BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine — Republican lawmakers are targeting one of the country’s longest-standing pieces of environmental legislation, credited with helping save rare whales from extinction.
GOP leaders believe they now have the political will to remove key pieces of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, enacted in 1972 to protect whales, seals, polar bears and other sea animals. The law also places restrictions on commercial fishermen, shippers and other marine industries.
A Republican-led bill in the works has support from fishermen in Maine who say the law makes lobster fishing more difficult, lobbyists for big-money species such as tuna in Hawaii and crab in Alaska, and marine manufacturers who see the law as antiquated.
Conservation groups adamantly oppose the changes and say weakening the law will erase years of hard-won gains for jeopardized species such as the vanishing North Atlantic right whale, which is vulnerable to entanglement in fishing gear. There are fewer than 400 right whales remaining.
Here’s what to know about the protection act and the proposed changes.
Why the 1972 law still matters
“The Marine Mammal Protection Act is important because it’s one of our bedrock laws that help us to base conservation measures on the best available science,” said Kathleen Collins, senior marine campaign manager with International Fund for Animal Welfare. “Species on the brink of extinction have been brought back.”
It was enacted the year before the Endangered Species Act, at a time when the movement to save whales from extinction was growing. Scientist Roger Payne had discovered that whales could sing in the late 1960s, and their voices soon appeared on record albums and throughout popular culture.
The law protects all marine mammals and prohibits capturing or killing them in U.S. waters or by U.S. citizens on the high seas. It allowed for preventative measures to stop commercial fishing ships and other businesses from accidentally harming animals such as whales and seals. The animals can be harmed by entanglement in fishing gear, collisions with ships and other hazards at sea.
The law also prevents the hunting of marine mammals, including polar bears, with exceptions for Indigenous groups. Some of those animals can be legally hunted in other countries.
Changes to oil and gas operations
Republican Rep. Nick Begich of Alaska, a state with a large fishing industry, submitted a draft this summer that would roll back aspects of the law. The bill says the act has “unduly and unnecessarily constrained government, tribes and the regulated community” since its inception.
The proposal states that it would make changes such as lowering population goals for marine mammals from “maximum productivity” to the level needed to “support continued survival.” It would also ease rules on what constitutes harm to marine mammals.
For example, the law prevents harassment of sea mammals such as whales and defines harassment as activities that have “the potential to injure a marine mammal.” The proposed changes would limit the definition to activities that actually injure the animals. That change could have major implications for industries such as oil and gas exploration where rare whales live.
That poses an existential threat to the Rice’s whale, which numbers only in the dozens and lives in the Gulf of Mexico, conservationists said. And the proposal takes specific aim at the North Atlantic right whale protections with a clause that would delay rules designed to protect that declining whale population until 2035.
Begich and his staff did not return calls for comment on the bill, and his staff declined to provide an update about where it stands in Congress. Begich has said he wants “a bill that protects marine mammals and also works for the people who live and work alongside them, especially in Alaska.”
Fishing groups want restrictions loosened
A coalition of fishing groups from both coasts has come out in support of the proposed changes. Some of the same groups lauded a previous effort by the Trump administration to reduce regulatory burdens on commercial fishing.
The groups said in a July letter to House members that they believe Begich’s changes reflect “a positive and necessary step” for American fisheries’ success.
Restrictions imposed on lobster fishermen of Maine are designed to protect the right whale, but they often provide little protection for the animals while limiting one of America’s signature fisheries, said Virginia Olsen, political director of the Maine Lobstering Union. The restrictions stipulate where lobstermen can fish and what kinds of gear they can use. The whales are vulnerable to lethal entanglement in heavy fishing rope.
Gathering more accurate data about right whales while revising the original law would help protect the animals, Olsen said.
“We do not want to see marine mammals harmed; we need a healthy, vibrant ocean and a plentiful marine habitat to continue Maine’s heritage fishery,” Olsen said.
