Cost? Far less than a single day of war in Iraq. This is not just the Right Whales, it is all the endangered whales on the planet. At least until the ocean's top layer is overheated and killed via the CO2 in the air. It might be hard to imagine US leadership standing up for anything that does not involve their own profit. If Japan needs "aid" to replace their sunken whalers forget it.

Image NOAA, Range of the once thousands of North Pacific Right Whales.

Image NOAA, Special Critical Areas, Right Whale, above

In the Pacific, the Russians and the Japanese have just about sealed the fate of the Northern Pacific Right whales. Some estimates, on faith alone it seems, suggest 200 in the Pacific while the(DOI'S) USF&WS and Department of Commerce's NMFS under NOAA faithfully double that number to 400. There are very few calves seen -- and a large span of years in the Pacific in which no calves whatever were spotted.

In the North Atlantic, the estimate is around 300, and there are calves being born but many strikes and entanglements kill the whales. What nation states hunt and kill whales? Russia and the US have subsistence requests from native Alaskans, and they announce this to the IWC for such allowances. The nation states that do this on a commercial scale are: Iceland, Norway and Japan.

===============================================================

THE FOLLOWING TEXT IS FROM NOAA: "To help protect the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale population, NOAA Fisheries Service is reminding mariners and fishers that the start of calving (birthing) season begins Nov. 15, and continues through April 15. Regulations and recommendations are in place to help protect these endangered whales during this critical period. The calving season is particularly critical because pregnant mothers and new-born calves are susceptible to ocean-surface traffic.

Image: NOAA; Female Atlantic Northern Right Whale and her calf. Notice the calf's "V" Blow?

Text Below: NOAA

"Protecting right whale mothers and their young is critical to the recovery of the population," said Barb Zoodsma, NOAA Fisheries Service right whale biologist. “The loss of any right whale is of concern, and we ask for everyone to adhere to measures that protect this critically endangered species."

Each year, pregnant females migrate southward more than 1,000 miles from feeding areas off Canada and New England to the warm, calm, coastal waters off South Carolina, Georgia and northeastern Florida to give birth and nurse their young. These waters are the only known calving area for the species.

Collisions with ships and entanglement in fixed fishing gear are the two greatest threats to the recovery of North Atlantic right whales, which is why it is important that all mariners and fishers are aware of the following:

NOAA Regulations and Recommendations:

• Federal law prohibits approaching or remaining within 500 yards of right whales.
• Gillnet fishing and possession is prohibited annually in the Southeast U.S. Restricted Area North, Nov. 15 – April 15, with an exemption for transiting through this area if gear is stowed in accordance with the rule.
• Gillnet fishing is prohibited annually in the Southeast U.S. Restricted Area South, Dec. 1 – March 31, with limited exemptions for gillnet fishing for sharks and Spanish mackerel.
• Recommended routes are in place for mariners entering or leaving the ports of Jacksonville and Fernandina, Fla., and Brunswick, Ga. The routes are expected to reduce the chances of ship strikes with whales.
• Speeds of 10 knots or less are recommended when consistent with safe navigation.
• Always wear polarized sunglasses and stay alert in right whale habitat. Although right whales are large animals, they have dark skin, no dorsal fin, and can remain at, or just below the water’s surface making them extremely difficult to see.

  North Atlantic right whales are among the most endangered marine mammal populations in the world. This species is protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.

  To report sightings of dead, injured, or entangled whales, contact the U.S. Coast Guard via VHF marine radio channel 16 or call the NOAA Fisheries Service Stranding Hotline at 1-877-433-8299.

  To report right whale sightings, please call the following numbers depending on location:
  South Carolina: 1-843-762-8592
  Georgia: 1-800-2-SAVE-ME or 1-800-272-8363
  Florida: 1-877-97-WHALE or 1-877-979-4253
  =============

  END OF SELECTIONS FROM NOAA's announcement site.
  =====================================================================

  Whales "guilty" of ship strikes: But whales lose.

  
  IMAGE: Originally NOAA: a dead eubalaena glacialis. The animal has died after getting chopped up by a boat propeller. Originally taken from: http://www.sanctuaries.nos.noaa.gov/pgallery/pgstellwagen/human/human_4.html)
  ===============================================

  This below is a reasonably definitive assessment of the three species of Right Whale:

  http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/statusreviews/rightwhale2006.pdf

  By about AD 1760 the population sources of the Northern Atlantic Right Whale were depleted. Still, small pods and family groups continued to be hunted and killed until 1937. The world wide ban on killing and rendering of the Northern Atlantic Right Whale went into effect before WWII.

  The ban was largely successful, although some whaling continued in violation of the ban for several decades. Madeira took its last two right whales in 1968. Japan took 23 Pacific right whales in the 1940s and more under scientific permit in the 1960s. Illegal whaling continued off the coast of Brazil for many years and the Imbituba land station processed right whales until 1973. The Soviet Union is now known to have illegally taken at least 3,212 Southern Right Whales during the 1950s and '60s, although it only reported taking 4. -- Wikipedia --

  How to save the Right Whales? First I would tag them with solar battery powered/mechanical powered tracking devices with GPS solutions to be beamed to satellite, and re-sent back down to to Earth. This would require a Clarke Orbit (Geosynchronous Orbit) satellite to receive the GPS solution and re-send it to the surface for coordinate plotting and rebroadcast to websites and mariners ships via emergency information protocols.

