A North Atlantic right whale and her calf were spotted in the Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts on Monday, March 27. On a breezy spring day, scientists and conservationists methodically conducted experiments near 15 North Atlantic right whales that occasionally spouted and surfaced in a bay south of Boston.
Although right whale numbers are dwindling, conservationists attribute their continued survival to the U.S. Endangered Species Act. A North Atlantic Right Whale sounds while feeding on plankton in Cape Cod Bay, off the coast of Provincetown. A team from the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, was researching the right whale's food supply today during their migration north.
But as federal regulators craft new protections for the whale and other declining marine animals, fishing and shipping industries that have been altered by decades of conservation laws are digging in for a new round of fighting for their own interests.