Some members of other maritime industries have also called on Congress to update the law. The National Marine Manufacturers Assn. said in a statement that the rules have not kept pace with advancements in the marine industry, making innovation in the business difficult.
Environmentalists fight back
Numerous environmental groups have vowed to fight to save the protection act. They characterized the proposed changes as part of the Trump administration’s assault on environmental protections.
The act was instrumental in protecting the humpback whale, one of the species most beloved by whale watchers, said Gib Brogan, senior campaign director with Oceana. Along with other sea mammals, humpbacks would be in jeopardy without it, he said.
“The Marine Mammal Protection Act is flexible. It works. It’s effective. We don’t need to overhaul this law at this point,” Brogan said.
What does this mean for seafood imports
The original law makes it illegal to import marine mammal products without a permit and allows the U.S. to impose import prohibitions on seafood products from foreign fisheries that don’t meet U.S. standards.
The import embargoes are a major sticking point because they punish American businesses, said Gavin Gibbons, chief strategy officer of the National Fisheries Institute, a Virginia-based seafood industry trade group. It’s critical to source seafood globally to be able to meet American demand for seafood, he said.
The National Fisheries Institute and a coalition of industry groups sued the federal government Thursday over what they described as unlawful implementation of the protection act. Gibbons said the groups don’t oppose the act but want to see it responsibly implemented.
“Our fisheries are well regulated and appropriately fished to their maximum sustainable yield,” Gibbons said. “The men and women who work our waters are iconic and responsible. They can’t be expected to just fish more here to make up a deficit while jeopardizing the sustainability they’ve worked so hard to maintain.”
Some environmental groups said the Republican lawmakers’ proposed changes could weaken American seafood competitiveness by allowing imports from poorly regulated foreign fisheries.
Oct. 7 (UPI) — A shuttered Canadian amusement park said that without an infusion of cash it will have to euthanize 30 beluga whales after a government official blocked it from sending the marine mammals to a Chinese theme park.
Marineland, the aquatic theme park located in Niagara Falls, Ontario, laid out the dire situation in a letter Friday to Canadian Fisheries Minister Joanne Thompson, The New York Times reported.
Thompson announced days earlier that she denied Marineland’s request to export the belugas to Chimelong Ocean Kingdom theme park in China because it “would have meant a continued life in captivity and a return to public entertainment.”
She further said that she was following requirements of the Fisheries Act meant to prevent the exploitation of marine mammals.
“Like many of you, I am angered that these whales have lived a life of captivity and as a result their health has deteriorated,” Thompson said. “As Canadians, we know that whales belong in the ocean, not in tanks for our amusement.”
Thompson told CBC News that she had visited the closed Marineland facility and concluded the whales belong in the ocean after she “looked the belugas in the eyes.”
Marineland’s business model struggled after a federal law passed in 2019 that banned keeping whales, dolphins and porpoises for breeding or amusement, according to the CBC.
The theme park said there is no suitable ocean “sanctuary” or facility for the whales. Meanwhile, Marineland said its financial situation continues to crumble, leaving it unable to meet the whales’ costly care.
However, Thompson told Marineland in a letter sent Monday that there would be no bailout, The Canadian Press reported.
“The fact that Marineland has not planned for a viable alternative despite raising these whales in captivity for many years, does not place the onus on the Canadian government to cover your expenses,” Thompson wrote.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford told The Canadian Press that the federal government should rethink its position.
“It should be the federal government that allows them to move (the belugas) to China or other marine areas that will take them, but saying no to everything and not coming up with a solution is not a great suggestion,” Ford said.
A dozen groups including the Toronto Zoo, World Animal Protection and Animal Justice wrote to Ford urging the provincial government to seize the animals.
Whale songs are far removed from the singing that humans are used to. Unlike our musical sounds, those produced by whales are a complex range of vocalisations that include groans, clicks and whistles and that can sound like anything from the mooing of a cow to the twitter of a bird. These vocalisations can be so powerful that they can be heard as far as 10km (6 miles) away, and can last for half an hour at a time.