  The satellite GPS position information would be nearly an up-to-date "live" position. The whale's positions would be plotted as a latitude longitude coordinates on a web graphic, as well as a position commercial traffic would be required to "avoid."

  ===========FROM NOAA=============
  http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/nmml/species/species_right.php

  North Pacific Right Whale (Eubalaena japonica)

   Before right whales in the North Pacific were heavily exploited by commercial whalers, concentrations were found in the Gulf of Alaska, eastern Aleutian Islands, south-central Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, and Sea of Japan. During 1965-99, following illegal catches by the USSR, there were only 82 sightings of right whales in the entire eastern North Pacific, with the majority of these occurring in the Bering Sea and adjacent areas of the Aleutian Islands.

•  

• Sightings have been reported as far south as central Baja California in the eastern North Pacific, as far south as Hawaii in the central North Pacific, and as far north as the sub-Arctic waters of the Bering Sea and Sea of Okhotsk in the summer. Migratory patterns of the North Pacific whales are unknown, although it is thought the whales migrate from high-latitude feeding grounds in summer to more temperate waters during the winter, possibly offshore. No calving grounds have been found in the eastern North Pacific. Northern Right Whale adults are about 17 m long and can weigh up to 100 tons. Females are larger than males.

  NOTE in the NOAA image above, the blue appears to be cord from fishing equipment, and this is an entanglement. NOAA details not given on site. If this is an entanglement and the whale is simply keeping it nostrils out of water to breath, how would you disentangle the whale? If you do not the whale will die. Do you and your team have the "right stuff" to save the right whale? Scuba or Snorkel, wetsuit, adequate knife? Most whales do not swim backwards well if at all, so they can't back out or away from the entanglement.

  How would you do it?

   

  ======Some monitoring equipment considerations==============

  The attachment to the whale, the tag, would be adhered to the whale with a strong medical adhesive, an adhesive that would last an arbitrarily long time period. The attachment placed on the whale would be powered with a small solar array battery charger, but would also contain a mechanical dive power generator, which would steal part of the whale's energy from its swimming and diving to to provide power to the whales gigahertz radio that reports the GPS location.

  [Norway has been tagging whales and uses a satellite link-up to go whale hunting, to know their prey's location. They have been doing so for several years. These species are in "our" Commons. The amount of money made from their slaughter in Norwegian Territorial Waters could be treated as a matter of their national jurisdiction. But the use of the Commons of international waters is "humanity's" jurisdiction, is "our" jurisdiction. The International Whaling Commission is visited by delegates from various nations and the US allows Alaskan natives to hunt according to old traditions,(shall we call them primitives, aboriginals, traditionalists, cultural oddities, cultural anachronisms, -- or subsistence hunters killing whales?]

  In addition, all ships, and all boats 25 feet Water Line Length or larger would be required to carry a receiver and use the signals from whale positions to guide their course. Each pod of endangered whales would also be accompanied by a hired contractor to assure whales positions were ever distant from shippers by sending them around the whales on courses to miss the whales.

  I estimate research costs for all components, including adhesives and dual solar energy array- pressure/power generators to tag the whales with to cost less than 200-million dollars including attaching the devices to the whales. Once positions are known for the whales, contract monitoring under government supervision could be accomplished easily for under $20-25 million per year -- in the range of $50,000 to $60,000 per year for each whale -- until we have evidence our recovery program is working. I think even with significant species growth, the cost per year of assuring the survival will become less and less as the species recovers. Special contractor teams would be doing the majority of tracking, and if pod size turns out to be in the 5 to 10 range of critters, significant reduction of monitoring costs would be incurred. Whale tourism would also be a part of the monitoring program. (Current regs require 500 yards buffer zone. It may become possible to reduce that distance with very good position and with boats small enough to keep any whale injuries due to whales striking the boats -- to zero.)

  www.Whalenet.net has some primitive tagging information, not as sophisticated as should or could be for "live" tracking and avoidance.

  Contractors that come to mind might have affiliations with current organizations for example:

  www.seashepherd.org

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Shepherd

  www.greenpeace.org (with adequate re-training)

  And many more small whale protection organizations now only visible on the local scene. Benefits for other endangered species potentially can benefit from similar programs. The Right Whale project above is one form of a desperate route to recover what we have destroyed. It would be a planetary moral lesson worth learning as well.

  www.WhaleCenter.org
  www.earthtrust.org
  www.savethewhales.org
  www.whale-images.com
  www.commonsblog.org
  www.pacificwhale.org
  www.4checks-affiliates.com
  www.globalization101.org
  www.oceanalliance.org

  All of the above and many others have interests in protecting the endangered species on the planet.

www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/statusreviews/rightwhale2006.pdf

If you see a soviet whaler, please order an airstrike. 

Soviet Whale, SLAVA

www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/statusreviews/rightwhale2006.pdf

Soviet whalers kill 200,000 "protected" whales.