Source: Scientific American
Proposed amendments to the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), introduced July 22 by Rep. Nicholas Begich (R-Alaska), could drastically weaken the 1972 law credited with preventing extinctions and driving recoveries of whales, dolphins, and other species. Scientists and conservation groups warn the changes would narrow the definition of harm, require impractically high burdens of proof for protections, and lower population goals from sustainable, genetically diverse levels to mere “minimum survivability.”
The amendments would also remove safeguards against indirect threats like sonar and offshore drilling, exclude unobserved deaths from regulatory action, and undermine “take reduction planning” that limits fishing-related deaths—posing particular risk to the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. Experts say the draft would replace proven science-based management with unattainable data demands, making conservation action nearly impossible. Supporters claim the revisions modernize the law, but opponents call it an extreme rewrite that could dismantle decades of marine conservation success.