But while they may not be exactly dancing material, whale songs are critical for communication: between males and females during mating, or among a school of whales migrating.
For researchers, these complex sounds are a window into whale behaviour, even if humans don’t yet know exactly how to decode them.
The frequency of songs and their intensity can signal various things: an abundance of food, for example. In recent studies, however, researchers have been alarmed to find that blue whales, the largest whales and, indeed, the largest mammals on Earth, have stopped singing at specific times.
Their eerie quietness, scientists say, is a signal that ocean life is changing fundamentally. The most recent study, conducted by scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California in the US and published in February, examined three types of whales. Researchers found that blue whales, in particular, have become more vulnerable to this change.
What have researchers found, and where?
At least two studies between 2016 and 2025 have found similar behaviour: blue whales have reduced their singing for stretches of time.
The first study, conducted in the sea waters between the islands of New Zealand between 2016 and 2018, was led by scientists from the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University in the US. Over that period of time, researchers tracked specific blue whale vocalisations linked to feeding (called D-calls) and mating (called patterned songs).
Researchers used continuous recordings from underwater devices called hydrophones, which can log sounds over thousands of kilometres, and which were placed in the South Taranaki Bight – a known foraging spot for blue whales off the west coast of New Zealand.
They discovered that during some periods, particularly in the warmer months of spring and summer when whales usually fatten up, the frequency and intensity of sounds related to feeding activity dropped – suggesting a reduction in food sources. That decline was followed by reduced occurrences of patterned songs, signalling a dip in reproductive activity.
“When there are fewer feeding opportunities, they put less effort into reproduction,” lead researcher Dawn Barlow told reporters. The results of that study were published in the journal Ecology and Evolution in 2023.
Then, in a study published in the scientific journal PLOS One in February this year, researchers tracked baleen whale sounds in the California Current Ecosystem, the area in the North Pacific Ocean stretching from British Columbia to Baja California. Blue whales are a type of baleen whale, and the study focused on them, alongside their cousins, humpback whales and fin whales.
Over six years starting in 2015, the scientists found distinct patterns. Over the first two years, “times were tough for whales”, lead researcher John Ryan, of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California, noted in a press statement, as the whales, particularly blue whales, were found to be singing less. Over the next three years, however, all three whale species were back to singing more frequently, the study noted.
A blue whale swims in the waters of Long Beach, California, the US [Nick Ut/AP]
Why are blue whales singing less?
Both studies found one main reason for the reduction of whale song: food or, in this case, the lack of it.
It turns out that the research, conducted between 2015 and 2020, captured periods of extreme marine heatwave events that killed off krill, the small shrimp-like animals that blue whales feed on.
Those heatwaves are part of a looming environmental catastrophe scientists have been warning about: ongoing global warming marked by increases in global average temperatures, and caused by high-emission human activities, chief among them being the burning of fossil fuels.
Scientists say the world could soon reach a tipping point at which there will be irreversible change to the planet. Already, 2016, 2023 and 2024 have been recorded as the warmest years ever.
Why are food sources disappearing for whales?
Krill, which blue whales primarily feed on, are highly sensitive to heat and can all but vanish during heatwaves, the studies found. Their movement patterns also change drastically: instead of staying together, as they usually do, krill disperse when it is hot, making them harder for predators like blue whales to find.
Typically, when foraging, blue whales sing to others to signal that they have found swarms of krill. If there is no food to sing about, it makes sense that there will be no singing.
Heatwaves can also trigger harmful chemical changes in the oceans that encourage the growth of toxic algae, which causes poisoning and death to mammals in the oceans and sea birds, researchers have previously found, suggesting that blue whales are also at risk of being poisoned.
In the more recent study in California, researchers found that in the first two years when whales were singing less frequently, there was also a reduction in other fish populations.
