Since before modern humans existed Rice\u2019s whales have been diving to the depths of the ocean to gorge on fat-rich fish while growing to leviathan proportions, their bodies spanning the length of a bus and weighing as much as as six elephants.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for these grand creatures, their only home became a patch of the Gulf of Mexico that the oil and gas industry, much later, became highly interested in for drilling. Only about 50 of these baleen whales still exist on Earth, surrounded by clanging aquatic highways of boats and shifting drilling infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Last week, unbeknown to the cetaceans<\/a>, an existential moment arrived when the Trump administration<\/a> made the extraordinary decision to scrap all protections for the Rice\u2019s whale, along with other endangered marine life in the gulf, in service of an industry that has<\/a> facilitated<\/a> the overheating of our<\/a> oceans<\/a> and our atmosphere<\/a>. It may result in the first extinction of a whale species in North American waters in 300 years.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing surprises me with this administration but if I was still capable of shock, this would do it,\u201d said Pat Parenteau, an environmental law expert at the Vermont Law School.<\/p>\n A Rice\u2019s whale surfaces in the Gulf of Mexico. Photograph: NOAA Fisheries via AP<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Unprecedented\u2019 is too mild a term for it \u2013 it\u2019s beyond belief. Donald Trump likes being first and if this is upheld he will be the first president to make the conscious decision to make a whale extinct. It will happen before our very eyes. What a black mark on our legacy that would be.\u201d<\/p>\n At a closed-door meeting<\/a> at the Department of Interior that lasted barely 15 minutes, six Trump administration officials on Tuesday agreed to exempt<\/a> the oil and gas industry from complying with endangered species laws in the Gulf of Mexico.<\/p>\n The panel formed under a rare gathering called the Endangered Species Committee, more informally named the \u201cGod Squad\u201d because it essentially holds the power to decide whether a species lives or dies. It has only been convened three times, and not since 1992, when logging was allowed in the Oregon habitat of the northern spotted owl.<\/p>\n Usually, a complaint from a state or business triggers lengthy reviews before a God Squad hearing. But in this case, the fate of imperiled whales, sea turtles and other at-risk species was in the hands of Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, who invoked \u201cnational security\u201d for the exemption, the first such rationale given since the 1973 passage of the Endangered Species Act.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen development in the gulf is chilled, we are prevented from producing the energy we need as a country,\u201d Hegseth said at the meeting. \u201cRecent hostile action by the Iranian terror regime highlights yet again why robust domestic oil production is a national security imperative.\u201d<\/p>\n The US is the world\u2019s leading oil and gas producer<\/a> and the Endangered Species Act, which prevents harassment and harm to threatened species, has never stopped a drilling project in the gulf. Regardless, \u201cenergy streams in the Gulf of America must not be disrupted or held hostage by ongoing litigation\u201d, according to Doug Burgum, the interior secretary.<\/p>\n Pete Hegseth takes questions during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, last month. Photograph: Win McNamee\/Getty Images<\/p>\n In practice, this means that the Rice\u2019s whale, listed as endangered<\/a> in the US and critically endangered<\/a> internationally, will be stripped of the modest safeguards oil and gas companies are required to observe, such as slowing boats in whale habitat and monitoring for the creatures when undertaking exploratory and drilling work.<\/p>\n All of the major threats to the Rice\u2019s whale, the only whale that spends almost all its time in US waters, stem from the oil and gas industry. The busy ship traffic in the northern Gulf of Mexico results in deadly vessel strikes upon the whales, which rest at the surface of the sea at night. The noise of seismic surveys, pipelines, cables and drilling also interferes with the whale\u2019s communicative vocalizations, which include long moaning noises.<\/p>\n The catastrophic 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster<\/a>, meanwhile, killed off about a fifth<\/a> of all known Rice\u2019s whales. \u201cOur industry has a long track record of protecting wildlife while developing offshore energy responsibly,\u201d claimed Andrea Woods, spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute, which includes BP, responsible for the Deepwater disaster, in its membership<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite not asking for the endangered species exemption, the oil and gas industry has welcomed the move. \u201cOver the long term, American energy leadership depends on getting that balance right through reasonable, science-based protections while meeting growing energy demand,\u201d Woods added.<\/p>\n The Rice\u2019s whale (Balaenoptera ricei), named after the late cetacean researcher Dale Rice, was only deemed a separate species in 2021<\/a> after federal scientists realized it was distinct from the similar Bryde\u2019s whale (the two species differ genetically and in the shape of their enormous skulls).<\/p>\n It became immediately clear that the Rice\u2019s whale was in a precarious position \u2013 it has a tiny population restricted to a small, busy slice of the gulf. It is also a \u201cbougie eater\u201d as Jeremy Kiszka, a biologist and marine mammal expert at Florida International University, puts it, preferring to feast only on fatty fish found at depths of several hundred meters.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of elements that make this species really vulnerable,\u201d Kiszka said. \u201cIt is a species living on the edge. The more we\u2019re going to drill, the more we are going to industrialize the gulf, the more likely we are to lose a species that is solely or primarily found in US waters. We can still save these animals, but the situation is dire.\u201d<\/p>\n A Bryde\u2019s whale, a closely related species, in the Gulf of Thailand. Photograph: Department of Marine and Coastal Resources<\/p>\n The idea that a whale species could be completely snuffed out can appear anachronistic. Not since the North Atlantic population of gray whales were wiped out<\/a> in the 1700s has a cetacean species been lost near the continent. Since the 1980s, when the end of whaling was declared, worldwide whale populations have rebounded strongly. \u201cThe cessation of commercial whaling is one of the biggest conservation successes on Earth,\u201d said Kiszka.<\/p>\n Still, many cetaceans \u2013 a group that also includes dolphins and porpoises \u2013 are menaced by global heating, marine pollution and stray fishing gear, with just a handful of vaquita<\/a>, a type of porpoise, left in the Gulf of California and 384 remaining<\/a> North Atlantic right whales, which get tangled<\/a> in fishing ropes and nets.<\/p>\n But Rice\u2019s whales are perhaps the most at-risk species of all, Kiszka said. \u201cThey can\u2019t go anywhere, they don\u2019t have anywhere else,\u201d he said. \u201cYou never know what you lose until they\u2019re lost. I don\u2019t want to think that these animals are going to be gone anytime soon, really. Because if you do that, you\u2019re already grieving.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump has previously spoken of his distress at whales washing up dead on beaches but has, erroneously, blamed this upon the offshore wind turbines that he has sought to halt<\/a>. \u201cThe windmills are driving the whales crazy,\u201d the president has said<\/a>, despite scientists pointing to other factors as the primary threats to whales.<\/p>\n Whales have another ostensible ally in cabinet \u2013 Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, previously advocated for whales as an environmental lawyer and two decades ago<\/a> sawed the head off a dead beached whale and strapped it to the roof of his car. Kennedy has, like Trump, claimed<\/a> offshore wind turbines harm whales.<\/p>\n The National Marine Fisheries Service, responsible for US stewardship of the oceans, did not answer questions on whether it now considers wind turbines a greater threat to whales than oil drilling, with a spokesperson stating that the committee \u201cvoted in favor of the national security exemption, acknowledging the critical risks involved in restricting oil and gas activities in the Gulf of America [Trump\u2019s preferred name for the area of sea]\u201d.<\/p>\n