advisories, the Commission recommended that 

 the Coast Guard take steps to fill the regional gap in 

 NAVTEX broadcast coverage by installing an addi- 

 tional transmitter. During the Commission's review, 

 a representative of the Coast Guard advised the 

 Commission that the Coast Guard had obtained 

 funding for a new NAVTEX transmitter scheduled to 

 be installed in mid- 1999. In its 3 December letter to 

 the Coast Guard, the Commission noted the added 

 importance of this new facility given efforts to devel- 

 op a regional mandatory ship reporting system, and it 

 extended the Commission's sincere thanks to the 

 Coast Guard for its efforts to address this need. 



The Navy, which operates several major facilities 

 adjacent to the right whale calving grounds, also has 

 been an essential partner in the right whale recovery 

 program. Among other things, it has modified its 

 vessel operations and exercises in the calving grounds 

 to improve protection of right whales, provided staff 

 and expertise to coordinate the immediate dissemina- 

 tion of right whale sighting reports filed by right 

 whale survey teams and other sources along the coasts 

 of Florida and Georgia, contributed substantial fund- 

 ing to support regional early warning system surveys 

 and complementary surveys in and around the right 

 whale calving area, helped fund a radio tracking study 

 of right whales, undertaken studies to assess the 

 ability of acoustic technology to locate whales and 



helped gather and correlate environmental data with 

 right whale sighting data to assess factors affecting 

 right whale distribution and movements. 



These activities, as well as Navy involvement in 

 other pressing marine mammal conservation issues, 

 make it apparent that the Navy is strongly committed, 

 not only to the principle of operating in an environ- 

 mentally responsible manner, but also to making the 

 extra effort wherever possible to apply its expertise 

 and resources to help others address urgent conserva- 

 tion problems. Therefore, by letter of 10 December 

 1998, the Commission wrote to commend the Navy 

 for its constructive and important contributions to the 

 right whale recovery program, as well as to certain 

 other pressing marine mammal conservation issues. 



Feeding habitats essential to the western North 

 Atlantic population of right whales also occur in 

 Canada, where lead responsibility for right whale 

 recovery rests with the Department of Fisheries and 

 Oceans. The department has implemented a right 

 whale recovery program and concerted efforts have 

 been made by the staff of the department and the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service to coordinate 

 related efforts. Among other things, the two agencies 

 have jointly funded various research and management 

 projects and adopted similar approaches to identify 

 essential habitats and mitigate impacts associated with 

 ship traffic and coinmercial fishing. A representative 

 of the department participated in the Commission's 

 1998 meeting. 



Based on presentations at the meeting, it was 

 apparent that there is broad agreement among officials 

 in Canada and the United States on the needs to be 

 addressed and that the efforts to coordinate action on 

 right whale recovery had the potential to become a 

 model for international collaboration on pressing 

 living marine resource conservation issues. As in the 

 United States, however, funding for right whale 

 recovery efforts have been far below what is needed. 

 Therefore, based on information presented during the 

 Commission's review, the Commission wrote to 

 Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans on 8 

 December 1998. Because of the high level of interna- 

 tional concern for right whales and the fact that its 

 recovery would depend on both countries' ability to 

 increase funding for essential recovery tasks, the 



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