Are blue whales more vulnerable than other whales?
The second period of three years witnessed a resurgence of krill and the other fish, along with more whale singing. When krill again declined, blue whales again sang less frequently, while singing from humpback whales continued, the study noted.
“Compared to humpback whales, blue whales in the eastern North Pacific may be more vulnerable due to not only a smaller population size but also a less flexible foraging strategy,” Ryan, the lead author of the California study said in a statement.
“These findings can help scientists and resource managers predict how marine ecosystems and species will respond to climate change,” he added.
It is likely, both studies say, that blue whales need to spend more time and energy finding food when it is scarce, instead of singing.
A mass of krill in the sea [Shutterstock]
Are other animals changing their sounds?
Studies have found that climate change is altering the sounds of several other species as well. Nature-related sounds, such as birdsong from certain species, could disappear altogether in some places as warming temperatures alter animal behaviour. For example, some animals might move permanently away from their traditional habitats.
In New York, scientists found that over a century (1900-1999), four frog species changed their calling patterns, which males use to attract females for mating, and which are usually tied to the warming of spring and early summer. Over time, some frogs were calling about two weeks earlier than usual, researchers found, adding that it signified summer was arriving earlier.
The UK is full of breathtaking destinations but there’s one island that’s well worth having on your radar thanks to its amazing beaches and wildlife
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It’s a beautiful island that never fails to be a hit with hikers(Image: Getty Images)
A beautiful island with white sand beaches, unspoiled green landscapes and wildlife from whales to puffins may sound like it’s in a far-flung destination; but it’s actually a staycation hotspot.
That’s because the Isle of Mull in Scotland’s Inner Hebrides offers all of the above, and more. The island may be remote but it can be easily accessed with plenty of train, bus and car routes from Glasgow, followed by a short ferry ride across.
One highlight is the charming town of Tobermory which looks like something straight out of a storybook with its colourful houses that form a harbour nestled into the picture-perfect green coastline. It can also be a great base from which to embark on the beautiful walks, or take a day trip to go searching for the likes of puffins and otters.
One of the biggest draws for visitors is also the wildlife that can be found here. We’re talking everything from eagles and otters to whales, dolphins and even basking sharks. You can find plenty of boat trips led by marine biologists who can explain more about the fascinating creatures. Meanwhile along the coast you can find plenty of fun activities such as snorkelling, wild swimming and kayaking hotspots.
The island boasts some incredible beaches(Image: Getty Images)
Back on land, sun-seekers won’t be disappointed thanks to the breathtaking beaches that might not look out of place in the Caribbean. Highlights include Knockvologan Beach and Calgary Bay with their white sands and turquoise waters , while Croggan beach with its eye-catching dark sands looks like the stuff of fairytales.
Then of course for those who love a scenic walk, the island doesn’t disappoint. Lace up those sturdy hiking boots and you can take on a plethora of gorgeous trails whether you want to enjoy a spot of birdwatching along the way, or want to make the most of the postcard-worthy coastal views. History buffs might want to plan a route to some of the impressive castles and fortresses that are tucked away amidst the landscape, with highlights including Duart Castle, Torosay Castle and Glengorm Castle.
Travel experts at HolidayCottages have previously described the island as one of the best nature hotspots to explore in the UK. They explained: “The Isle of Mull is located off the west coast of Scotland and offers some of the best opportunities to spot humpback whales in the UK, especially during the summer months when humpback whales are known to frequent its shores, but from late April onwards there’s a chance of spotting these magnificent animals.
“In addition to whales, the island is teeming with other wildlife, including dolphins, otters, and seals, making it a must-visit. The island’s crystal-clear waters, scenic hikes, tranquil beaches, and picturesque villages make it the perfect destination for peaceful exploration. Boat tours and guided wildlife excursions are also on offer for those wishing to discover expert insight into the rich biodiversity of the area.”
