Marina Projects Are a Battleground over Whales
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Endangered Whales Sighted off Texas Coast [
Marina Projects Are a Battleground over Whales
By Russ Bynum
The Associated Press
Wednesday 18 January 2006
Activists fear for endangered northern rights, of which only 300 are left.
Ten months later, the whale is presumed dead. And with only about 300 of its kind believed to still exist, researchers consider losing even one to be a giant step toward extinction.
A lawsuit filed by conservationists concerned about whale deaths seeks to stop a developer from building two new marinas in the area that would hold up to 800 boats, making it the state's largest marina facility.
Georgia officials approved the project's construction just days before northern right whale No. 2425 was injured in March. The developer's permit also would allow up to 92 private docks from homes that are being built as part of a gated subdivision.
Gordon Rogers, the Satilla riverkeeper and one of the plaintiffs in the court challenge, said the legal fight aims to set precedent for how Georgia safeguards rare species and salt marshes as new developments rise along the state's 100-mile coastline.
"Is Cumberland Harbour going to be the last nail in their coffin? Of course not," Rogers said. "But it has been held out as a model for future development."
Developer's Perspective
However, Mike DeMell, an environmental consultant for the Cumberland Harbour development, said the odds of a boat hitting a right whale in the ocean are so minuscule that "we can't measure it."
Boaters will receive information packets on avoiding right whales and other endangered species, DeMell said. Though they can't be forced to read them, boaters must sign a contract saying they have.
Reduced-speed zones will be enforced close to shore to help avoid collisions with manatees and federal laws requiring boaters to stay 500 yards from visible right whales also will be enforced, DeMell said. Boaters violating these rules three times will be barred from the marinas.
"It's not like you've got 800 boats, all power boats, and every weekend they're going to hit the water," DeMell said. "Eight-hundred boats going offshore to run over right whales is an incorrect way to look at what the effect is going to be."
Researcher Sees 'Urbanization' Problem
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"It's a very difficult problem that right whales face, the urbanization of their habitat," Knowlton said.
Between December and March each year, pregnant right whales migrate to the shallow waters off Georgia and northern Florida. They are the only known US waters where these whales give birth.
Scientists say collisions with boats and ships, mostly commercial and fishing vessels, kill the most right whales - accounting for 19 of 50 known deaths since 1996.
In July, researchers sounded an alarm in the journal Science, writing that eight US right whale deaths had been confirmed in the preceding 16 months - a mortality rate that was "unprecedented in 25 years of study."
An administrative law judge is expected to rule in the coming months on whether the developer's permit can stand or if it must be reconsidered by the state.
Other Wildlife
The marshes and waters surrounding the Point Peter peninsula, where construction began on Cumberland Harbour in 2003, have long been critical habitat to a number of struggling species.
Endangered wood storks roost along Point Peter Creek, on the peninsula's eastern edge. West Indian manatees swim close to shore in the warmer months. Threatened loggerhead sea turtles feed in the inshore waters and nest on neighboring Cumberland Island, which is federally protected.
Meanwhile, Cumberland Harbour has sold 800 of its 1,044 lots, said sales manager Todd Montgomery.
"Folks moving to this area want to be able to access and enjoy the waterways," Montgomery said from a boat navigating the creek past signs marking future home sites on shore. "The climate's wonderful, the scenery's wonderful, but that water access is a big factor."
Endangered Whales Sighted off Texas Coast
The Associated Press
Tuesday 17 January 2006
Corpus Christi, Texas - Two endangered whales were spotted in the Corpus Christi Bay, well outside their typical winter territory of Florida and Georgia, authorities said.
A tanker pilot reported seeing the two Northern right whales, believed to be a mother and a calf, Monday after he thought he may have hit one of them.
Northern right whales spend the winter off Georgia and Florida and the summer in New England waters and north to the Bay of Fundy and Scotian Shelf, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service.
"It's an absolute mystery how they got here," said Tony Amos, a research fellow at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas.
Amos spotted the whales twice on Monday, first in the bay's ship channel and later near the Naval Station Ingleside, further out to sea, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported.
The whales have been listed as an endangered species since 1973, and the right whale population is thought to be at about 300.
Amos said he was skeptical when he first heard the report, because the whales are so rare. He photographed the whales to report them to federal officials that monitor them.
"It's a real thrill, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see such a rare animal," he said. "But also we felt some concern because they shouldn't be where they are."
Amos said the calf appeared to be suckling, and it had two cuts on its back.
A spokesman said the US Coast Guard had also responded to monitor the whale's condition. The Coast Guard was asking captains on the Corpus Christi Bay and surrounding areas to try to avoid the whales.
Right whales were depleted by commercial whaling, and their recovery has been hindered by injuries and deaths caused by through collisions with vessels or entanglement in fishing gear.
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