4-16-2019
FRIDAY HARBOR, Wash. (AP) — The federal government says that by October it will propose expanded habitat protections off Washington, Oregon and California for Pacific Northwest orcas.
The announcement comes in response to a lawsuit filed by the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, which sued in 2018 to make officials move more quickly to protect the endangered orcas.
The whales spend their summers in the waters between Washington State and Canada, but about two-thirds of the year they migrate and forage for salmon all along the West Coast.
Under the Endangered Species Act (passed by President Richard Nixon in 1973), federal agencies must ensure that activities they pay for, permit or carry out do not harm orca habitat.