1. United States
2. Va.
3. Letter

The House of Representatives introduced the Whale CHARTS (Conservation Habitat Analysis, Research and Technical Strategies) Act. In recent years, an unusually high number of mortality events and an elevated number of whale strandings have occurred. Whales are extremely sensitive to human activity in our ocean, especially the increase in global shipping and vessel traffic along United States coasts, which impacts whale calving grounds, feeding areas and migration routes. Encounters between whales and ships can lead—and have led—to fatal injuries. The Whale CHARTS Act would reduce ship strikes by amending the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) near-real-time monitoring and mitigation program for large cetaceans. In turn, our understanding of the location and extent of baleen and sperm whale migration routes as well as feeding, mating and calving grounds would be greatly improved. The Whale CHARTS act would promote surveys of understudied migratory whale species and provide funding through an agreement with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for the development of whale detection technologies. Please co-sponser this important legislation and thank you.